Is this quite common or would you also feel incredibly hurt by your parents?

[Regainlap]

Last weekend we (me and my brother and our kids) went to see my DM and DF (sixties).

The topic of a care homes came up as a documentary was on the tv late afternoon. This was about failing care homes. My mum, almost out of nowhere, said well we’ll be in charge of where we go as we’ve set up a trustee/nominated person to make these decisions with our finances for where we get to that stage.

Brother was equally as taken aback at the time and parents then said they had done it so me and brother didn’t have any disagreements and to ensure me and him weren’t put under pressure to deal with it all.

I accept I have little to no knowledge as to what’s usual in these circumstances but I know my mum was in charge of my gran’s circumstances at that point and the same with my dad and his mum. I just find it so offensive and hurtful that they’d rather appoint essentially a stranger instead of their own DC. AIBU?!

no one is suggesting having a solicitor doesn’t mean you don’t love your parents and don’t plan to visit them ever again, that view might be unique to you and your parents if you do think that. It means you have an impartial view comparing the options not you sitting there at midnight as it’s your only free time in floods of tears looking at details and setting up direct debits and billings etc.

I don't know. This whole thread is rather thin on facts and full of speculation.
If all they've done is put their money & assets into a family trust and appointed an external executor then yes I think that's a sensible decision which will take stress off their children.

If there's more to it, like LPAs, then that is harder to understand.

Yes, most probably

I saw the fallout between mum and uncle

I saw the fallout within my immediate family when dad died

We are still living with the fallout of MIL's death

If having a third person as executor saves a family Im all for it

Im charged with POA ( if needed ) Im also executor . I have two sisters, one in Oz ( very much understanding ) and an estranged from the whole family sister. I know mother has changed her will to exclude the estranged sister , and yet Im the executor?

How do you think that makes me feel?

We are estranged, but she's my sister and I love her, yet I have to follow the rules. It's going to be hard and there will be fall out

Paying someone else, outside of the family, to settle affairs , seems to me to be sensible

Your mother always criticises you
and
You describe your relationship with your brother as “fine” ie doesn’t sound remotely close.
and
Your parents know how you and your brother operate together better than anyone else

Your parents sound as though they have been abundantly sensible

So you’re going to be moody and off with your parents? Distance yourself? Cause drama?

My mum had to manage all her mum’s affairs for years, including arranging care. It was extremely time consuming and stressful. It also caused bad feeling between her siblings when they felt one was doing more.

I’d hope your parents are trying to relieve you of all that.

I think I may do the same. I suspect my daughter’s view of how she would manage that situation differs from my view of how she would manage it. She’s always erred on the side of overconfidence and perhaps not a great eye for detail. Are you the same? Anyway I wouldn’t want that uncertainty so may choose a similar path.

I imagine your parents are trying to be independent and hoping to avoid their children being under pressure.
The finance lpa may work well but the health and welfare one is another matter.
If the LPAs have appointed an attorney who will be acting as a friend but who happens to be a solicitor and knows them well now and will remain in contact for the next 20 years then this might work.
If it is a solicitor acting as a professional attorney it probably won't.
I have experience of a solicitor acting as a professional attorney and it has been a disaster.
They don't have frequent contact with the donor and are not involved in practical support - keeping track of / chasing up and going with the donor to medical appointments , collecting prescriptions ,sorting out maintenance of house and home appliances, explaining that a letter is not from an opticians reminding that an eye test is due but a essentially a flyer from a firm looking for clients, arranging delivery of frozen ready meals, taking the pet to the vets.
And if they did do any of that how much will they charge?
Will hospitals and the GP be happy to share info with relatives if they know that there is an attorney chosen by the parents who will be acting for them should they loose capacity and the H&W lpa become active ?
Will the attorney keep the relatives in the loop?
The parents are their clients and the solicitor is duty bound to respect their wishes re what they share .
It is rare to have a professional attorney for a H&W lpa and I would question the suitability of such an arrangement , the costs involved and whether they have any experience in that field.

So @Regainlap to answer one of your questions ; no it's not common to have a professional attorney for H&W.

Dealing with the admin and paperwork. Researching and having the discussions about options. Keeping them financially safe when they can no longer do this themselves.

People are saying ‘the lawyer won’t go over in the night’ - and of course they won’t. I don’t either, I live in a different country from them and my brother lives with them and does the day to day care.

But just the admin / finance / decision-making side is enough to be completely overwhelming and if they had worked with their local solicitor - who we’ve all known for decades and trust - and put a plan in place we both would have been delighted.

And they would likely have, too - as they’d then have called the shots on how decisions were to be made when they still could. Instead my brother and I had to convince them to let us help when they were clearly no longer able, and by then they’d also lost the ability to tell us how their affairs were set up.

Pre-planning would have beem such a blessing - as my final time with my dad could have been much more about being his daughter and showing him love and much less about working out how to use a POA and how his pensions worked and how he would be able to pay for his care and the. guessing his wishes about how he’d want to manage trade-offs between his level of care and retaining resources for my mother and brother (who is disabled).

I would not have felt he didn’t trust me - I’d have felt he was retaining his autonomy and caring for us all as he had all his life.

OP, you are making this all about you - how you feel, how it effects you ... zero thoughts about or empathy towards your parents.

And you are massively overreacting.

I think your mum and dad have planned carefully to make your life easier when the time comes. I find their decision is very considerate and thoughtful actually.

So many posters seem to have NO idea about an attorney's role when it comes to health and welfare.
They are not there to " call the shots" . They are not there to force.someone to go into residential care against their wishes.
How does anyone think that would work in practice ???
They are there to represent the donor's wishes.
And they are expected to do this by taking into account the.donors past wishes.
And consulting with relatives and friends.
And they can only take on that role when they donor had lost capacity.
AND if someone has lost capacity the person making decisions will not be the attorney, it will be the lead person in whatever situation required a decision ...so a medical person if it is a question of discharge from.hodpital back home or into care.
Social services if it is a question of a care package.
Links to follow in my next post

https://www.gov.uk/make-decisions-for-someone/making-decisions

Capacity is decision dependent .it is not a line in the sand .
The person assessing capacity "will usually be the person who is directly concerned with them at the time the decision needs to be made – for example, a family member, carer, healthcare professional or lawyer, depending on the circumstances."
The attorney is there to represent the donor's wishes NOT to make the decision .
So if a professional feels the donor should go into a home then the attorney is there to argue the donors case that they have expressed wishes in the past not to go into a home.
Or vice versa.

Thank you @limetrees32

i had taken it that they would just be their voice - I don’t know why others think they were going to pop round and make their tea!!

it’s not about trust - it’s about taking the emotion out of it. A lot of pp have mentioned how they have fallen out with family or the parent themself when it comes to decisions. Having someone dispassionate helps take that emotional labour away. Even if you disagree with a decision you can at least feel comfortable that your parent made the choice

We’re they mean to you as kids and think you’re getting revenge 🙈
let them carry on it’s an exhausting time with elderly parents so they have sorted it out with future planning now you both just need to visit once a fortnight stress free.

It is NOT common to appoint a solicitor as an attorney for health and welfare.

See extract from.SRA research

SRA | Law firms offering good standard of support on powers of attorney | Solicitors Regulation Authority share.google/OgSIRxSZIdWDnU7st

Personally, I would rather kill myself than g bc e a burden on my kids. Do you think your parents feel similar?
Most people look on caring for their parents as an awful burden which kills any love they may have had.

Not sure why you can’t see it from their pov.

wWhy are you hurt?

I'm admiring RedAndWhiteBlanket's tenacity on this one .

It does sound as if the parents have funds and they could have done a number of things, which OP isn't entirely clear on.

There are two main roles they've possibly designated: Firstly, holder(s) of Lasting Powers of Attorney which give the holder the power to access and pay out the donor's funds (LPA finance) either alongside the donor while they have capacity or when the donor no longer has capacity, so: pay bills, ask banks to release funds as needed. To make decisions about care support and medical treatment, someone needs a LPA health and welfare, only to be used after the donor has lost capacity. Both LPAs must only be used in the best interests of the donor(s).

The can also appoint a trustee(s) who can oversee a financial trust of some kind, or an inheritance in the longer term and make decisions about how money should be appropriately distributed.

The two LPAs and trustees can all be different people or all the same person.

My experience is: I held both types of LPA for my DM, and I have given my own LPA permissions to my solicitor's firm (finance) and friends (health and welfare). I'm 61 and have no children or relatives.

My solicitors won't take LPA health and welfare, I understand solicitors normally don't, and I can't imagine how solicitors could fulfill that role in any case. They will access and use my finances to pay bills in the event I lose capacity. The decisions informing the solicitor on how to pay out funds will be made by: me in a guidance document, by my friends in various scenarios (and I've made a separate guidance document for them) and the various people who would submit bills or might have input as e.g. HCPs.

So the solicitor is just a professional person with authority to administer bank accounts and similar on demand. The people who have to make the domestic and care decisions are the parents themselves (including in advance instructions and statements of wishes), LPA health / welfare holder(s) and / or family i.e. daughters and DiLs, and adult social care and HCPs.

It depends on what combination of roles the parents have designated as to what input OP and her brother will have. They may be asked to make some or all of the domestic care decisions without having the power to administer the funds (and yes, solicitors will charge a good whack for doing that), or another unknown person or body may have been appointed to oversee support and care etc. and / or to make longer term judgements about how to use or distribute the parents' funds. Unless the parents explain in detail what they have done, it's not an unburdening of the adult children is it? Of course, it may not be possible, in reality and down the line, to fulfill the conditions the parents initially wanted: adult social care and HCPs can be the final arbiters, as can soaring care costs.

I'm admiring RedAndWhiteBlanket's tenacity on this one
Me too .
They are probably astounded by the misconceptions on this thread.
Misconceptions that persist despite common sense .
I can only think that this is because posters are desperate to believe that there is a solution to the frequently complex and difficult task of caring for the elderly.
Reader IT'S NOT HAVING A SOLICITOR AS A PROFESSIONAL ATTORNEY FOR H&W.

Yep, and everyone does understand completely of course that absolutely nobody is proposing that the solicitor is some sort of fairy godmother or will take over everything but instead everyone is well aware that the solicitor can and will assist the elderly parent to implement their own financial decisions - and that's all anybody would expect.

Bizarre to keep throwing strawmen into the mix, but I suppose when it's all you've got, people will keep trying.

Anyway the main thing is that the OPs parents want this extremely specific assistance, and they're getting it, despite the faux outrage and attempts to deflect and derail.