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

One will pass and then the other may get into gear may not but don’t waste your life worrying let them get on with it!

You just renounce by signing a Form of Renunciation, there is then an order to who can take out the Letters of Administration and administer the estate. Usually the first named residuary beneficiary will step up.

Alternatively, rather than renouncing, instruct a solicitor to administer the Estate on your behalf, you'll just need to sign stuff.

The brother isn't actually officially diagnosed with autism, just says he is so unless he's quite severely disabled it should be even.

Get some more skips then. And people to help fill them.

The cost will most likely be a tiny fraction compared with the amount that is inherited.

@ByRoseSnake massive hugs on this. On a more practical note - in the event of a fire would the hoarding create a risk to evacuating the building or fire services accessing to rescue/ deal with fire. It might be worth checking out the local fire services resources page on hoarding to see if they need informing?

then again it’s another duty you’d be giving yourself? :/

good luck with it all.

Actually they may not qualify for cleaners and home help if they have an able bodied son living with them. Remember he hasn't actually been officially diagnosed with anything.

They are probably each other's POA as they are a married couple. When one dies or becomes incapacitated that's when you redo the POA.
Your mum's case was different as there was only her.

@ByRoseSnake just sending solidarity as I also have a sibling still living with parent who has never been independent or pulled their weight properly. Ive fully expect parent to have left sibling a right to live in the family home after they've gone, even though sibling will not be able to pay for its upkeep alone. It has in the past made me feel extremely anxious and upset but some years ago I just took a step back and left them to it. Whatever the situation is, we'll deal with it when the time comes but no way will I be parenting my sibling.

They are hardly likely to drop dead on the same day though. With my parents after my mum had a stroke and needed care we helped my dad make decisions and fill in forms. As his health started to fail after mum died my sister and I helped sort him out as needed. After he died a meeting with the lawyer who held the will sorted everything else out. Was easy as just 3 bedroom house like OP.
If they have no will it takes longer but the estate will just be split between the 2 siblings.

That is heartbreaking for you I’m so sorry and grateful your Mam has you.
I suppose my DP’s have each other and are fiercely independent.
We only help with GP and any hospital appointments.

Hello - I didn’t have the sibling issue to deal with but I did have the difficult father who refused to engage, was a hoarder and had the attitude of not needing to sort anything out while he was still alive because it would be my problem when he was gone. I guess maybe he saw that as the trade off for inheriting his flat (not a wildly expensive flat but still). Anyway, he refused all help from me and other people in terms of making his living environment better, doing POA, etc so nothing I could do. When he died, I took any paperwork that looked important, all the family photos and a couple of personal items to remember him by. His solicitor acted as executor which, although it cost about £10k, saved me dealing with it. And the house clearance people dealt with the rest. It made a sad situation as easy as could be in the circumstances.

@GasPanic if they really are hoarders then you would be looking at multiple skips. My friend isn’t a hoarder but is selling her house after living in it for 25 years and had got in to the habit of just chucking stuff in the loft and her 2 big sheds and forgetting about it. Her actual living space was fine. We are also guilty of this

About to move and she has had 4 skips at £300 each. It inspired me to do out my loft at a moderate more manageable pace. her full loft was 1.5 skips. My MIL is a hoarder, not dirty but so much stuff. house, garage, loft and 2 big sheds. We reckon 8 skips full, not including actual furniture. I’m dreading it.

It is not compulsory to have a will, however if a person wishes to leave their belongings or money to certain people, it helps to have a will.

If there is no will, certain rules apply.

Note
Different countries, have different rules
Example
England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales have different rules

https://www.gov.uk/inherits-someone-dies-without-will

The thing is, often when people age, they do revert to children and the parent/child roles can reverse. My mum said she wanted me to be her mum, she’s dying, bed bound and in nappies. That’s why she put arrangements in place before this happened. And I am grateful.

If you are worried about the future.

You could ask both your parents to set up "power of attorney" individually for both health & wealth.
Once it is set up, they keep it in place until it is ready to use in the future if their health fails.

You & your brother can also do this for yourself too

You keep a copy too.

You do not need a solicitor, you can do it all online, but you will need someone that knows them to sign the document eg friend, neighbour, shop keeper, doctor etc

www.gov.uk/power-of-attorney

I think you're nakung someone else's business yours.

Quite frankly they're probably going to leave the house to your brother so he's not homeless and he'll just live in their stuff.

My DP’s are in their 80’s and I have no idea about their wills etc.
My aren’t hoarders though, but they have lots of stuff that brings them joy. I have lots of stuff too!
I would stop worrying about it, take a step back and remember they are adults. They aren’t going to change.

Yep, I think I was completely naive to the extent that my brother said nasty things about me… to my mother’s neighbours and to my uncle (her brother), and to my second cousin (my mother’s cousin). The cousin died and left my brother a large amount. It slowly became apparent that my uncle had aligned himself with my brother and I don’t hear from him anymore. I’ve only recently heard the term ‘flying monkey’ and I think it perfectly describes my experience of my brother.

For someone who’s apparently severely autistic, he’s highly manipulative, sharp, quick witted, opportunistic. Terrible qualities to have in a sibling. I keep a safe distance as I know all he has to do is cry and my defences will start to fall.

I think that's a bit of a leap. More likely they just find her a bit obsessed with their deaths when they are trying to enjoy their golden years. The "oh dear" comment from the mother is something that generation do while thinking "here we go again". My MIL used it a lot to shut down a couple of her children when necessary. Said it worked every time.

Im in a similar position. You need to.let go of the idea of an inheritance. People in 3 bedroom houses in a poor state of maintenence and ill heath don't leave significant money after care fees. In which case, leave them to it and sort it all out once they've passed on or into care. Being an executor is an admin overhead and quite tedious but easy to wade through for anyone with basic admin skills.

All of the issues here are an interlinked chain reaction.

Looks like undiagnosed ND with your DF - this often leads to unhealthy coping mechanisms such as substance abuse - then we have the standard alcoholic squalor / hoarding because the person is not focused on managing their daily life.

This is likely life long. His ND and alcoholism hasn’t likely appeared from
no where although neurological and physical health will have been slowly eroded and his functioning deteriorated.

Whats important here is that you are an adult child of an alcoholic whos own emotional foundations were formed in an inadequate, neglectful and dysfunctional environment - this will have left you with emotional deficits that you need to prioritise to sort in you otherwise your own MH and emotional life will continue to be stunted. There is no way that anyone has come out of this family unscathed.

In such families there is often the workaholic, the over achiever, the manager, the controller. This is not a sustainable way to live. PP mentioned a terrible relationship you were in - that doesn’t surprise me as boundaries, low standards and not knowing when to leave a shit situation is what we were trained to accept / expect / tolerate.

Emotionally detach in your head - divert all of that hang wringing anxious energy away from projection on to them and their futile situation back on to you and your delayed, skewed, stunted emotional growth.

Get involved in Al Anon, Adult Children or Alcoholics, read Emotionally Immature Parents and especially Co-dependent No More by Melody Beattie.

When they die - that’s the easy bit - lawyer, skip, house clearers - the hard bit is the bit in between health, hospitals, carers etc for THREE people. Currently they are all ‘fine’ and making their own decisions. Put in distance and choose to invest in your own growth, stability etc.

Acceptance is your challenge here - their lives, choices etc - but then use your agency to develop a more robust sense of self that isn’t feeling so Co-dependent on their needs and possibly chooses bad partners. Get your ADHD sorted because although you might think it’s rocket fuel now in your 20/30 - it will pull the rug from under you when you have children and when you enter peri menopause

https://adultchildren.org/laundry-list/

Is that right? So I just wait until it happens and refuse? Who would I refuse to?

No one can force you to be an executor.

I don’t agree with this at all. It’s exceptionally selfish an avoidant not to have made a reasonable will and given a copy to someone who you have appointed as executor. Having lost 3 of my children’s grandparents and the 4th being at death’s door, I’ve had to sort a lot out. My MIL and FIL gave us their wills (which were a 50:50 split between their 2dc) and my MIL took care to do a Swedish death clean type thing. Mine (DM and DSF) were the same - Swedish death clean type thing, all documents in a box, will given and split evenly between children. This was considerate of them and reflects the caring people they were in life. Even given all this, you’re looking at a year ish to sort stuff out, especially if you are selling their home. It’s loads of paperwork and can be pretty time consuming and stressful. Both PILs and mine had even shown us all the bills in files and given us online banking access to their accounts. What it meant was that we could help them whilst alive as well. Buy them items they needed, help get stuff fixed, get them shopping. So normal family stuff. We knew their funeral and ashes wishes.

My dc know where our wills are and its split equally
between them. We aren’t at the death clean stage quite yet (we’re 40s) but we certainly will try to make things easy for the kids.

my father and stepmother -
different kettle of fish. Avoidant, uncommunicative, secretive, cruel, have a large property (the home I grew up in) stuffed with things that they have acquired/stolen. The fact that we have no idea where to find their wills or anything is very selfish. Especially as they have made me the executor. A shit load of work, with no clue about anything. I’m almost certain that I am not a beneficiary (probably they will have left me £1k or something) or done something sneaky to force me to do it. Again, reflects exactly who they are in life - selfish, secretive and abusive.

All families big and small have their problems and problem members it seems. Don't worry too much. Are your parents on good health? 70 is not necessarily on deaths door. If their health starts failing your brother will probably gradually have to do more which will stand him in good stead later. Most couples start doing the serious end of life planning when one becomes ill or dies. They have each other now and are probably just concentrating on living their best lives while they can.
My dad started buying random things when he retired. I think he just enjoyed the freedom of being able to after years of his wages being spent on supporting a family.