To find my dysfunctional 70yr+ parents unbearable for hoarding + wittholding seeing wills?

I have a gut feeling they have either signed the house over to your brother already or left it to him after they die. That's why they're being vague about the wills, they don't want you to know. They could also be possibly trying to avoid any future care home fees by saying your brother is disabled and needs a home. Not what you want hear though. I would put my efforts into expanding my friends set, they could stand you in good stead in future years. Don't dwell on the current issues you can't change things for now. You didn't choose your family but you can choose your friends.Maybe even go lower contact and stop letting it invade your thoughts too much. Good luck.

How is it going @ByRoseSnake- have you been able to switch to a different dynamic and prioritise your own emotional needs?

Probably easier and cheaper to do the successive POA at the same time. Saves faffing around later especially as the remaining parent could be quitecelderly by then.

"I'll be seeing my mum next weekend. Rather than ranting about abusive dad and finances etc, I want to take her out for lunch and ask for lots of lovely stories about her own life and what she's done :) "

That sounds great, I hope you both have a lovely time OP.

I understand how difficult this must be .
For what it’s worth you don’t need to see their will now , but you do need to know which solicitor has a copy and hopefully know who the executors are ( sometimes it’s a solicitor)
You also will need to know or find out where their birth certificates are , their marriage certificate and ideally their national insurance numbers.
ideally you’d be PoA in the event they lose capacity to manage their own affairs.
So while you can leave their hoarding tendencies alone ( I know that’s so hard ) you will need to sort these other things out .

You sound like you have a great attitude and all the right instincts to get through this.

They are lucky to have a caring, patient and hard working daughter like you even if they don’t realise it!

Take what you have found helpful from this thread, put it in a box in your mind, and move on- and it sounds like you’ll have a lovely day with your mum.

I opted for yanbu and have great sympathy with a lot of what you've said.

My parents are 78, aren't hoarders, but definitely aren't planners either. I have no interest in seeing their wills, if they have them (probably not) and me and my two (fully able).sisters are not expecting any form of inheritance anyway (they have very little to leave). In their case, my mum has never taken charge of bills or finances so is utterly reliant on what my dad tells her. But my dad has proven throughout life that he's not good with finances.

Mum is physically able, whereas my dad's health is failing more - so naturally, this dynamic makes her very vulnerable should he die first. I've tried talking to them about having financial and health powers of attorney in place for one another in the first instance. We're worried about mum's memory, too. We've also tried to get them to move closer to us, so we can help out more easily as they get older. Both stick their heads in the sand.

So we now have a situation whereby dad has everything 'in his head', which mum doesn't have any access to. Me and my sisters have tried multiple times to instigate conversations with my dad (mum is much more willing and pragmatic, but doesn't have the necessary information!) He's really sensitive about ageing, so the conversations never really go anywhere.

Have you tried approaching things from a perspective of explaining to them that you feel you're in a very vulnerable, precarious situation, given that your brother will clearly need a lot of ongoing support when they're gone and you yourself are neurodivergent and struggle with anxiety? If you frame it as them leaving you and your brother vulnerable then you may have more success. And yes, getting to a point where - even if they don't divulge details - they can specify a process that will kick upon one or both of their deaths (so things like having power of attorney so each can deal with the other's finances in the event of reduced capacity or death), where that leaves your brother in terms of his welfare etc. If they don't want to divulge details to you, then they need to be able to articulate how you will gain access to this information - quickly - in the event of their deaths.

Suspect, as almost always happens, this poster read the first post and barged in with their opinion. No acknowledgment at all that the OP later says they complain about the state of the house so she tidies for them only for them to put it all back, or that she is mainly concerned about her lack of knowledge of the legal side and the provisions made for her brother who has autism.

Why are you so angry about things you don't know are even happening?

P.S. And you have the audacity to call your parents dysfunctional!
Have you looked in the mirror lately!

If you've been hassling your parents over their will for SIX YEARS knowing that they don't want to discuss it with you, I suspect that you began doing this when they were in their sixties. You probably suspect that your parents are intending to leave their house to your brother so that he won't be homeless when they eventually pass on hence your preoccupation with their will and the value of their house. If you managed to see the will I suspect that you would attempt to persuade them to change it in your favour. You must be such a disappointment to them and they must dread your visits, a daughter preoccupied with their deaths, wills and the value of their home. Like the previous poster said, I think that your behaviour is outrageous!

Asking to see their wills before they die is utterly outrageous. Your Dad is correct to tell you no to that. And your incredulity that they don’t even know the value of their house is very odd indeed. Most people don’t keep getting their house valued?! They may look at what others in the street sell for but you could do that yourself if you’re so interested. Your Dad has told you to get a skip for the belongings so you have his authority to throw anything away. You would therefore order said skip after he dies and start pulling stuff out to throw in. If you find photos or other sentimental items you want to keep, don’t throw them in the skip. If you can’t be bothered doing that at all, then get a house clearing company just to throw the lot. You are being very very unreasonable.

I massively sympathise with you, my step mum died unexpectedly and suddenly recently and she was a massive hoarder. We could hardly make our way through her house as she had just ordered things and stacked everything all over the house. I didn’t know where her will was and had to ring round local solicitors until I found who had it. The stress of trying to go through everything and salvage sentimental items or items of value has taken a toll on my health. I have had to give up and arranged a house clearer to come and take everything. She would have been mortified to know that we had had to do this as she always said she intended to clear up. If your parents won’t sort things out then theres not much you can do and make it clear to them that unless they tell you their wishes then you’ll just have to do what you think is best. Are you an executor? I would avoid being one if you can, it’s a nightmare!

Your parent's wills are none of your business nor what they intend to do with their possessions which are probably important to them.
70+ (you don't say if they are early, mid or late 70s) is hardly at death's door.
I could understand if you had one parent left who was terminally ill with not much time left but your behaviour seems intrusive and upsetting.
Think of how they must feel when you come around asking about their will, their deaths and what to do with their stuff when they die?? Very upset I suspect!
My greedy, money grubbing sister in law has been waiting impatiently for years for her parents to die so that she can get her hands on their estate and has planned a holiday after they pass on.
As for your brother, you won't be able to change him and things will take their natural course. I know this from my own experience.
My advice is butt out and let them live their lives and stop questioning them about their wills and possessions! Live your own life!

I'm decluttering nowadays. Luckily we downsized a decade ago so a lot had to go then. I emptied the pan drawer today to clean. An old frying pan DH threw out and some other bits. I gave my cleaner scented candles we'd been gifted last week because she loved them. I'm trying.

I do feel for you and you're obviously having a hard time over this. However, I'm in my 70s and when I look back on the anxiety I had over my parents (alcoholic father and 'difficult' mother) I realise that all the worrying I did changed absolutely nothing. I was overseas when they died and had to come back to sort out the house and the estate and it wasn't at all easy, but as an only child I just had to manage. And I did. I've told my DD (who is also overseas) to get in a house clearance company and use a solicitor to deal with everything when we die. Meanwhile, we will carry on living with our many, many possessions in our very large house and enjoy the time that is left to us!

It's more common than you may think for one child to carry the whole burden, and for their siblings to do nothing. I may as well have been an only child when my mother died.........

Having been through similar... I am very much in this camp. My lot enjoyed the drama of making everything as crisis ridden as possible. So I don't envy you

Having said that... could you have a chat with someone like their local Age Concern. they would have some useful, practical suggestions.
It might be possible to see what local services are available, eg gardening, maintenance... that are approved for older people.

Also. I recommend you read Martin Lewis's articles about getting power of attorney.. (and also planning your own will - there are "free will" services - no one should die intestate, and I imagine your parents would be unable to cope with it) .

Attachment to things...t you mention family photos and mementos.. Why not root out some of the photos next time you visit.. and tell them you will put them in an album. What do you most need in terms of memories? Find them and then forget the rest. They don't seem to care about their furniture, clothes, stuff in the garage... so why waste your life thinking about it.

But really, I think you need to decide how much you are able/want to do, allocate some time to it, but overall focus on your own life and what you want from it.

My parents are 80+ one with Parkinson’s. I have a brother who lives fairly near them who is almost certainly ASD. He is with the woman he had kids with but has had various affairs, but doesn’t have the bottle to split. He has a house in his name, they’re not married and periodically he leaves and runs to mum and dads for a few months. My parents are increasingly secretive about what they want to happen as they get more frail, have given brother POA as well as executor of their will. They don’t have a lot but you would think it was a fortune the way they mention it then change the subject. I’ve grieved for the fact that I won’t get a memory of them to keep, but I’m almost mourning them while they’re alive?

Likeyou, op, I moved away to get a career and build a life for myself. They much preferred my brother being dependent on them. You can’t change them, only your reaction to them. Step back and let them get on with it.

Lighten up.

That's why I said at first opportunity. But your explanation was very clear and as I am in New Zealand you would have a more accurate understanding of UK law anyway.

This, OP. Excellent advice

I’m well aware of that but I don’t think many people screaming about it realise that POA doesn’t mean they suddenly get to make the decisions.

@ByRoseSnake You've only said a few little things, and it's obvious that there's a lot more going on in this family than you've said. But your father is an abuser, isn't he? Mine was too. Every time I read about children growing up with that, they would be described as badly behaved, acting out, violent. I was never like that and so for a long time I thought I'd coped and it hadn't affected me. I was wrong. I had a survival strategy, but it looked like yours - rushing in to fix things, desperate to solve every problem, always helpful. I didn't know at the time, but it's a form of control. Keep them happy and then you won't get in trouble and the abuse won't be so bad. It's driven by anxiety and I sensed from what you've said that you've got massive anxiety around your family and you're still trying to alleviate it by 'helping.'

Really, this isn't about your family at all, it's about you. It's time to let that survival strategy go. It serves you well in childhood. It got you to adulthood, and it got you the hell out of there. But it isn't serving you now.

You will not be in trouble if you don't fix it. You are safe now. You've got out. You've got distance, your own place to live, financial independence. It's safe to say no. Your dad can't hurt you any more.

You do not have to do anything to fix your parents, their living situation, or your brother. Any sense that you do is your anxiety speaking and it's not true.

Let your mother and brother rescue themselves, or not.

You can acknowledge that the mess is awful and upsetting, AND you can decide that it's not your mess to clean up.

You can refuse to clear the house.
You can refuse to deal with the funeral, the body, the will, the end of life care, your brother, and it will be ok. The world will not end. Services exist to take care of all of these things. Someone else can sort all of these things. You aren't the only person in the world who can take care of it. Let someone else carry that burden.

Please get more therapy if you can afford it. Letting go is really hard, I know, but you need to do it for your own health and well being.