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.

Yes, they "can" apply, not that the must or are expected to do.

A solicitor advised me when i was in my late fifties to make my will and arrange POA so that it was done and I didn't have to think about it any more while I still (I hope) had many years of life ahead.

He said that it's much harder to think about the closer you are to the end of your life.

I'm very glad I received and took this advice.

You would "imagine" but you don't know.

All I can offer is this- if they have specific wishes, they may need to get them sorted asap.

My Dad wanted to be buried in a particular graveyard; but he doesn't live in the 'catchment.' It has taken us 2 years to get this sorted. Mainly because it had to go to the Church for approval and it is slow.........

Essentially, he grew up there, his family live there and 12 members of his family, including his Mum and Dad are buried there; so we had to get all of this together, fill in a document, present a case and then it went for approval. It took forever, and some decent amount of money, but we've got there now.

Maybe, if they have specific wishes, you show that they may not be able to have them, unless pre-organised, that might help them get started. Good luck OP

I assume they have money op? My mums partner died recently. He didn't have any money or funeral plan. His 4 kids had to scrape money together. Then eldest ended up putting thousands towards the funeral on his credit card. You are definitely right to worry.

The property plus £322k of other assets plus half of everything above that will cover the bulk estates for the vast majority of the population.

if they didn't care enough to say then why are you keeping them?

Apt username!

Ageing is unpredictable. If you have the good luck to stay healthy and fit (and obviously it's not all luck, but a lot of it is), yes, of course it's a very good idea to keep active and try to have as positive an outlook on life as possible. However, it's not easy if you have serious health issues that cause pain and discomfort, limit activities and force you to stop doing the things you enjoyed; if you're bereaved; if you have money or family problems; and so on. Loneliness is a huge issue for elderly people.

Why do people do this? You can't cheat death by not thinking about it. All they are doing is making life harder for future you. If they don't want to do this for themselves, they should do it for you.

If you don't know what their wishes are by the time of their deaths you'll just do your best to make good decisions and not feel guilty.

I'm more worried about what a hassle it will be for you sort all the admin - and there is a LOT of it when someone dies - if there is no will. A good will writer could quickly draft two mirror wills after a 30 minute meeting then you put them in a drawer and don't think about them again.

They should also sign lasting power of attorneys for health/welfare and property/finance as this will make your life much easier if one of them loses capacity or if one of them dies and the other isn't capable of doing the admin around their death. Better to to this now and forget about it than have the stress of trying to sort things out when one of them is in hospital.

A direct cremation costs about £1k to £1.5k, you cut your cloth and all that.

Why are some posters posting confidently that you don’t need probate if there’s a will? That’s literally the whole point of probate! To ensure that the will is executed correctly or if the person dies intestate that the intestacy rules are followed. This includes settling debts and any inheritance tax due before paying out to beneficiaries.

The only circumstances where probate isn’t required is where the estate is tiny - ie under a few thousand £s

what people also don't seem to realise is that the "probate" process is also to ensure that the dead person doesn't owe the state anything and that the state doesn't owe them anything. When my grandmother died, she hadn't claimed her state pension for quite some time and so it was owed and paid to her estate. When my late husband died, he owed income tax and the estate had to pay it.

I am not an expert on this by any means, but when my Dad died we showed his will, leaving everything to my Mum, to the bank along with the death certificate and based on that they transferred a small ISA directly to my Mum once we had completed a form. I wonder if the form would have been a bit more complicated if there had been no will.

Each bank sets its own limit as far as I can see and if you have money with them under that limit they don't require probate (or confirmation in Scotland), they just transfer the money to the beneficiary shown in the will. I suppose in the case of intestacy you'd have to tell them who the beneficiaries are. I have no idea what happens if you have a lot of money in total but spread between lots of banks so each bank thinks you are just a small account holder. (Not something we are going to have to deal with, fortunately.)

There is a difference between what banks will or will not do and what the law requires. In my late grandmother's case, going through the "probate" process actually added to her tiny estate through uncollected state pension.

It would also be unusual (though not impossible) for someone who has a share portfolio (as is the case with this OP’s father) to have an estate sufficiently small to fall below the probate threshold.

Have you written your will OP?

If not, lead by example.

Money and property aren’t the only things that matter. Seeing a previously independent(ish) and strong-willed loved one reduced to a bed-bound, delirious and agitated state, being force fed glue-like water and mushy food is just unbearable. Without the health and welfare LPA it can be very very difficult to advocate for them and have their wishes fulfilled. They are largely at the mercies of our very conservative healthcare system, where fear of litigation overtakes kindness and common sense.

@MrsFunnyFanny agree totally.

Threads like this - there's another one currently where the OP is complaining about having to sort through her deceased parents' ornaments - make me re-think my attitude towards the assisted dying bill. There is a recurrent narrative here that old people are a nuisance and should have the good manners to just get themselves tidied up and ready to die, so that they are not a burden on their families. I find it utterly chilling. I write as an old person, one who has a will and an LPA, and who has , in the past, had to arrange funerals and sort out years of accumulated possessions of parents and in-laws. Such is life. When I was filling skips and making runs to charity shops, it never once occurred to me to think that these people should not have had the right to have possessions. And when I was arranging funerals, I never once thought that I wished they had made their wishes clear before they died. I just got on with arranging things with the aid of helpful funeral directors. If assisted dying becomes law, I fear that it may become the thin end of the wedge, where old and disabled people are pressurised by relatives to do the decent thing and get out of here to save everyone extra trouble. I think the OP needs to back off and let her parents do as they wish. Thank God you're not my daughter, OP, or you might find yourself written out of my will in return for your pressure!

What is the OP supposed do with them? Put the out for the bin men?

I ended up with both my parents’ ashes - neither had specified what they wanted done with them. They were sitting there on a shelf for literally years, because one sibling couldn’t agree with any scattering-place I suggested, but couldn’t come up with any practical suggestion, either.

We did agree in the end , but it was over 9 years since my Dm had died, and over 20 since my DF!

You never know what will happen in life. Do not presume your children/loved ones will be fit to sort out your affairs and hoarded possessions in the future. Moving my in laws whilst their son/my dh was undergoing radiotherapy was the most stressful time in our life. I couldn't give a shiney shite about an inheritance.

my parents ashes and those of my late husband were scattered at the crem. I get that its different if sibs can't agree but if it was me and one of my sibs was being intransigent I'd say "ok then you get to store them".

While I agree profoundly with the assisted dying bill, I know what you mean about the moaning. My late Mum loved being surrounded by her stuff especially after she became housebound.

Most people would feel pretty awful if their parents didn't have anyone at there funeral or if they didn't have a headstone.

@gmgnts
I agree. It's very chilling indeed and that's why I think assisted dying is so open to abuse.