Elderly relative and their huge cash stash

[Greenvalleymama]

Hoping someone can help? I've become aware recently that an elderly relative has been stashing money at home for years- they estimate it to be around £40-50k and are very reluctant to bank it. Most of it is in paper £20 notes which will soon become obsolete, stored in plastic containers in various locations in the house and garage.
From what I can gather the money is from 20+ years of saved pension as they collect it from the Post Office and don't get out to spend very much.
I'm really worried that it could be stolen or damaged, but also worried that questions could be asked if it was banked in one go and concerned about the relatives reluctance to bank it. The relative has no partner or children, and is rather isolated. They are in robust health at the moment but are 80+ and their Mum and brother both developed Dementia in their later years.Looking for some advice on how I can help without causing upset to my relative but obviously helping to secure what is a huge amount of money? Honestly I have no idea what I should do (if anything!)

With my mum, this was one of the markers of her dementia; she'd hide cash all over the place. When we asked her what is was for, she'd either grin and tap her nose or say 'a rainy day'. She NEVER used cash in her day to day life, but we assumed it was some kind of way of helping her to feel 'safe', having lived through the war,

It wasn't a huge amount in the end, but we kept finding old tenners tucked into drawers for AGES!

Drawers, you say? Did you ever check under the stair carpet? And we thought it was underlay

My mother hadn't been able to bend down since 1973, so I doubt she'd stuffed money in anywhere lower than her waist!

Dgm did this then thought she had thrown the bag away containing £10000+ .when she passed we found it in the shed with stuff to go to the tip. Ask if they are willing to bank the older notes while they are legal or would be willing to get a safe

The notes become obsolete and can't be used for spending, but the banks will take them in for some considerable time afterwards.
Obsolete notes are redeemable at a bank forever. They may want to know where it's come from if it's a lot.

My Mum did this . When it came time to clean her house after she died, I got the job when my sis didn't bother to turn up to help. In the kitchen I found £2,000 under various tins in the pantry. Suffice it to say, I regarded this as a "tip for the cleaning lady" and never mentioned it to my sister, lol.

I used to work in a building society and it is very common.

Contact his bank/building society before turning up with bags of cash as we used to set aside a small office so there was room to count it on the desk.

It is better to bank it in one go as if you do it in drips and drabs it will suggest an attempt at money laundering.

Just tell the truth you have nothing to hide.

Unless the person has been officially deemed to lack capacity, or you already have Power of Attorney for finances, it’s extremely difficult to stop anyone throwing their money away on what to anyone else are very obvious scams.

I speak from experience here, having found out that an elderly neighbour had already thrown away many, many, thousands of £ on a ‘lottery’ scam. And she didn’t even have dementia, was just (still is) very naive and trusting, so when such a nice-sounding woman phoned to say she worked for NatWest, and our neighbour had been ‘specially selected‘ for a £1m lottery win - only of course there would be some ‘tax’ to pay first.....

Please NB, these bastard criminals have what they actually call ‘suckers’ lists’, compiled from various sources, and I’m quite sure that what made my neighbour a potential target was her addiction to word search ‘competitions’ in magazines - where you so conveniently phone in all your details at God knows how many ££ per minute.

I know of someone locally who reputedly stashed tens of thousands above her business premises; she was elderly and a tax evader.

Lost the lot in a fire several years ago, couldn't even claim on her insurance.

Thank you my mum lives with him so he’s not alone but he won’t let her have it at the moment, he’s obviously not done it in a while due to covid but it’s every time they go to their local town he associates going there with drawing the money out but if the bank will take them for time afterwards then I might be able to help at that point when we’re back to some sort of normality

He’s not evading tax he’s 74 years old and has worked and paid taxes all his life!! He isn’t has dementia!

Just has dementia sorry

@RL1976, the tax evasion would come in if someone dies leaving most of their estate in cash not recorded on the probate form, so no inheritance tax gets paid. That would mean hundreds of thousands in cash, though. Possibly more likely to happen with valuable but compact assets like jewels, rare stamps, gold. (I've read a lot of whodunnits with plots hinging on envelopes that nearly get thrown away and then someone notices that the stamp is a penny black, or similar.)

Far more likely that some of the people hoarding cash want to avoid their family losing inheritance to care home fees. We need a rational insurance system to pay for care to avoid this kind of thing.

So tricky as well because you really must not tell too many people because they would be a huge risk for burglary or scammers. And your relative or others might think you are trying to financially abuse rather than help. Is there anyone they would really trust or listen to? Who you could see them together with? I think the 'I want you to be able to benefit from your hard earned pension money, or do what you want with it in your will - what if there was a fire or a burglary or if the notes change and the bank won't accept yours?' You might not be able to do anything - if they have capacity to make unwise decisions. And that might be ok. I guess remember it's their money to do as they wish with and if not spending it and stashing it insecurely is what they want to do with it, well, at least they didn't drink or gamble it away.