What steps do we 50 somethings need to take to avoid the situation many of us find ourselves with our elderly relatives?

[Mxflamingnoravera]

Many of on here vow that we will never put our children through what we are going through with our oldies. I'm one of them, but, unsure what I need to do (apart from set up LPA and a will). What are your suggestions for steps we can take?

It might be good to set up a checklist for different stages of our adult lives, depending on how old our children are. My son is 27 and has agreed to do LPA.

Yes I know - but as I said, with the situation between DH and SIL being so hideous we would rather pay the money. I have seen how she has controlled and coerced MIL over the years - we would have involved the police and social services if we didn’t genuinely believe that she would successfully persuade MIL to cut all ties with us - that I don’t want to risk a similar thing happening to my DC. We may decide in the future to change it and use other family members but at the moment it’s the solicitor.

Thanks for your replies to my comment. I've started it as a new thread but thought to reply to those who kindly responded.
@Blossomtoes so sorry to hear that your parent passed away so soon after going into care.

@PermanentTemporary yes, when we move it'll be a new area for all of us so yes she won't have her friends close by. In fact she's refused to tell one of her closest friend she's moving cos her friend has two sons, one in Italy and another in Australia and her husband is getting quite frail. The sons are married with no plans for their parents. MIL says she'll give some amount towards her annex. Not a lot and my husband will do all that is possible to ensure his siblings don't feel sidelined. DH's parents will all their belongings + house to DH but after his dad died and he saw the will he asked his mum to please divide it equally btw them even though he's taken care of them and left his job to look after his dad when he was terminally ill.

@Egeegogxmv in the past year she's now says we have to "share"! :) We just have to be mindful how we manage when she moves in with us.
@FinallyHere I did ask DH what the plan is for when she needs full time care, he said she's accepted that e can get help in but her desire is that DH looks after her not anyone else.

@Mxflamingnoravera

Very pragmatically and I know there have been more serious posts - but having had to sort out DFILs stuff

1. yes POA ( LPA ) - my father has done one for me , we have done one for my son. DFIL would not - so when he stopped knowing how to access his bank account we were lucky in that between DH and his two siblings we could pay the modest costs he needed

2. This will sound trivial but it isn't - but having had to clear out DFIL's house , I am so much better at throwing stuff out / decluttering. I had to go many miles to make sure my in law's house was cleared out. Downton Abbey is was not. But I had to book myself into a hotel overnight because a modestly sized house had so much "stuff" the clearance people could not do it in one day. ( & DSIL had already given it a good go) .

Taking notes. Have already discussed some of this with my mum who wanted to get things sorted.

If you don't have children, you need to appoint someone (a relative or solicitor normally) to look after your affairs if you can't yourself or when you die.

No you don't. If you don't have children you don't have to make any arrangements at all. When I die, all 'my affairs' will be someone else's problem. That's the beauty of having no dependants

@ABBC

If you don't have children, you need to appoint someone (a relative or solicitor normally) to look after your affairs if you can't yourself or when you die.

No you don't. If you don't have children you don't have to make any arrangements at all. When I die, all 'my affairs' will be someone else's problem. That's the beauty of having no dependants

Agree on the "when you die" bit, but I am concerned about LPA for when I go dotty or incapable physically, I don't have kids, nor a partner, so I don't know who to nominate. Probably my niece I guess.

IME VanGoghsDog a supportive niece or nephew can be the best person.
They can know you well enough to represent your likely wishes and love you enough to advocate for you but not love you so much that they get caught up in their own needs.

I would say that financial LPA is fairly essential and a good thing for anyone to do. If you lose capacity then no-one else can manage your affairs unless you have appointed someone and the alternative is someone has to apply to the courts for deputyship and it takes ages whilst debts build up. It is a fair amount of responsibility and so the person nominated has to understand that and be genuinely willing. A solicitor is good for this if there are substantial funds and no family. If there is very little and no-one else is willing an LA social worker will do the very basics only.

Health and welfare LPA isn't essential in the same way because if you don't have it best interests decisions will be taken by Drs, nurses, social workers and they have to consult family by law. If you have mainstream medical views and no special requests then in fact this default position is fine for many people who actually prefer experts to take decisions on their behalf.
Choosing not to make a health and welfare LPA is a perfectly OK decision in my book and many people might prefer not to burden family with resus decisions and care home decisions etc.

I don't think everyone should just be encouraged to make both without really thinking it through. I personally would not make a H&W LPA although I am a Dr. I trust fellow professionals and don't want my family taking such decisions. I also would not necessarily take H&W LPA for an aunt or uncle unless I was very close to them so as to be able to represent their views.

We have made wills and check that they are current regularly. Everything is left split equally to the children so no surprises coming their way when we die. Plan to sell up and move to a bungalow when we are 65. Have seen my in laws in a huge 5 bed house that was too much for them for years and now they are both dead we are having to chuck out 60 years worth of stuff, including every personal letter they ever received which were stashed in the loft (I burnt them and did not read them).

Also, if you have dependent disabled children make sure they are suitably independently housed rather than hoping that their siblings will take over as their parents when you die. It's an unkind burden to place on siblings.

I'm still here as are many others. Thanks all. I'm still interested to hear of anything else. I listened to the Art of Swedish Death Cleaning and I'm going to start this very evening, a charity bag is due on the doorstop tomorrow morning full of clothes I've not worn in over three years and so never likely to wear again.

Next, the (wo)man drawers, full of tools, unused specs, wrapping paper etc. I reckon I can get rid of 2/3rds.

And then, it's the under stairs cupboard etc... ad infinitum.

Am pretty good at getting rid of stuff so not much more to do there, Am in a bungalow at the moment but garden is massive. Thinking of moving soon. Don't really have anyone to sign a lpa so will try and keep as fit as possible and hope for the best. Have some rental properties which would be sold and keep me in a nice care home for a while hopefully

When my mum went into a care home my ifa suggested an annuity, we used a lump of her savings to cover 2/3 of her fees. This will continue until she dies, if she lives 7 years since it was taken out, we effectively make money as it will have paid out more than it was purchased for. We are 2 years in and she is fit and well physically and I can easily imagine her lasting 7 years. I cannot tell you how much of a relief it is to know that her care home fees are covered fir life and we have managed to keep some of her savings which is invested. My suggestion is to speak to an IFA who specialises in elderly clients (mine is chartered) to discuss paying for care if you want to leave something to children and cover care home fees.

@Mxflamingnoravera - just to add to previous post - obviously the legal and financial things are important - but I will reiterate - I shall never forget the days ( after the days DSIL took ) clearing out DPil's house .I have been decluttering like merry hell since then . I did it ( clearing DPIL's house ) because 1) DH and his sister were in full time jobs and other sibling lives abroad. They went and took anything meaningful they wanted.

So being retired I said I would go and sort it out. By goodness it took a while and also I think DSIL may have not liked to see DMil's various crockery , kitchen stuff , books , things in the attic which came out at Christmas , ornaments , computers & lots of cables because DFIL thought "they would come in handy) furniture etc etc and so much other stuff which all siblings remember as their parent's "stuff" etc it took 3 days to empty the house, I did it because as an in law & more time on my hands it seemed to be the obvious thing. ( and to be fair I found it poignant and did shed tear - I think Dsil would not have liked to see her parent's things being just shoved into the various bags they use for different waste.

I tried to give stuff away to charities etc - it was not easy

So the one lesson this taught me ( or indeed a resolution ) is that if you have children , keep on top of stuff & keep what you need or love or enjoy because clearing out a whole load of stuff which no body cares about is expensive and takes lots of time but is very poignant and sad at the same time

@Mxflamingnoravera

When my mum went into a care home my ifa suggested an annuity, we used a lump of her savings to cover 2/3 of her fees. This will continue until she dies, if she lives 7 years since it was taken out, we effectively make money as it will have paid out more than it was purchased for. We are 2 years in and she is fit and well physically and I can easily imagine her lasting 7 years. I cannot tell you how much of a relief it is to know that her care home fees are covered fir life and we have managed to keep some of her savings which is invested. My suggestion is to speak to an IFA who specialises in elderly clients (mine is chartered) to discuss paying for care if you want to leave something to children and cover care home fees.

That is such a helpful post. I had no idea such a thing existed and will look into it.

www.moneyadviceservice.org.uk/en/articles/immediate-needs-annuity

Info on annuities for care fees.

Here is an example of an immediate needs annuity: www.livein-care-comparison.co.uk/annuity.aspx?gclid=CjwKCAjwwqaGBhBKEiwAMk-FtJ8UGUjksqlC287p1ocnEsb-x5EGDv1kT58xXwVp1Vpymap_aitijhoCWvYQAvD_BwE

My DM has a notebook she's written in her bank & building society details, car information, pension, solicitors, dentist, loyalty card info etc so that if anything happens to her we don't have the added distress of looking for anything and everything is in order.

Great question. Not sure if anyone has mentioned this, but consider an advanced directive for oneself, declining life-prolonging treatment, such as antibiotics, when extremely old and frail, or with advanced dementia. I will link to a temple later.

For the person asking about the rules on inheritance tax and downsizing - here they are. Complicated to calculate but basically yes, you can downsize or go into a care home without losing the IHT break.
www.gov.uk/guidance/how-downsizing-selling-or-gifting-a-home-affects-the-additional-inheritance-tax-threshold

@Mxflamingnoravera

When my mum went into a care home my ifa suggested an annuity, we used a lump of her savings to cover 2/3 of her fees. This will continue until she dies, if she lives 7 years since it was taken out, we effectively make money as it will have paid out more than it was purchased for. We are 2 years in and she is fit and well physically and I can easily imagine her lasting 7 years. I cannot tell you how much of a relief it is to know that her care home fees are covered fir life and we have managed to keep some of her savings which is invested. My suggestion is to speak to an IFA who specialises in elderly clients (mine is chartered) to discuss paying for care if you want to leave something to children and cover care home fees.

My cousin did that for my auntie (with Auntie's money), but she died very quickly, within a year. My cousin felt guilty as my mum was the main beneficiary, and she got substantially less than she might have done. So it's a bit of a risk.

Sorry I didn't mean to sound grabby in my last post. I think my cousin was badly-advised to buy that annuity for my aunt, as she was in a bad way when he bought it.

Yes, a risk, but all financial products carry risk. My mums would have paid out 70% if she died in the first year, 50% in the second and a sliding cake to 4years. For me the peace of mind of knowing she's paid for is worth the risk. My advisor talked me through the risk implications before I signed up.

Sliding cake! = sliding scale !

My parents sold the family home in their early 70's and bought a 2 BR FLAT in middle of town. They have their 4 children a decent sum of money each to help with our mortgages and have willed anything left to be shared between their grandchildren. They got rid of all their lifetime clutter. They have wills, POA's and advance directives. My mum had cared for 3 elderly relatives and did not wish to make same mistakes.

Thanks for info on annuity not sure if it helps my mother but could help my kids. I’m currently dealing with my mum’s affairs and provide some care plus daughter visits regularly; but she is at home at the mo on a full care package put in by the council, but I’m not sure how long this is manageable - and so I’m just really worried about care home costs - as in she has sufficient savings and her house to pay for a certain length of time but it is going to be terribly difficult assessing how long that cash has to last for so how nice a home she could go into. I came on to say that it’s all very well expecting that people use their homes to fund nice care, but when the money runs out either family top up or you’re moved to the cheapest council can find - possibly more than once as cheaper rooms come up. This is very well known for literally advancing some deaths - let alone upsetting and distressing.
Note I’m not against paying for care though will say the household council provided care varies in cost as to where you live - my mum for example pays £375 a week as maximum but Hammersmith residents pay nothing at all; to be fair the other way my mum would be paying £400 per day for the actual costs, if no top limit in her council so expect that varies considerably. To add further on this council charges £25 per hour per carer though carers get the minimum wage themselves so guess there would be options of private in house care if paying full amount. It’s a difficult costly system that 75% of folk don’t pay for so guess they have to find somehow - Hammersmith said they cut out magazine runs and some managers 🤷🏼‍♀️