Cockroach Cafe 🪳Autumn 2022 🪳

@orangetriangle I'm sorry that your mum has died. I hope you are able to remember good times and her living life to the full 🌼

@orangetriangle sorry, I'm sending you a big hug 🤗

Sorry for your loss @orangetriangle sending love

Sorry for your loss @orangetriangle

Sorry for your loss@orangetriangle

I'm sorry about your mum, @orangetriangle.
Everything seems to continue to be all-consuming, doesn't it? The (s)admin, the worry, the grief...it has us all in a stranglehold.

So sorry to read your update @orangetriangle

My Mum seems happy and settled in the home, which is good. However I'm finding it hard to watch her now live a life that she would never have wanted and my elderly Dad is now living at home alone.

@orangetriangle Like you I lost my mother some time before she died but it's still hard at the end. I'm a maker of lists and I'm sure that's what got me through all the stuff that needed to be done.

@Words One of the banks sent me a link to their online portal to complete things once I had the letters of administration. By the time that came back the link didn't work. It expires after what once must have seemed a very long time but these days isn't long enough to get the paperwork back. That was another panic and phone call that I could have done without.

Just a quick update to say sadly mum passed away yesterday almost 2 years ago she was diagnosed with alzheimer's and vascular dementia
Her dementia was at the advanced stage at the end she was bed bound unable to speak or even turn over so may she now rest in peacex
we now begin the journey many of you are on of arranging funeral selling house applying for probate etc etc. I already am feeling frazzled
Sorry for everyone foung through all of thisxx

That sounds like a good start dahlia. It must be a relief.

Having got over the first large hurdle of sending in the will tracked and signed, ( what happens if the post office people lose it ) and submitting the probate form, I was hoping for a bit of space, but no.

I'm now getting further documentation explaining what to do next. Generally this seems to involve a form to complete when I get the grant of probate. It's all a bit frazzling. I am praying I haven't made any errors with the paperwork.

I like my postman, but am dreading hearing the click of the garden gate in the morning!

Heres hoping @DahliaMacNamara you get a little bit of stability and regain equilibrium after your prolonged ride on the roller coaster.

@Mum5net , it's much easier. And although it's not possible to get outside the front door unsupervised, MIL no longer comes across locked doors at every turn, which is one less thing to become repeatedly agitated about.

@DahliaMacNamara Is the new place easier to travel to than the hospital?
@Fantasea I often wonder how you and DD are coping with your near neighbour.

MIL is now installed in a care home. So far this week she's had two remarkably good days, where she ate and slept and drank, and generally acted like someone with 'regular' dementia, ie had nothing coherent to say, and didn't really recognise me or DS when we showed up without FIL or DH to anchor us to her remaining sense of who's who. But she wasn't abusive or aggressive, realised that we belonged to her somehow, and only seemed mildly delirious when falling asleep.
The other days were pretty horrendous. Which is normal for her.

Great advice here.

I have found that some larger institutions say they will pay out pre probate if the balance is relatively modest. Others will insist on probate and a third category would pay out on modest balances but if you are applying for probate in respect of other funds, they will insist you wait.

This doesn't make much sense to me so am waiting to see what happens in reality. Maybe it has something to do with how much the banks are indemnified for?

Often the people in branch and manning the phone lines are relatively junior, and I have had conflicting answers from the same institution several times.

The trigger for probate is often an ISA because you can't hold them jointly. Even if "everything" is in joint names that won't be. If it's small enough the bank might pay it out anyway but there again, they might not. In my marriage we had his/mine/ours for current accounts and savings because one of us was a spender and one a saver. In my case it was better to go through probate than argue over who'd spent silly money on X.

@Borntobeamum I'm sorry that you've lost both parents so close together, what a year for you. Looking after another house has been a source of worry for me - is there a leak, did the roof blow away? It's the last thing outstanding with mum's estate and I hope that when it's finally sold I'll stop with the unsettling dreams. It is your role as executor to distribute the estate and if neither of you want the house then you have to sell it. It's not grabby, it's another job that needs to be done. The longer you leave it, the more bills the estate will be paying and the longer it will be until you can put it behind you and get on with your life. I wish now I'd pulled my finger out and got the estate agent in sooner, it felt like such a big step and I might have put it off another month or three if my son hadn't picked up the phone and called them.

@DorisParchment As part of the clear out I found mum's "missing" premium bonds, carefully stored and labelled. I did wonder if she'd had a win over the eighty years but the payment from NS&I of £38 would suggest not. She'd have been so pleased that I found them though.

@Borntobeamum 💐 I'm so sorry. It's a lot of loss in a short time.

You're just looking after your Mum's affairs. You two are the only people she would want to do that. It's not grabby.

I kept a pile of sadmin next to my chair and just kept picking a letter or note off it to deal with whenever I felt able. Then is write on it the date, what id done and anything left to do. I had a basic folder to put 'finished' things into.

Emotions run high at the moment- try not to resent your sibling. Get the funeral done and allow yourself all the time you need.

Morning.

I’ve posted in the past after losing DF suddenly in sept and moving DM into a care home whilst awaiting a dementia diagnosis.

Unfortunately this never happened as mum passed away almost 2 weeks ago on the day it was to happen. Maybe she knew…..

Anyway, all mum’s money has been frozen and we’ve applied for probate.
My sibling and I are the executors and have also put the house on the market.

I feel so mercenary- almost grabby yet we have no choice but to do this.

I understand I need to take any bills to the bank for them to pay direct. I’m afraid this has all fallen on my shoulders as sibling ‘works’.
Any advice gratefully received 😢

@Words @DorisParchment What I'm finding amazing is all the assumptions about probate. It's just assumed that we applied for it when my parents owned everything except the debt jointly. I'm just amazed because surely it's pretty much the same for every married couple?!! It has been super easy in that sense.

'Sadmin' is fabulous. I will use that from now on!

@DorisParchment - yes that was what I was advised also. I am fortunate to have an excellent and extremely helpful local solicitor who was quite happy to offer free advice on a number of points including this one - but obviously check this out for yourself if you are at that stage of sadmin.

So, as I understand it, no Inheritance Tax if estate less than a million for the remaining partner of a married couple.

I didn't understand that at all at first and was beginning to eye, with considerable trepidation, the enormous form required if IHT was due.

Great kudos to those of you gripping probate. I thought I had found everything and was good to go, but unearthed £50,000 in premium bonds plus around £10K in a National Savings bond. DH is going to go through it all. My understanding is that we have £325K x 2, including my Dad’s allowance, which wasn’t used, plus £175K x 2 for the house, before we get into IHT territory. Must check under the mattress for cash next time I’m back…

'Sadmin' is a great word for it!

I heard it referred to as "sadmin" which says it all really. If you're me you print it out anyway, if I'm going toe to toe with the taxman I'm happier with a paper record rather than something electronic that might go pouff.

It's over a year since mum died and I'm still having dreams where I have to stop her driving and return her to a home she doesn't think she lives in. I'm hoping that these will stop when the house is sold (I'm told that 16 weeks is normal now for a house sale)

@MereDintofPandiculation Will we continue to refer to “paperwork” when it’s all on-line?

It's all admin and it all terrifies me!