Hello and advice on Eveything Please

[SorryCantBeArsed]

Sorry but this will be long and I'm not sure if anyone has been through similar. Both my dad and step mum have Alzheimer's, I have two step brothers and none of us have POA. I wanted to arrange it after dad was diagnosed but dsm had always sorted out their financial affairs and wasn't willing to let anyone else take this on. my dad has had a rapid decline over the last three months and without going into detail he was detained under the mental health act almost two weeks ago. He has got worse since being admitted and has also had a fall fracturing his pelvis. There is no way he will be able to return home with the problems he had and my step mums memory is becoming increasingly worse. Every morning she calls me to ask what she has to do that day and I will have the same conversation three and four times a day but she just can't hold on to the information. After having seen my dad yesterday she has admitted that she could not cope at all with him and had said she is struggling herself. She has careers going twice a day to check on her meds and keep an eye on her. Today she has decided that she wants to move somewhere smaller and probably sheltered housing and that she wants to arrange a new will and POA. I need to speak to a solicitor about it all but does anyone have any ideas on how this works. They both had wills but as dad no longer has capacity his can't be redone.ive no idea if the house can be sold if he can't sign anything. I've don't know how long before dad will be able to leave hospital but he will need 24 hour care as he gets very agitated and doesn't sleep until the early hours and is incontinent though dsm misses him being at home she couldn't take this on herself even with carers, both myself and her GP were really concerned for her before dad went in to hospital and I think she'd have a breakdown if he went home. I wirk full time and live an hour away so can't just pop round but we speak several times a day. I want to support her as best as I can but I don't know how to stop her being lonely, the house is far from ideal so a move would be good but I'm worried that if it's done too quick she won't settle either. Any ideas and help would be much appreciated

POA or equivalent sounds critical.

Has your dad made out a POA in favour of your step mum? If not you have a problem and may need to apply to the Court of Protection as he is too late to grant it. If he has, you may be in just about enough time for your Step mum to grant POA to you.

You dont need to use a solicitor for a POA but given you are dealing with someone who already does not have capacity you may need to. If he has given your step mum POA then you could look on the OPG website and perhaps just fill out the forms so her granting of POA to you is done. You could ask in the legal section of the Alzheimer's Society how you take up POA for you dad given it is passed through your step mum.

Sheltered sounds like a good idea. (Very sheltered - do not think about "retirement homes" of the sort marketed by McCarthy and Stone. You want somewhere with a 24 hour warden and ideally a restaurant or a coffee lounge.) Get your step mum hand over paperwork to one of you. Honestly my mum made such a mess in the two years when she was first widowed and trying to cope without a memory that it took me over two years to unravel and we were very lucky that "fraud" was in the thousands not tens of thousands. Talk to your siblings about how you might want to share the burden. One doing finance which can be done remotely, another organising care, another taking on more of the visiting or helping with the property transactions. Dont expect it to be even. It never is.

Then do your sums:

1. can she afford to move without selling. (We essentially gave my mum a bridging loan by remortgaging as the money was there but inaccessible in the short term.)

1. what properties are available. Good ones often have waiting lists. Get three estate agents in early to look at how much it is worth, and how much work/decluttering is needed to maximise its value.

1. what are care costs likely to be. Is there likely to be any help from Social Services. (And in the short term, until any POA/Court of Protection stuff is done, will they need a SS loan against the future value of the house. Really worth having an early dicussion with SS once you have worked out what the best approach legally is, not least because they should know about sheltered options.)

In short the first step has to be to find out how much there is available and take steps to ensure it is accessible. Then you can look at options.

The will is a different issue. In your case it probably needs to be done as I assume that if your father dies first, everything passes to your step mother and perhaps then to her children, bypassing you.

Unless they are well over thresholds, I assume that your father making a will is less important as everything just goes to her.

Thanks Need, it all sounds good advice
The house would be a project to sort. It's in decent decorative order but it's around fifty years old and other than an extension, has the original fuse board and wiring and it doesn't have central heating both of which would need doing but I'm not sure it's something we would want to have done before selling, I'm not sure doing them would increase the value more than the cost. She could move and rent sheltered housing before the house sold so that is an option. As for dads care costs I've not hit a clue. He went in to respite care though it only turned out to be four days before he got sectioned. That was nursing and ss secured funding for the nursing part before he went in but we still haven't been told how much the care part was yet, I need to speak to dads last social worker to ask her for some help with all this, as she knows the situation but since dad went to hospital her role finished with him

"I'm not sure doing them would increase the value more than the cost."

which is why I was suggesting you spent a morning showing the property to estate agents. Three or four, half an hour each.

You ask them:

1. What is the house worth.
2. Who is likely to buy. (Developers, young families willing to take on a project etc)
3. How long is it likely to take to sell. (If there are ony a few potential buyers or the local market is weak it might be a while. In London in contrast everything is so expensive that people will look at outdated property if it means a chance to buy a house at an affordable price.)
4. Does the estate agent have potential buyers currently on their books.
5. Are there any immediate works which would help increase the value. Decluttering, tidying up the front garden etc.

You then get both a sense of the value of the property and how quickly you are likely to be able to realise that value, as well as an idea of which agent you would want to use. So when you decide to put it on the market you can do so quickly.

Particuarly with development properties you need to be carefully of agents who are cosy with developers. Four quotes should give you an idea of anyone who is trying to undervalue. Ditto beware if one quote is higher than others. They might just want the instructions. (Hello Foxtons!)