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?!

OP maybe your parents don’t want one of you to be the carer who gets stuck with making tricky decisions, choosing care homes etc
i suspect they are trying to avoid family conflict.
I did the choosing for mum and always felt I had to kind of justify my choices to my siblings. Can be tricky.

I would explore how this will operate in practice. A solicitor will not visit your parents on a daily basis and understand their needs, they will not spend hours on hold calling hospitals and doctors to try and get an appointment, will not drive your parents to dozens of those appointments and listen to the doctors explain the pros and cons of different treatments, their potential costs and their side effects, and the biggest cost of all, will not visit care home after care home and ask staff about the most personal and intimate details of your parents' care.

So are you still expected to do all of that, and then submit a written report to a solicitor requesting them to agree to a course of action?

Will the solicitor's priority be to save money and get a cost effective outcome for your parents, or to spend whatever is needed to give them the best possible quality of life even if it means all their money is spent and the state needs to step in? With the current rules on care home funding I am not even sure if the second option is not the right one.

I actually don't disagree with appointing a solicitor to undertake this role. It sounds sensible, but it is a decision that should have included you and your brother, and you need to understand exactly how all of this will work now while your parents have the capacity to give any directions that are needed. Do not leave it until your parents are unable to act and you are stuck with a legal process that takes months to agree whether or not something should be paid for when they may only have months left to enjoy it.

And how do you think a solicitor would have dealt with all of that?

It sounds like this has given you an opportunity you’ve been waiting for for a while

seeing my parents get older and more vulnerable I would respect their choices tbh. The fact you are using this as an excuse to step back says a lot

Having a disinterested person involved is probably a very smart decision. I’ve seen so many ‘close’ families fall apart over decisions that involve people you care about most. And it’s rarely an even split - one of you would be doing the bulk of the work involved. Thank them for taking your feelings into consideration and hope this is something that won’t be needed further years yet (as someone in my 60s with a child still in uni)!

I can understand that you might feel it's hurtful but honestly, having been through all this with DM - it's incredibly stressful and they have done you a huge favour. I imagine they just want you and your DB to carry on just being their children without having the burden of organising their care. I would think v carefully about punishing them by stepping away because they'll have done it our of kindness/concern

This is a complicated situation. I suggest you ask them to explain it to you in more detail,

Firstly I think you need to find out exactly what they have done. It sounds like they have put all their assets (presumably including the house) into a family trust and appointed a solicitor (or possibly the financial company who manage the trust) as executors. Or possibly both.
This is purely a management of financial assets decision and not something you would necessarily expect them to discuss with you.
And I imagine they will have written a detailed Expression of Wishes to explain how they want their money to be spent.

Now, the Attorney stuff. This is different. There are two types of Lasting Power of Attorney (LPA) - one for finance and one for health and welfare. Have they set either of those up? I would guess not - because when you set up a LPA you have to notify affected persons, and I can't imagine any reputable solicitor doing that without insisting you and your brother are informed. But ask them what they have done.

I suppose I should state my credentials here .... I am just going through this with my elderly and very frail mother - and, yes it is stressful.
Point 1 above, the family trust, will have been done with the intention of saving you and your brother time, trouble and stress - and personally I think it's a good idea.

On the subject of LPAs, it's no good saying it only cuts in when they lack capacity. It doesn't work like that
The LPA has to be triggered BEFORE they lack capacity, it's almost impossible to do it afterwards.

IF the solicitor has both LPAs, how do you think a solicitor is going to handle their care?

I care for my husband with dementia, so I have spent some time working with care homes in recent times for respite. I can see a logic in what your parents are trying to do. It takes a lot of pressure off you as children if it comes to this (it may not). Families come in all shapes and sizes. Sadly in mine, my DS has defrauded his father after falling ill with dementia and I would not trust him to choose care for DH if I was not here, so clear arrangements have been made with solicitors.

Probate is not difficult, even when you are grieving.

Why would you throw your assets to a solicitor and not your children? (unless ofc division of your estate is complex and very high value)

Agreed!

I wish my mother would set up something like this so I don’t have to sort all this out when the time comes and deal with my mess of a sister at time same time.

It sounds like your parents have set this up to protect you and your brother rather than to hurt you.

I could imagine a solicitor being appointed if there were no close family but they have two children.

OPs parents were talking about care homes, not after death!

Even if speaking of both, they do not want to burden their children with any of it. They have it all sorted. Good for them!

I know you’ve answered that it’s very likely not a scam but they was a very interesting investigative podcast on bbc sounds covering a topic like this about real solicitors coercing older people into these kind of agreements, so it would be worth getting the full details from them on what they have in place just to be absolutely sure.

Honestly it may be a blessing. This is now the set up with an elderly family member of mine and it's enabled us to just be their family and love them rather than the people making all the difficult decisions (which may not always be in line with what they want and are rarely simple to agree on between you). Before that it was tearing our family apart.

From personal, bitter experience I can tell you that they have done a wonderful, wonderful thing for you.

I agree probate is simple - if the Will is straightforward. I've done it Australia and the UK. I did it precisely because I didn't want to piss away money on solicitor's fees and their dilatory ways.

My concern about appointing a solicitor as trustee is while they can see money isn't squandered by a care home suggesting a lovely pic in the parents' room is changed three-monthly and charge like a wounded bull for it, they, quite rightly, charge for every action they do.

Elderly parents care!

"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."

It doesn't sound like they understand what they have actually done. Is it a trust? Is it a trustee for their will? Is it an LPA?

Sounds like your brother can look all this up, OP! (Not because you lack capacity, but because he is a solicitor).

I should add that the OP's parents, doing as they did is entirely their own affair and the only bit that took me aback was the OP's finding it "offensive". Bloody hell. A really overused word these days and OTT in this context.

I would be slightly wary of this. It isn't clear from the OP what they have actually done. Is is a power of attorney or something else?

If they have only given a financial POA and not a health one then the OP and her brother could be left dealing with care and having to ask whoever is dealing with the finances for money to pay for things which that person may not agree to.

Are you sure they really understand the consequences of what they have done?

As your brother is a solicitor would they give him a copy of the relevant documentation they have signed to make sure that there is nothing dodgy about it?

It may be that they mean to make things easier for you but their actions may have the opposite result and will probably cost them a lot of money.

And you think a solicitor is going to sort that? Deal with the issues of what kind of care they need? With the ongoing daily aspect of that?

@feellikeanalien they won’t share any of the documentation

"OPs parents were talking about care homes" even so, @Obscurity

"They have it all sorted. Good for them!" entrusting their well-being, to some rando solicitor, to whom they pay a fee, rather than their own flesh and blood, who may actually be emotionally invested in the quality of their parents' lives?!!

Dubious!