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.

FIL is currently at end of life. He 'ran' the household for over fifty years. MIL is clueless. About everything. Can't pay a bill, wouldn't know about insurance, etc etc. DH and SIL are now having a nightmare trying to access his online accounts, emails etc and literally organise her life. Zero forward planning.
He was diagnosed grade 4 cancer last year but with typical head in sand approach they carried on as before. No one now knows what his funeral wishes are. All guesswork.
The decluttering of the house will take many months.
DH and I have up to date wills, POA and a boxfile each with all our paperwork and passwords etc. I declutter regularly. And will downsize as we age, rather than stubbornly struggling on, breaking femurs and then expecting urgent help at the drop of a hat.

Plan for the later years of potential ill health. Don't move somewhere remote. Think about how you will access health appointments ., shop, visit friends etc if you don't drive. Don't assume that middle aged children with careers and dc of their own will be free to drive you.

Mum died last year with no assets or plans. Based on my experience - keep enough money in your savings to cover a small funeral, it's more expensive than I'd realised. My brother and I had to top up a significant amount over what mum had left which left us struggling after.

Keep important documents in one place family know about ie passports, birth certificates.

Keep bills in one place so utilities etc can be shut down easily.

Regularly declutter - this wasn't too bad with mum as she hadn't lived there that long.

If you do have assets and money then ensure you r will is up to date and you have named someone to deal with it all so everyone is clear on what is what.

In regards to the funeral I'm in two minds. Mum left no instructions so we were free to make the service our own but a bit of guidance would have been nice at times too.

The lady behind Spacemasks has a 'Death Book' that I think she devised after losing her mother with nothing sorted out. I keep meaning to buy one.

It's just occurred to me, but that 'Death Star' in Star Wars - doesn't have the cheeriest name, does it? I mean, living there, going to work every day.... Like calling your abode 'Shit House'.

I'd say a Will, Power of Attorney and make any funeral wishes known to your closest relatives. We've both started putting a list together for eachother of everywhere we've got accounts and numbers so nothing is overlooked, especially as so many things are online. Also, I'm the full-time cat slave in this house, so details that would be helpful.

As PP have said.

1. Streamline any finances you can - check you don't have £1k here and there in separate accounts - merge.
2. Maximise your tax free allowances - NS&I and ISAs for eg
3. Create a Will and POA - write a letter of wishes to go with for individual items and burial wishes (songs/flowers/cremation or burial for eg)
4. Start to de-clutter physical items in the house - gifting or asking if family would like it.
5. Gifting excess cash (I know, I wish!) that might take you over IHT (£500k so think of the house as main asset and go from there - up to 7k pa per person).
6. Keep funds for elderly care - someone else is probably better placed to advise on common costs and how much is likely - I, like you, hope for the assisted dying route to come into effect under Labour.

What seems to come out of these threads is the selfish way (and I dont use that word lightly) some of our parents generation ran their lives. My late Father wouldnt listen to anyone, it was his way or the highway but in the end he needed family support. He actually asked to go into a care home - it was that bad but once I started digging it was a bloody mess. At least I was able to ask him a few things whilst he had capacity.

I will NEVER leave such a legacy for my children. I already have a Death Box with wills and passwords.

Both parents have passed and were divorced years ago but DM clung onto me for dear life when siblings moved away. I was POA, and general all round admin. She couldnt cope with financial matters or anything that involved picking up the phone and speaking to anyone about anything. That was all outsourced to me but she 100% wanted to live independently - she didnt but I took all the worry away from her. Siblings did NOTHING. She had no plans for her life and told a friend she hoped she would just slip away one day.

I put strict boundaries in place and whilst I did what she asked they were on my timescales.

I’ve got a folder of stuff for me and dh.

everything is covered. Detailed instructions for ds, what to do with the house, who to call etc, insurances, bank details, will, direct cremation paid for and then my wishes of where my ashes should go (he can have a proper service then).

Everything is detailed in what to do, he will just have to follow it step by strep.

Phone numbers of my friends to call.

A bank account in his name, with 2k in it to pay for probabte, the name of a solicitor to call, what to do etc. I learned the hard way when my dad died and either had to pay above the odds for probabte I could pay when I had h the proceeds, or a loan form the solicitors with high interest (which worked out cheaper). Ds doesn’t know about this account, but the card is in the folder with all the details.

When his sisters are 18, I will add them all to that account too.

Obviously, it will all be kept updated over the years.

Hopefully, dh and I will be around for a long time, but you just never know. We could die together in a car crash tomorrow and ds (Early 20s) would be clueless.

To be honest, I was clueless when my dad died this year which is what prompted me to do all that.

In the digital age also make a note of online assets and set up legacy administrator on FB/Spotify/Twitter/Mumsnet.
Don't forget online shopping accounts eh Toocashback or Vinted that may have a balance in them

If you own cryptocurrency there will not be any paperwork so very important to record the access key and code, preferably in a locked safe with other info

Make sure you review regularly, day 3-5 years ago you can update when needed

Try Swedish Death Cleaning

Not sure what a PP means about paying for Probate in advance and why it would be cheaper...

Life insurance ... you don't need it if you don't have dependents. Income replacement cover, however, is a good idea for when you're alive!

Why? Why would you deliberately do that? It smacks of ‘here’s a gold ring, I’ll throw it in some shit, if you really want it, you’ve got to get your hands dirty’. You wouldn’t do that with a box of chocolate: he’s a gift for you, but I licked them all beforehand, cause after all they’re mine, I bought them.

Seriously. What are you thinking?

My dad does this sort of thing - holds money over me. It's a control thing and one of the reasons I refuse to look after him in old age; he made my life a misery this way and I won't play any more.

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 !

Firstly: you can’t actually leave it all to the state to sort out, they will expect the executor to sort out probate whether the executor wants to or not.

Secondly: most people’s heirs are their children or other people they care about and they would like to do whatever they can to make their life easier at a time they will be grieving. Sounds like you don’t like this relative much? Why are you leaving them anything?

Having recently lost my mum suddenly fairly young, things that would have been helpful

Admin stuff
Addresses and numbers for relatives you only speak to (and who they are)
Songs for a funeral, and mum had a chance to write her own list words/eulogy which was lovely. Wishes re ashes.
POA, wills are obvious
Password for laptops and phones, or save photos to a cloud account someone else has access to. Also things like Amazon.
Label all your keys!
Note random subscriptions somewhere so these can be tracked down and cancelled.
Note what you have (or don't have) re policies - insurance, pensions.....spent ages looking for house insurance and realised later on it didn't exist!
Pay for your funeral.

Other stuff
Writing on the backs of old photos who people were (especially babies)
Declutter - stuff that is sentimental to ONLY you should go, 'family' stuff should stay but be organised
Filling in a 'life history' book, where you grew up, favourite colours etc. mum did one in her last few weeks and it is treasured. We learnt so much. I'm going to start one now for my daughter.
Things not worth mentioning in a will, make a note of what you want to happen to them. For example MIL has notes on the back of all her pictures so we know exactly who gets what.
Set up an email account and write letters to your family occasionally, record the password so it can be viewed.

Make a note of accounts.
Power of Attorney
Up to date wills
Prepay funeral
Declutter

I went to a few solicitors for quotes.

Some wanted the money upfront and they had payment plans if you didn’t have the money. They

Some were okay with waiting until the estate paid out but that was a lot more expensive.

I ended up paying half of what the ones who would settle from the estate wanted by taking out a loan from them.

I’ve left my children money in an account so they can just pay for it, when the time comes and not have that stress.

When my mum died suddenly, I had a lot of admin to do, just trying to figure everything out. She had a file with some information but there were definitely things I wish I had easy access to!

Passwords for computer, her email and the passcode for her phone. Obviously I didn't read anything that was in there but I couldn't wipe the phone or the computer without being able to get access.

List of all direct debits regularly leaving accounts so that before the bank account was frozen and payments refused, I would have been able to transfer things like broadband/phone etc into my dad's name. That was a total head melt...I was going through bills trying to figure out who supplied what.

Name of doctor and pharmacy so that both could be informed and her prescriptions stopped.

Lots more but these were the immediate things!

I've recently been through the loss of my last parent. She died this year and made the will in 2008. Luckily it was still fine and all parties are happy, but people should check that their wills are still relevant and not make changes at the last minute, imo.

My Mum was a great de-clutterer and didn't have too much "stuff" in her house but it still cost us about £1500 to clear it, so make sure you have enough in your account to cover that as well as the funeral. Our Mum's was a direct cremation but with a service separately with a humanist celebrant, that was about £6,000 and she hadn't pre-paid but had enough in her current account for us to cover it.

She downsized to a small bungalow at 69 and died at 92, gave up driving at 80. All very sensible. The one thing she could have done for me and my sibling was not argue for such a long time about having care in her own home and insisting she could manage alone. There were falls and hospital admissions that we had to manage from reasonably long distance. Had she had a care system in place we would not have had as many panicked phone calls and an expectation that we could drop everything and come to her rescue. One of her hospital admissions - my brother was in the US on holiday and I was at home sick with covid. Neither of us could help her, we had to rely on a kindly neighbour which was a very big ask indeed.

What's a social media legacy?

If you want your social media to stay up, do you want to give your loved ones assess to it by sharing passwords and therefore your contacts. My MIL was in the situation of having to inform people of her nieces death. She couldn’t access her phone or facebook account. In the end she posted on her facebook wall but that was very public and meant her abusive ex would know and she had to decide if she should post funeral details on there.

My dad had bought a book called "what to do now I'm dead" (or similar); it is similar in a way to a new baby book that you fill in with key dates.
It is filled in with all details of bank accounts, solicitors, passwords, who is the electricity provider. He has shown me where it is, so when he dies all the I formation I need will hopefully be in one place