Inheritance issue

[TheRedLid]

This is about my parents money but not your typical MN inheritance issue. I will state from the very beginning that I have no interest in the money or what is coming my way, my concern right now is my mum and her care.

Both my parents are elderly now (in their 80's). They are both only children and when the last of my grandparents died (mum's dad and dad's mum died in 2001), they were left inheritance. Dad got around £20k as my paternal gp weren't that well off but mum was left a large house and my gp's substantial savings. I have seen the will and as you would expect the sole beneficiary of that will was my mum, their only child.

However, from the get go my dad saw it as 'their' money and invested all the money as well as buying himself a motorbike, a new car and a holiday to Canada (which mum didn't really want to go on). I can't really recall mum treating herself to anything. Nothing I could have done about that as mum seemed in agreement with it all.

However, 17 years later (around 2018) my mum received a diagnosis of Alzheimer's. It's been a rough journey for my poor mum as well as my dad, my sister and I. For the last 6 years my sister and I have helped to care and look after my mum and parents in general.

Thankfully, because of the savings and investments we have now been able to choose private carers and all that comes from caring for a person with advancing dementia.

But my dad resents all of it. He constantly moans and groans about how much it is all costing HIM, how he resents all the money HE has to spend out etc to the point he now wants to cancel mum's twice weekly visit to a day centre which admittedly costs a lot at £115 per day but actually does her a lot of good but every step of the way whatever my sister or I suggest to make mum's life more comfortable it is met with 'How much is that going to cost me', or 'No, I'm not prepared to spend that much', or 'I'm fed up with all this money I'm shelling out' or the weekly 'These carers are costing me an arm and a leg'

I've bitten my tongue as much as I can but I'm close to losing it with my dad and screaming at him 'Actually it's Mum's rightful money which was left to her in her parents will, your name was not included in that will dad and mum is coming to the end of her life, surely she deserves the best her money can buy to make her life easier'.

I have written many op about my dad and his sheer pig headed stubbornness but this is the icing on the cake for me. I do half wonder if he's scared the money will run out and there will be little left if he needs care but at the same time we need to concentrate on the here and now and it's mum who is terminally unwell.

My sister and I do have poa and can override him and we often do for small things but it's a constant battle which I don't want to have to face each time we want to make a purchase or pay for a service for mum.

I know this isn't AIBU (too scared to venture there) but am I right to think this isn't his money? HE isn't having to pay out for anything, it's all from my dear mum's money, money her parents gifted to her in their will?

It's a never ending battle.

Yes you are right. And I think you should say exactly what you suggest here to your dad but no need to scream it. Screaming it is unkind and due to bottling it up. So instead, plan it- with your sister. And deliver those messages firmly and in a responsible way- possibly even following them up in writing. Are the investments in her name only? It both?

I do think his concern about his own old age is legitimate though. Assuming he was a decent husband and son in law, the. With a long marriage, he is right that the money is basically a joint asset, and it wouldn’t be fair (or in line with your Mums wishes, I would think?) if he was left helpless/ penniless while your mum gets royal care for the rest of her life. So I think you need to make a plan for how both parents will get what they need… that’s both a legal thing and a family agreement thing. I haven’t read your other threads, so if your dad is a truly horrible character, perhaps you can cut him out entirely, but otherwise, his fears are legitimate, and he needs to know you are factoring in his needs as well as your mum’s.

You are absolutely right

I'm on the fence here. Because a pp is right. It looks as though, while your mum will get excellent and expensive care, he might well be left with nothing to pay for his own.

I think that an inheritance 17 years ago, blurs the lines a bit about who it belongs to, though I do recognise that he's had his paws on it right from the beginning!

I think that a calm and serious talk with him about what it is that worries him about spending on your mum's care, it's needed.

The fact that you and your sister are controlling the finances, is very unusual. I'd find that odd. As a living spouse I'd expect to be the person making the decisions about my own long term partner, not my children.
Your mum might have done this for a reason, but you still need to empathise with him about his unusual degree of lack of control of the situation.

I wasn't planning on actually screaming at him lol, that's just what I feel like doing at times. I've gone above and beyond helping my parents with little thanks from my dad but that's just the way he is.

He will be ok financially because he has a comfortable amount locked away in his own savings account.

And was he a good SIL? Who knows? I do know that after my mum's mum died she had to help care for my grandfather on her own for 10 years with little help from my dad and he didn't do much for his own parents when they were in older age.

Firstly, we are absolutely NOT controlling finances. We have POA which is legally advised when you have a parent with dementia. We leave everything to my dad but have the legal power to step in if he becomes incapacitated or we feel mum's care isn't being looked after correctly. My dad still has full control and does control what my mum has and doesn't have, as you will have seen in my op.

I should have stated in my op (can't edit now) that dad has his side of the finances secured in his own account so he should be ok if the time comes.

We do not control my dad's decision at all. He is the one always putting his foot down but at the same time expects us to help him constantly.

It’s here and now isn’t it, your Father may not need care, my seemed fit for his age Uncle died of a massive heart attack in his 80’s.

The alternative is your Mother goes in to residential care and the longer she isn’t or not at all is best, that can easily be 1.5k per week.

Loads of men leave their wives when they are ill the stats show this.

When married money is joint unless she kept her inheritance in a totally separate account, it’s why in some divorces inheritance may not be included.

He sounds bloody selfish op and I would be very upset by his behaviour.

It’s not odd for children to have POA even if both parents are alive. Their Mother could not agree to POA now as diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. Most people leave POA arrangements far too late.

Putting aside where the money has come from and the issue, what savings and investments are in joint names? I thought a spouse was entitled to 50% of savings and investments in joint names to pay for their care and well-being. If there's a house in joint names, a charge can be put on it to cover costs, then on your DF's death the monies under the charge are taken as they're owing by the estate.

If you want him to stop then say it to him. Dad, this money came from mum's inheritance and she is entitled to half of it. Why bite your lip? He's being unreasonable, uncaring and probably ungrateful.

Does he understand that

• the house can't be sold from under him to pay for your DMs care
• social services will assume half of all other assets are his, and won't come after them for her care
• but that she is entitled to her half to be spent on her care to her benefit.

So he will very likely be absolutely fine.

Your mum clearly didn't see it as her money so I don't see what right you have to make that decision on her behalf after she already treated it as joint.

I haven't seen your previous threads but it's clear that you don't like your father. However blowing through their money and leaving nothing for his care is clearly going to upset him and that doesn't seem to bother you.

I'm not assuming he's a good person or you wouldn't feel the way you do, but would you be choosing the most expensive options if you were paying?

He is selfish and has form for it but I genuinely thought seeing his wife terminally ill would kick start some deeper compassion in him and he would want the best for her regardless of the money (and they have lots). I watched my FIL care for my MIL and it could not have been more different, nothing was too much or too expensive for her and they have a lot less than my parents. My FIL regularly tells me that he doesn't understand my father's reasoning at all.

My mum was a great wife and mother and imo she deserves to her her inheritance spent on her, she is 8 years into dementia, has breast cancer, a fracture from a broke neck last year and osteoporosis, she most probably does not have years left in her.

This sounds incredibly difficult but assuming a long marriage and combined finances - this IS his money. Your mother chose to share with him. Is he just frustrated, sad and angry at the situation or is he actually taking steps to cancel these things for her? It does sound very hard and I feel for you but I feel sorry for him too.

I don't know the full set up as dad has a lot of it invested in stocks and shares. I know that most is in his name though and if mum does go into care and her finances run out then a charge will be placed on to the home and taken once dad passes away.

I would argue if you are LPA for your mum, you should be controlling her day-to-day care and finances. She's lost capacity and your DF is not her LPA attorney.

It's an incredibly difficult situation though, as we have this with my Pil and it's very difficult to navigate in practice. If I'd known Fil hadn't included himself as an attorney, I wouldn't have let DH & Bil sign the LPA as it's caused lots of issues in that Fil sees himself as provider but legally, now he's not really. It's super-awkward and whilst Mil was getting worse, it was difficult but now she's in a home, they have recognised the issues (control and inability to understand dementia) and it's not so bad.

I would kindly remind him that going to a centre at £115 per day twice a week is a lot cheaper than a £2,000 per week nursing home, so the longer he can put that off the better.

My Mum inherited from her parents, the first thing my Dad did was to buy a new car, it seemed my Mum didn’t have a say in it. My Dad held the purse strings in their marriage.

I don't often bite my lip but my dad is a very obstinate man it will not listen to anything anyone says to him. It is his opinion or nothing.

He is fully aware that the house can not be sold until he passes and any charges will then need to be paid. He has already said he has no care about that as he will be dead and it's my sister and my problem. It's his (and mum's) cold hard cash/savings he worries about.

One of his main bug-bears and the issue that angers him he most is that people who have not worked much or were on benefits for years get services paid for. For instance, he wants to cancel mum's day centre visits because it costs £115 per day and why should he pay that when there are others there getting the same visit for nothing. He just can not accept that is life, if you have savings then you have to pay your way.

This isn't how it works. If the house is lived in by a spouse it is disregarded for care purposes and no charge is put onto the house. A charge is only put on if there is no spouse living in the house (i.e it is empty and is in the sole ownership of the person receiving care but for some reason it is not yet sold).

It looks like your Dad might need some information about how care is funded. The care should be paid for out of savings and investments in your mothers sole name plus her half of any savings or investments in joint names (savings and investments are not commonly held in joint names though).

Anything in your dad's name cannot be used to fund your mums care (unless it has recently been moved into his name to try to avoid it being used). Of course he is free to offer it up as a gift if he so wishes.

I love my father very much but he is a very difficult character to deal with. If you have any understanding what it is like trying to help care for one parent when the other puts constant stumbling blocks in the way you would understand. If I didn't love my parents why the hell would I have given up the last 5+ years of my life to help them.

As you will see from my replies, my father has money secured in his own account. My parents accounts are not joint. We are talking hundreds of thousands not the odd thousand here and there.

It is far from 'blowing' through their money, my mum deserves the best care that she can get at the end of your life. Would you really not want that for your dying mother?

As sexist as I sound, if your father has a habit of ignoring the women (wife and daughters) in his life, then get your husband, bil, uncle, any man in the family, to tell him the facts of life and to pull his head in.

Too many men are perfectly happy to dismiss what a female says. In this case, I would be less concerned about how the message looks and more about getting the message to land.

Id just say it yes !

Thanks for clarifying. I had the impression that when you mentioned having POA and paying for things where he didn't want to spend her money, that he didn't have POA himself, and it was only you and your sister who could access your mum's money.

But yes, as POAs you can only use her money in your mum's best interests, which seems to be what you're doing, when he doesn't have her interests at heart.

The LPA's are joint between my father, my sister and myself. Because our father has it too we leave him to make the major and final decisions etc because if not it will be a constant battle with him, we try to advise him but he often disagrees with anything we (or the carers) suggest.

No it won’t. That’s not how funding works. If your DM needs residential care (or even care at home) the financial assessment looks at all joint money plus any accounts solely in her name. If they have joint savings of, say, £150k, £75k will be classed as hers. All her income from pensions will be hers. If it seems like the majority of their savings are held (n one persons name, the financial assessment could include all the savings as if they were held jointly.
If your DF still lived in the property it would be disregarded in a financial assessment and therefore cannot be included in a voluntary deferred payment scheme.
https://www.ageuk.org.uk/siteassets/documents/factsheets/fs10_paying_for_permanent_residential_care_fcs.pdf
https://www.ageuk.org.uk/siteassets/documents/factsheets/fs38_property_and_paying_for_residential_care_fcs.pdf

My parents marriage has been exactly the same. I am not sure my mum had much say tbh.

We have looked around several care homes and he moans about the cost of them all, even the cheaper and down right awful ones. He moans about the day centre charges but also moans about the fact he doesn't have any time to himself when mum is at home. It's a no win situation with him.

We have already had legal advice on this.

If mum goes into a care home they will obviously take into account her pension and AA first and any savings in her name, if the savings run out then a charge will be put on the house for however long mum lives and dad is secure in the house until he dies. The charge will then be taken out of the house when it is sold.