Asking for money for helping someone sort out their finances

[FrictionlessToo]

So basically:

1. acquaintance speaks virtually no English
2. she is a widow of 46 years of age, has a 16 year old child who is at private school and has ADHD & autism
3. her husband left her a pension of £1300/month and £150/month, both tax-free annuities, but one was being taxed, something I am resolving with HMRC
4. she has £150k in the bank and a mortgage-free house worth £450k
5. she plans to go back home to the Philippines in 2 years and pretty much l, where she owns a 12 bed guesthouse where she lives and also 2 villas in a hotel complex
6. she is entitled to a further occupational pension of £1300/month but this has not been in payment for the last 3 years since her husband died because they asked for death certificate and marriage certificate. Apparently someone was helping her with this but she is a bit demanding and they got pissed off and left her to it, so only the death certificate was sent.
7. after I investigated she turns out to be entitled to a further £650/month for her son as long as he is in education, which nobody was aware of previously
8. I went with her to the office of her husband's employer before Christmas, spent an hour on the phone to HMRC, sent emails, contacted Canada Life to clarify the tax status of the annuities and got them to send out letters confirming that they are non-taxable on the basis of the age of her husband at death (under 75).
9. The person dealing with it before Christmas has left the company and didn't do anything, so we went there again a couple of days ago and now she will be paid in the next week about £70k?

10. There may be further work to liaise with HMRC to try and get the income properly allocated over the relevant tax years to reduce her tax burden 11. I don't think she has any kind of state pension record or child benefit so I might sort that out as well.

Initially I thought I was going to help her by sending her marriage certificate and that would be the end of it but it has turned out to be more involved, and she is quite demanding, calling me incessantly until I go and help her (e.g., she will came at 10 am 10:30am 11am etc. until I call her back and go and sort out her stuff).

So people have said 'you need to ask her for payment'.

I don't believe she is planning on giving any, as every time we meet she makes a big point of paying for my coffee and she took me to a Thai restaurant for lunch (with medicore food that I would never pay my own money for) and then to a noodle bar (also medicore), and also she bought me 1kg of coffee beans I don't want (I like coffee, but I wouldn't buy coffee beans roasted last September and I have my own already).

If I was staying in the UK I would just say 'buy me a case of champagne' or something, but I'm leaving next Wednesday, so it would only be cash really.

What do you think is appropriate?

Give her an invoice specifying your hourly rate and then dates & times of when you have worked for her.
State due on receipt.
The total is what she owes you.

If you wanted payment, you should have said before you started to help her. Not now. You sound jealous of what she has.

Clearly she thinks you’re friends, you’re helping her and she is showing she’s grateful by taking you for meals out etc. she probably has little sense of actually how time consuming this all is for you (unless you’re actually telling her how long every phone call takes?). If you want to be paid you need to tell her in advance not just ask for money afterwards.

No it's to late to ask for payment now.

> You sound jealous of what she has.

No, I don't need her money, it's just that mutual friends said 'she has a habit of taking the piss don't let her', and I thought 'hmm you might be right'

[e.g. she asked her friend's husband, who is a plumber, to do some plumbing, and then rather than saying 'here's £50', she gave him some food she had cooked.]