End of life planning, the ideal blueprint for middle age

[Runningupdathill]

A (not close to me) relative has recently passed away and left virtually no instructions, or made any arrangements or plans for their funeral, no will etc and had no savings. Separately, my own parent is in a residential care home and when this was deemed necessary it was difficult for my siblings and I to arrange because we were utterly clueless and my parent hadn't made any plans or had any thoughts about it when they were younger / during their retirement years. In both cases the families don't really talk about these things so poor communication and a reticence to mention death / vulnerability have resulted in a lot of panic and confusion and headaches around administration.

Looking ahead to my own life, end of life and that of my husband, what is the ideal blueprint for planning? We have DC and I don't want them to be grappling in the dark to arrange things.

We are middle aged. What should we put in place now and over the next few years to ensure a smoother process for any care needs and for end of life, funerals etc etc? In an ideal world (if money was no object) what would be the best plan for all of this? Is this available anywhere for people to find? Eg is there a recommended checklist? They don't teach you this stuff at school and if your family don't speak about stuff you only find out when it's too late!

Step 1 is we will talk about it all openly with our DC.
What would the further steps be (both financial and practical)?

Caveat: This is as things stand currently. I am hoping that the Labour government may introduce assisted dying, which is another aspect we currently cannot consider.

Some good stuff here - esp Lasting Power of Attorney, in both Finance AND Health and Welfare. That said, do remember to place it where you can find it and update it if the law changes in 15 years or so. You don't need a lawyer to do it, it's around £80.

The whole DNR thing, well, I guess I'll be hijacking the thread if I do this, but there is a lot of deceit about this stuff. It's frankly mad. We had Dad in hospital last October - now don't get me wrong, he was on the last furlong - but he was a bit ill and it seems there 'DNR' means 'We can kill you' And if the family don't allow it - a lot is argued on the basis of 'Oh, if he has a stroke, heart attack, it would be cruel to resuscitate him etc etc' stuff you wouldn't disagree with, but if you say no, on the basis that your parent is unlikely to have a heart attack or stroke and we're around all the time, the doctors in A&E can and will cheerfully overrule the family's instructions re DNR despite having LPA in Health and Welfare - and can legally do so.

Dad was dead in three days and we think he was euthanised.

I'm not saying you're at that point yet - but then neither was Dad when he want into the same hospital six months earlier and we managed to get him back home in the face of fierce bitchy resistance from the ward matron.

If you staying the house you can future proof it with downstairs arrangements. Some neighbours got in a downstairs shower and so on - mind you they had the money to do so.

PoAs for Health & Welfare, and Financial.
If asset base is big, make sure you get advice re IHT.
Wills, let people know where it is. Discuss the contents if you feel it important.
Letter of wishes re how you would like to be cared for.

Work out how you can make care provisions.
Sum of money / prepaid funeral plan, specify creation or burial and type of service.
Consider housing needs, move whilst still vital enough to cope.
Declutter - everything!!
Keep and update a list of all accounts / investments etc with user names & passwords (keep encrypted and give someone the key).
Maximise gifting for IHT. You can make regular gifts if income is greater than outgoings and doing so doesn't impact your standard of living under IHT403.
Keep yourself fit and healthy.
Talk about everything, normalise death. It can be upsetting at first, but it gets easier.
Talk about family stuff you know that needs to be passed on.
Label the old family photographs.

Most of the legal / tax / inheritance things cascade into each other, so it helps to have round table conversations and get professional advice if you will fall into IHT.

I started to write a list a while ago
Death planning

• Swedish death cleansing
• Power of attorney for care and finances
• Funeral plans
• Who will look after children
• Sort out and Chuck old paperwork
• List of account info
• Life insurance policy
• Social media legacy
• Advanced decision making?
• Who to notify when you die

www.ageuk.org.uk/services/information-advice/guides-and-factsheets/

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/money-matters/4949755-what-to-put-in-my-death-folder

This thread may be of interest OP as has a few ideas

Thanks for this thread OP

I've got wills and POA's sorted and DC know where the wills are and our solicitor's name and number

I'm retiring in 3 months and shamefully DH has always done my tax returns - I find and sort paper info - so this year I'm going to do both his and mine with him, get codes etc

I really need to make a list of assets for DC (and myself as DH has lots of shares but I don't know them all)

If it was all on paper I would feel happier but many accounts like fidelity and vanguard are online only.

the doctors in A&E can and will cheerfully overrule the family's instructions re DNR despite having LPA in Health and Welfare - and can legally do so.
Doctors will always do what is in the patient's best interest even if a DNR is not in place.
DNR is simply for cardiopulmonary resus, it's nothing to do with other life saving measures. It just means if their heart stops they won't go through traumatic CPR.
I very much doubt your family member was euthanised. If you honestly believe this you need to ask the hospital to launch an investigation. Every drug they were given will be accounted for.

Only if you want to though.

I don't see why you should live your life in such a way that it is easier for people to deal with the consequences of your death, unless that is something you actually want to do !

The thing is, your relatives may inherit substantial sums when you die. If they have to put in a bit of effort in terms of house clearing etc to get that then it's still a pretty good deal normally !

I have a relative who moans a bit and says, when and if you die I am going to have so much trouble dealing with X,Y and Z. My view is that I'm not going to live my life to make their life easier after I die, and if they want the cash that goes along with the admin then they will have to put some effort in ! Nobody is forcing them to do anything. They can walk away and leave it all to the State to sort out at any time if they want !

This is not exactly what you've asked for, but my mum died last year and made everything so easy for us.

this included:

• clear will with solicitor, and copy accessible to us immediately.
• pre-paid funeral plan with instruction of exactly what she wanted in the service etc held with FD. We literally took her death certificate & policy in, confirmed which florist would deliver the flowers and forwarded some photos for the order or service.
• she had a case we all knew about in the house. This included all her important documents, including those mentioned above, the most recent copy of most of her utility bills, insurance policies, a list of all her bank accounts etc. we were able to call round and sort everything with all the information we needed without any stress.
• also in the box, was a list of people we don't know, but who she felt should be contacted, a list of who things were for (not in the will) and a few other final requests.

This all really helped. We knew we were making the decisions mum wanted, and everything was as easy as it could have been.

And let's all stop saying 'if I die'.

You will die. I will die. There is no doubt of it.

It's 'when I die'.

Don't they call it 'Death Cleaning' in Scandinavian countries? Something like that.
Get all your paperwork and files in order - your bank accounts, investments, mortgage details, credit cards, insurance details, the value of certain items like jewellery and art. Have them all in a filing cabinet so anyone can easily see what's what. A copy of your will. Birth and marriage certificates. The deeds to your house (not that they do that now but you know what I mean).
With the will have instructions about your wishes - funeral, cremation, ashes scattered or whatever. Also instructions about if you become mentally incapacitated.
Go through your loft/garage/hall cupboards and get rid of all the crap. Does anyone really want your old school reports? Imagine your kids having to sort through everything and do it for them! Which also means if you have kept love letters or diaries you don't want people to read, shred them. Have your kids take anything you are storing for them. They can store it at their house.
What would be nice to do is get all the best photos of your kids growing up, some of yours too if you have them, and make a few photo books. People take loads of pics but they are stored on phones/cloud and it's really nice to have a physical thing.

You should see a lawyer for wills and powers of attorney. It’s a false economy not to. They can also advise on ways to ensure your assets can be passed on to your DCs and not used for care etc, if that’s something you’d worry about.

My dad has done a living will and so have I
He's also done a will
Had a huge clear out
All paperwork with a contacts list in a file - it basically says stuff like
Bank with X, account number, contact number
List of people I should contact
Paid funeral plan with his wishes (god knows about music though.. might need to bring that up tactfully!)

You absolutely don't need a solicitor for Power of Attorney.

POA = you can do it online via the gov.uk site for £83 each

Interesting thread and all people answering have of course made arrangements. Its the ones that wont talk about, keep everything secret and wont have POA that you need to concern yourself with.

POA has made a huge difference to me managing parents financials. But I have seen all sorts of shocks from wider family re wills, who is left what, who is doing what etc. And people wring their hands over what to do about something that a late parent has not mentioned. I agree with PP - if its not been mentioned then it cannot be that important.

@unsync

Maximise gifting for IHT. You can make regular gifts if income is greater than outgoings and doing so doesn't impact your standard of living under IHT403.

I have read about this and can you clarify that it means you can give away more than £3k per year if your income allows it?

@superstar63 It does, but you do need to keep detailed records and the gifts should be regular and from income not capital.

The last page of IHT403 shows what needs to be reported, so use those headings and keep a spreadsheet. Any extraordinary expenditure that is not annual, for instance renovations, new car etc is capital expenditure. I keep a record of that too. It helps to have income and capital split out into different accounts.

If you get it wrong, the gifts will fall into the seven year rule, but it is not as complex as it sounds.

We're in the same position though are the other side of 50.
DH and I are each other's PoA for welfare and medical decisions.
We chose not to add our siblings, I feel it complicates things. We will add our children when they both turn 18.

For anyone considering a Health and Welfare LPOA, please consider the burden it places on the Attorney.

The Attorney is supposed to make decisions as if they are you. Not many relatives are able to do this and the sadness that you are no longer as you were can be overwhelming.

At end of life, I have seen attorneys tie themselves in knots thinking they are agreeing to kill their relative when totally normal end of life care is taking place. I try to stress that there aren't any choices for them to make, their parent is dying anyway but being an attorney adds a stress that wasn't there before.

I certainly would not be nominating an 18 yr old.

You don’t need a plumber if your house is flooding, but it’s sensible to get one

They do what they want.

Here's some more info; it's St Helier Hospital near Sutton and - ahem - Epsom.

https://www.yourlocalguardian.co.uk/news/23748284.met-police-opens-investigation-st-helier-hospital-staff/

'Police are investigating' means they won't find anything. Just as they did with the Gosport War Memorial Hospital scandal - nobody charged.

They decide what is in the 'best interests' - which means for them as much as anything. Family involvement just means they prefer to get the okay, if not, they'll go ahead.
Ask the hospital to launch an investigation! C'mon - what, they gonna find themselves guilty!

This site is very helpful regarding living wills
https://compassionindying.org.uk/

That's the site I used, really easy to do
I'm petrified of dementia (huge family history) and if diagnosed I don't want any treatment basically for anything

My parents prepared what they called the black and red books. The black folder was all their personal wishes, specific thoughts on end of life arranges, music and readings, short biographies for the sermon (in case my brother and I forgot something), particular arrangements in their wills they wanted honoured e.g. my mum wants her special china to go to her best friend etc.
The red folder is all the practical house/life stuff. Insurance details, bank and investment information, copies of their wills.
My dad died a few years after and it was so helpful having it all set out at a time when everyone was struggling with grief etc.

Excellent article on assisted dying

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/may/01/case-for-assisted-dying-nhs-patients-die?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other