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.

As above, when, sadly, the first parent dies, the remaining parent will be next of kin so, with some exceptions, everything passes to them and it will be them making decisions about the funeral.

Don’t assume because they are older (and mid-70s isn’t particularly elderly) they won’t be able to do this. You don’t mention either parent being unwell or having dementia, and it sounds like they are managing their own lives, plus supporting you and your brother, so it is more likely than not they will be capable of this.

(Even if the remaining parent has a dementia diagnosis by then, they may still be able to contribute as capacity isn’t always completely lost in all areas, especially in the early stages, and they may remember details like what their spouse has said about funerals as it would be in their long-term memory.)

When the time comes to plan the second funeral, go back to the same company and ask for the same thing, with whatever tweaks you want; they will have the record of what was done and you’ll have a good idea of what it will cost. If that parent still had the house when they died, it will need to be sold and, unless it is left to just one of you, that will need to be done jointly with your brother.

There is a Tell Us Once service for informing government departments about a death and banks etc have bereavement departments - you won’t need (and are prohibited in law) to access their accounts with their passwords.

Have you made a will? It’s probably more important that you do this than your parents do, as whoever is left behind will need to make arrangements for the care and financial support of your children, and doing so may encourage your parents to at least have the conversations with you.

When my mother died I took the death certificate and her will to her bank (Barclays) to notify them. The person I spoke to gave me an appointment three weeks later to discuss her accounts let alone paying funeral expenses. They did release the money directly to the funeral director's and DH based on invoices and receipts of payment for my mother's funeral and wake, but it took over six weeks and innumerable phone calls to the bereavement team to get the money released. The funeral director must have thought I was trying to stiff him.

It added a whole bunch of stress to an already distressing time. I have rarely dealt with such useless, incompetent people.

To avoid the DC having to deal with such nonsense I have added them to one of my bank accounts that has enough money in it for funeral expenses and running costs for the house for a few months.

OP - while consensus may be funeral plans are a nice to have and ultimately your parents decision, I do hope you find a way to get your parents to set up those legally important wills and PoA- for their benefit as much as yours.

The varying and often shockingly inaccurate responses on this thread show just how important this issue is. The heartache, headache and financial cost to all of affairs not being in order cannot be overstated, and I am really taken aback with the thinking that 'wills are for old people' and it doesnt matter if you dont have one. It really, really does.

If this thread has made you think, its worth at least acquainting yourself with the actual law and looking at wake-up guides such as https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/family/death-plan/

It can be quite a faff and/or expense to get wills and powers of attorney put in place so there are always plenty of excuses for putting it off. But there are helpful resources and lower cost solutions out there. Knuckle down and get it done whatever age you are.

Maybe she had the old style P of A, without (IIRC) a health and welfare section.

I have said this before on here, but when doing our Ps of A, dh and I both added a paragraph to state very clearly in what circs. we emphatically would NOT want any life-saving or life-prolonging treatment.

It worries me that otherwise the default seems to be to keep people going no matter how poor the quality of life, even if someone’s bedbound with e.g. advanced dementia or a catastrophic stroke.

@angelickaty but if the house is held as joint tenants which us the default for married couples then it won't form part of the estate and the £322k threshold will only apply to other assets. Maybe in your circle it's normal to have that level of assets on top of the marital home, in which case I agree it's worth spending on some inheritance planning if you want to avoid tax (though I am never so sure why the cats' home is a better beneficiary than the taxpayer coffers personally) but for most people it's true that the surviving spouse will inherit all in intestacy, so important to have a will if that's not what you want and you want to prefer children etc but otherwise not the end of the world.

I think you're entirely reasonable to ask your parents to make provision for their funerals or place of burial and distribution of their assets, and they should do so to help you OP.

The UK government website tells you how their assets will be distributed if they don't make wills - it will be MUCH easier if they do make wills.

Many people do make funeral / burial / cremation plans because handling that without guidance is hard, especially if you're more or less on your own doing it.

But as pp have already said, the most important provision they should make is to establish Lasting Power of Attorney (finance and health & welfare) for you to use should you ever need it. It can be an absolute nightmare to deal with elderly parents' care needs etc if you don't have it. Mid- 70s is in no way 'too early' to be doing this, it needs to be done while people have full capacity and people are really bad at anticipating this. My DM's care home had a number of residents who had become immobile (neuro, osteo etc) or had cognitive problems (stroke, dementias) in their 70s. Almost no-one lives to a ripe old age and simply pops off one morning without intervening years of decline and care needs but people so often refuse to acknowledge this possibility until their children are overwhelmed (daughters mostly).

I've recently dealt with my widowed DM's decline (Parkinson's), care home years, death, cremation and probate - she drew up PoA for me years ago, made as simple a will as possible and told me where she wanted her ashes to go and it was still exhausting and hard.

Of course you're reasonable to want your parents to help you in this.

I'm so sorry your father is putting you in this position - it's totally unfair.
However, OP's situation is different in that both her parents are still alive and if they don't grant LPAs and write Wills then the first deceased will be putting their spouse in a difficult position, not OP. If OP's father, who seems to own the lion's share of their assets, loses capacity without an LPA, he will put his wife in a very difficult position financially whilst he's still alive. Similarly, if he dies first, intestate, she will inherit less than she thought if his estate is valued above £322,000. So, OP's parents may not realise it yet, but in effect they're saying "Fuck you" to each other!
It's terribly sad that people don't realise how incredibly important granting LPAs for their lifetime AND writing Wills for after their death, is. Fortunately, due to your common sense and consideration, your DC won't find themselves in your position and you know they'll thank you for this. 🤗

No I definitely have the health and welfare, it is in a drawer in my bedroom. I think her social worker just accepted I had it and wiped her hands of everything. I think it might be she told care home I had it and they told the GP they use and every one has just accepted it. Bit worrying really.

Just wanted to add with your worries about end of life decisions I e found the GP and care home very supportive. When she was very poorly the GP was the one who suggested leaving her where she was rather than transferring her to hospital for more invasive treatment. She pulled through but it was touch and go.

You get £375k threshold, but each person in a married/civil partner couple gets an additional £175k if property is passed to direct descendent, this can be pooled which means it can reach a £1m before inheritance tax. Private pension is not currently part of inheritance tax and is taxed at beneficiaries income tax rate if not a spouse, but If someone’s dies before age 74 then it is also tax free. This will change in April 2027 when pension will be included in inheritance tax.

"... perhaps helped by him not having a pot to piss in." And that's the point - if he had had an estate worth a reasonable sum, not having a Will would not have made things easier.

Thanks for the reply , that does complicate things it's just my mil and she has all the required ids and bills in her name so that probably made it easy for us to do. We are in Ireland also .

Unless the funeral plan company goes bust (like Safe Hands Plans Ltd and One Life Funeral Planning Ltd) and you join a long line of creditors wondering if you'll get back anything you paid in (some people have lost £1,000s). I'd never buy a funeral plan.

The problem with dying intestate is the that the spouse only gets the first £333k of the estate and the rest is split between spouse and any children. This can cause huge complications for the spouse left behind as they often have less than they think.
www.gov.uk/inherits-someone-dies-without-will/y/england-and-wales/yes/after-jul-2023/yes

I’ve just looked at rules for England and Wales, and Scotland. Whilst you are right the spouse does get the bulk.

And the point about funeral fees going up but you paying a fixed amount, that's because your money was worth more back whe. You paid it out too.

And will likely get the marital home on top if held as joint tenants. I really don't think thus statement is so wrong in the majority of cases (and why it's important to make alternative provision if its not what you want - eg you have prior children)

Do they realise the implications of not writing a Will? Dying intestate can cause extra problems for you

I'm not doing a funeral plan but DH and DS know I want a direct cremation which is the cheapest option, obviously if anyone wants to do the full works they can but I'll be dead anyway.

I think the point is that the surviving spouse won’t know which companies to contact

Exactly. The surviving spouse gets the house if it was jointly owned and over £300,000 plus half the rest. What is then left over goes to the children
So if the estate is comprised of a jointly owned house and less than £322,000 in the bank, the spouse will get everything

TBH I don’t see the need either. I and siblings have arranged a few funerals, and they didn’t involve much apart from one meeting with the funeral director, and deciding what to put on the order of service, finding a photo, choosing any hymns/songs etc.

Any ‘wake’ will never be covered anyway. I had no idea how many would be coming to FiL’s (died in early January) so we just invited everybody back to ours, where I’d prepared two really big shepherd’s pies, ditto two of macaroni cheese, just to have with peas. Worked fine, and thankfully was enough.

Let your parents live their lives. They could have 15 to 20 years left reminding them of their death is morbid.

My estranged father died without leaving a will. As his only child I should have inherited

However his multi millionaire brother decided that I wasn’t his child (even though my distinct hair and eye colour were nothing like my mothers side of the family and were the exact same as his own mothers)

He put himself down as NOK and said there were no other relatives and inherited everything

I didn’t find out he had died till a few years later. I think my father thought I would be the one to inherit if he didn’t leave a will so didn’t think he would have to spell it out in a document

After seeing people who do make wills and listening to their expectations I suggest to everyone writing a will that they don’t assume that if they leave everything to their spouse with the expectation that the children will get it all when the spouse dies that if they want the children to have an inheritance they put it in their will and leave them an inheritance and not leave it up to someone else to do their job for them.

Your parents no matter how much they think they don’t need to write a will, not doing so is leaving them open to having their estate transferred to someone else and their children and family ending up with nothing

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.

As for a funeral, maybe they don’t care about a funeral. I would be proactive and say, I think a direct cremation and scattering ashes is what I would do for you. That’s their chance to object or agree and hey presto you know their wishes and can write down the outline of a plan.

Paying for a funeral gets charged to the estate, and prepaid funerals can be a total rip off anyway. I just used my credit card and got refunded the money when my mum passed away.

The age is one of your post is absolutely shocking! mid 70s? Power of attorney.?