Elderly parents won't write wills or funeral plans.

[Iaminthefly]

AIBU to be starting to get seriously stressed about it?

My parents are both mid 70s. I have been asking them for several years now to please sort out their wills and funeral plans. They keep saying they will but still haven't done it.

I am a lone parent of two young DC. No other real family support other than my parents. I have an older brother but given my DM still buys his food shopping it's doubtful how much help he would be.

I just really worried that I'm going to end up negotiating funerals and estates (niether of which I have any experience of) absolutely blind because they won't put anything in place. I also stress I'll make a complete balls up of it because I will be absolutely grief stricken.

I've asked and asked but they will not do it. Nobody likes facing their mortality but I'm starting to feel its quite selfish of them not to get it sorted out.

I’ll never understand people who come on these threads and say absolute bollocks with authority when they don’t know what they’re talking about, it’s fine to say ‘in my experience’ but stating things as fact which aren’t true is misleading.

I know they can say no, but this is what I was thinking of. Guidance on gov.uk for England and Wales. It's not saying the closest relative must be the administrator, but it certainly seems to say that if the closest relative applies they will be appointed as administrator.

https://www.gov.uk/applying-for-probate/if-theres-not-a-will

You are wrong.

I have just done this, three accounts with different banks. All happy to pay out for funeral expenses without probate. They needed to see the death certificate and the invoice, no need for probate.

One won't pay out the balance direct to executors without probate but they would settle the funeral invoice.

@Stepfordian
Exactly! Money is there to pay the debts of the estate so whilst they won't give money to the family, they will pay direct to HMRC to settle the inheritance tax bill and direct to the funeral parlour for the funeral.

Off topic but your parents can do this in Ireland. They are called EPAs. You need a solicitor and a doctor to sign off on them. Citizen's information have lots of information on the procedure and how it works.

Funeral directors are amazingly helpful and will guide you through.

I've just had to deal with an intestate estate and my advice is to get a solicitor. Particularly if there is money in different places and inheritance may be an issue, proper legal help is worth every penny.

Well we're clearly looking at this from entirely different perspectives because my husband's and my joint assets, on top of the value of our marital home, are worth around £550k, so if my husband and I didn't have Wills leaving everything to each other, we would each lose out financially under the Rules of Intestacy. And I would say all our friends would be in a similar position.

Similar is happening to a friend of mine. She had friends of her parents that she always knew as uncle and aunt and was very close to. However they were no relation and had no children or close family. Aunt went into a home with dementia and uncle stayed in the marital home. However he became seriously ill and wanted my friend to take on all his finances etc. She has had to navigate getting POA for both of them. Uncle has since died, leaving everything to his wife but she doesn’t have capacity so trying to get the legal side of things sorted so my friend can get the house sold has been a nightmare. My friend is no blood relation and is trying to deal with this from the other end of the country.

I don’t have any family, except very distant cousins to deal with any of this for me, hence getting my POA sorted out now.

@SummerFeverVenice "If your parents want their estates to go to each other if one dies first, and then to you and your brother in equal shares when they are both gone, then there is no need for a will. It’s a complete waste of time. A will is only needed if you want to deviate from the standard rules of inheritance- ie leave it all to a charity or skip you and give to your brother and your children only, or have small bequests to friends etc." Utter rubbish. OP please ignore this nonsense. @SummerFeverVenice PLEASE read up on the Rules of Intestacy. 🙄

£322k, not £333k.

Everyone should have a power of attorney in place. It doesn’t matter if your parents lived to 120, if you fall down the stairs and have a catastrophic brain injury/get hit by a bus etc etc you are likely to lose capacity immediately and your relatives have to sort out all your affairs.

I don’t know but maybe they think someone who keeps asking them to make a will is basically asking them to decide what happens when they die - and maybe they think it’s a pretty shitty thing for them to be forced to think about but someone else.

The "bulk" is not "everything" and the greater the value of the assets, excluding the value of the jointly-owned marital home, the greater the financial loss to the surviving spouse or civil partner.

If they won't make specific funeral plans then funeral directors are highly trained to navigate you through it and you can basically do a relatively straightforward service without having to know what it entails in advance.

Sit them down and do POA for health and finance before, god forbid, they develop dementia, for example. As next of kin, you and your brother inherit, so wills may not be as important. Play on their desire not to be a burden (hopefully) and tell them that organising funeral plans now will be a darn sight cheaper than doing it in say 10 years when they eventually pass.

If the house is jointly owned and the deceased spouse has less than £322,000 in his own name, then everything will go to the surviving spouse.

I would imagine if OP's parents had a house AND more than £644,000 in the bank together, they would have made a will.

While I agree that the OP shouldn't pressure her parents to do anything (particularly as this may result in accusations of undue influence) I don't think it's wrong for the OP to point out what them sitting on their hands will mean for her if she has to pick up the pieces.

Unless they don't want her assistance if they lose capacity and/or aren't intending to leave her anything. (In which case they should make a Will anyway!).

Yes it is. According to recent data, a healthy 70-year-old in the UK can expect to live for an additional 15 years on average for men and 17 years for women, essentially meaning "70 is the new 65" when considering life expectancy. So if a healthy 70yr old man can expect to live until he's 85, then mid-70s is still elderly!

Well said! My husband and I have had Wills (which we've periodically updated, as required) since our late 30's, and LPAs since our late 50's. I'm genuinely amazed (and disappointed) by some people on here thinking that you don't need either until you're creaking with old age or, worse still, at all! 😱I seriously hope they don't experience any of the stories I've read of "unexpected" things happening to people before they grow old.

Well there you go then. I did say unless you're very wealthy, which I suppose is a relative concept but from my perspective that would include you. Having more assets complicates things by definition as there's more to sort out, but also more money to pay a solicitor or whatever. The intestate rules are based on what the average person's will says, so if you're average, it probably won't be too far off what you'd choose for yourself

That's wicked. I do hope your DH renounced his Executorship (he didn't have to do it) and left it to his sister to sort out.

I'm in the same boat ? Mum is 81 and won't conceive of the fact she is getting older and anything could happen at any time . Thinks she's immortal and has no interest in the fact I'll have a monumental mess to sort .

Why a monumental mess?
According to Jung, the human brain can shut out the fear of death by living as though we are immortal. Otherwise it would be a terrible morbid kind of countdown.
I know ninety year olds who are still buying new clothes/decorating their houses, re-doing (via a gardener) their gardens and taking pleasure from life and living. That in turn keeps them young.
I don't disagree about POA which can be kept in your parents' house until/if required, but please don't get them to dwell on death/imagine themselves in their tomb!
They are only mid 70s!!!

Ie you'd lose out in favour of your own children, which usnt everyone's idea if losing out. I have a will, BTW. I just don't think it is as unreasonable as you do to not panic about this.

Well said! Things can change on the flip of a coin when you're younger too (e.g. a car accident that leaves someone alive, but without capacity). I think a lot of the people commenting just don't realise how difficult it would be to do anything for a loved one (or for a loved one to do anything for them) in this sort of situation. I just hope their casual approach to getting LPAs and Wills in place doesn't come back to bite them.