Relative burned through funds and now mooching

[coldcallerbaiter]

AIBU to get involved? I have not said too much to him yet

So my cousin lost his parents in his 20s and got easily a million pounds in those days. He is around 60 now. Never had a job, playboy lifestyle in the Far East, womanising, divorces, no kids. Now he is back in the UK and has nowhere to go. Will not admit he is skint but then hints to live with my elderly mum in her spare room. He is not entitled to benefits as he never lived here and did not pay in or get credits. I do not know if he will even get a state pension later on. I think he should get a job and pay his rent somewhere but I doubt he will as working is beneath him, especially as it would be unskilled stuff, he wants to mooch off her. He has expensive tastes too and is in and out at night probably to bars. My mum is now phoning me worried in case he will not leave, also her quiet life is being disturbed

They are actually close as she was like a mother to him before he left to go abroad and were in touch all the years with visits.

@coldcallerbaiter some charities collect. Anglo doorstep collections do UK wide collections for charity. I also found leaving stuff outside a great way of disposing, always someone who will take stuff. I even put box's of books outside my dads they were gone within the hour.

@coldcallerbaiter - you wrote these points (in italics):

He was shocked that we did not check on his MH crisis. He said he is now absolutely fine
Good. I would have thought though that he was absolutely fine before he had his MH crisis though but that is the cynic in me showing itself.

and needs one last visit before he starts a ‘new life’.
Nope. Not going to happen. Not even if he were to be accompanied by armed guard would he be allowed to cross the threshold again.

Apparently a ‘friend’ is letting him stay at his rental property.
This is not your concern any more where he stays. He's out of your hair and should stay that way if he knows what is good for him.

She has a landline, I am not sure if I can block his number.
I think you can get a number listed as a nuisance caller or for safety reasons so you might be able to look in to this for your mother.

he understood I am the decision maker and she is now listening to me. I also told him that if he shows up, I will call the police.
Finally the penny has dropped for him. He now gets that. I seriously hope he doesn't try to pull anything like showing up and telling your mother to be quiet and not tell you about the visit.

Well done to you @coldcallerbaiter for getting this far with him and essentially remaining calm throughout. Many would have completely lost their shit at him.

@coldcallerbaiter

100% he wants to get 'in the door' to try to influence your mum. After all, how would she get him to leave other than calling the police and he probably thinks she'd never do that. Plus it is harder to say 'no' face to face than on the phone or a text, that's true enough.

Blocking his number should work. But if he's at all phone tech savvy, he'll know how (or will soon discover) how to do 'spoof' phone numbers which will allow the call to go through. If your mum doesn't have caller ID on her landline, I suggest you get her a phone that has it. And tell her not to answer calls from unknown numbers but let them go to voicemail.

We haven't had a landline in years and we're in our 60s & retired. We finally realized the only calls we got on it were telemarketers and people we didn't want to talk to anyway. You may want to consider whether your mum really needs a landline, assuming she has a mobile.

I'm in the US and we have enhanced 911 so emergency services automatically know where we are, so that wasn't a concern for us. I don't know if the UK has the same or similar.

Since you already know he's a cast iron CF I'd make a list of all the stuff he's left at your DM's (with photos for larger items) before you dispose of anything. He may have taken the valuables already, but he sounds like he'd be happy to try and sue if he'd finds out it was all gone, dramatically increasing it's value of course.

It won't be long before we see a thread 'I let friend stay as he had been abandoned by his aunt and cousin, now he won't leave'.

I'm glad things have worked out for you OP and he's moved on but keep an eye on him at all times. His friend will kick him out soon enough and he might try working his way back in with your mum again. I know you don't want to pay for shipping or go to the bother of returning his stuff but to cover yourself, box it up, have it sent to his new address and then forget about it. You know what a nasty piece of work he is, he might try to say you stole his property.

Thanks to you all for discussing this with me, I feel like I shoulld buy you all a coffee!

He did not take me up on the offer of 6 months HMO rent totalling £3000 (I think that’s generous). I would have paid directly in instalments, if he looked for a job. Puzzling, why not just take it, even if he had no intention of looking for a job. Maybe it was so that we couldn’t say’we have done enough, that was the deal’.

Ultimately, he will have to come back at some point.

The problem was too big for us to take care of (because I do believe in helping people at rock bottom). When you lay it out straight, he hasn’t said it but in effect the reality is a home for life and the home expenses paid,(not his ownership therefore not his expenses) plus his spending money topped up, unless he gets pension or benefits.

Re landline, yes being noted by emergency services at a fixed line is a bonus. idk if a cell phone can do that here, she doesn’t want a smartphone, we tried that. She can just about use a tablet at 84 and only to press the call button. We are constantly resetting it, as updates and pop ups cause confusion and she has mashed in and broken the home button in frustration on at least 2 devices so far.

It has also hit me lately, something smells that he sold property and that makes no sense. He sold his final property just before he emigrated. Selling on the off-chance
his aunt took him in as homeless seems reckless.

A property can be lived in with a lodger and so right there with no effort, your basic expenses are sorted too.

He is on the run from something. Idk if it is here or the other country. He does not want a property in his name, someone’s after him. Debts, tax, crime…

Can you perhaps reach out to the authorities in the country/town that he came to your mother from? See if they are aware of something to do with him. When you lay out what you've put into your last post with all of the stuff that has gone on up to recent times, that does make a hell of a lot of sense.

You're doing right by your mother, just in case you needed a reminder here. That's the key thing right now.

Google him see if anything comes up. Or Facebook.

I would contact the UK police and make them aware, just in case. Tell them your concerns, they can check if any warrants outstanding. He is for sure trying to stay under the radar.

@coldcallerbaiter

Well, obviously your mum needs to keep her landline. Would she be able to 'work with' a phone with caller ID? Looking at the numbers and remembering which numbers to answer and which to let go to voicemail? My mum at 84 would have been fine doing so, but by 90 my brother (who was her carer) had to take the phone out of the living room and put it in his room because she was answering calls and giving out personal information or agreeing to 'charity donations' or visits by salespeople. Luckily no one ever got her bank details off her!

As far as his property, I know he said he sold his but do you know for sure he did? It's quite possible that either he didn't, he had other property, or if he did he secured those funds. It would make sense as far as him having 'fallback money' in case your mum refused to take him in. And when your mum took him in he decided to scam your mum by pleading poverty so he could keep that fallback money 'just in case'. This would also explain why he isn't 'homeless' and begging to come back.

And if he is on the run from 'someone who would harm him' I wouldn't want him within 50 miles of my mum (or anyone I cared about).

No nothing comes up.

@AcrossthePond55
I am sure they were sold.

We knew all the property he had and he sold it all - it was all family property.

Agree about the nightmare of fraud with callers. My dms late husband got to his mid 80s and was falling for internet scams, fortunately no calls. She has caller ID.

I have no idea if he is homeless now. I never even knew his last address tbh. We never actually asked, we just had his mobile phone number.

Update. Mooch apparently went back to the
original country abroad, he said he was doing it last month but we have not heard from him since and dm has not called him. She had a minor operation and was out of the loop anyway. She has calmed down but is curious about how he will cope at his age. Nothing adds up. He was better off in a welfare state country for healthcare and maybe some benefits. Where he has gone is tough if you are penniless. He said a friend would put him up in a spare rental. I cannot imagine that can last a lifetime.

Fingers crossed he has gone for good. Spongers like him are harder to get rid of than a sticky bogey!

I'd just be glad he was gone @coldcallerbaiter.
I imagine he thought your poor DM would say Oh No, don't go! Stay here please.
Hope your DM is well recovered now and moochy-moocherson stays away.

I think you and your mother should make it clear to him that this is temporary. You should then help your mother, with his knowledge, draft a letter to the council telling them that she cannot house him any longer and is making him homeless. Make two copies - send one to the council housing department and give one to him. He should then go to the council housing department with the letter and say he is homeless. They will then put him in temporary accommodation I should think, and on the urgent list for housing. This happened to a friend with her small child and it all worked out okay. The council won't help him if they think your mother will.

I remember a case at our local church where an elderly man and his wife had been living in Spain. Wife died, he couldn't manage without her, they only rented out there and he lost the house. He came back here and turned up at the church. They paid for him to stay in a Travelodge for a week and helped him approach the council for housing.

If he's been living abroad for years he won't be entitled to welfare benefits or free healthcare.

Yes, I think the final call, he thought she would rein it back and relent if he said he would be going back abroad.

I know he was desperate but in effect he was asking to be housed and living expenses paid for, for the rest of his life by her and then by me in turn. I do resent that he kind of made her do this brutal rejection of him in her old age, I know it plays on her mind. Dm was known as a seeet kind soul by everyone we knew and generous. Bit tragic all round.

He will if he’s a British citizen returning from abroad. He’ll have automatic right of abode in the UK. If he passes the ordinarily resident test on resettling here he will be immediately entitled to free NHS care and access to means tested benefits.

Yes MH services saw him. It was an emergency/ ambulance called. And probably fake. But yes, UK citizen and passport holder. It’s a big advantage compared to where he is going.

Who wants to be penniless, in a party/tourist spot. Maybe he has more friendships to harvest there idk.

If it fails there, he’ll bounce back here saying he tried to get a job but was unsuccessful. I just think his reasoning is, that we think he is not trying other options, but surely now they’re going to see I did try but just can’t survive.

Is he able to claim any benefits here yet? I have known people visit the UK often enough to convince the DWP that they're resident here to continue a claim, and keep access to the money despite being abroad. Though that's usually with pensions (as there are understandably fewer checks/in person appointments than say, unemployment benefits)

Hibernatingtilspring
according to him, he just isn’t eligible. He would get a basic pension at 67 if he had stayed. He probably thinks he couldn’t live on that and has a few years to go til then. But he could have worked til then. It just did not seem an option to him. It does not add up to me. However his and my mindsets are v different obviously.

I also have an irrational worry he hasn’t actually left the UK, and is lurking.

Is there any chance that he never sold the property in the other country and has just gone back there? I wondered if he said he sold it, in order to prevent him being told to just go back and live in it - but we was intending to wait it out in your mum's house and then sell the property to give him plenty of money to splash about after she'd gone?

I want to say I'm relieved for both you and your mum that he's gone but this is probably just another step in whatever he's planning next. I really would not take my eye off the ball where he's concerned. He's probably thinking things will settle down, it'll all be forgotten about and bam, he'll be back with some other sob story about things going wrong. In the meantime, enjoy the peace and best wishes to your mum for a speedy recovery from her surgery.