No POA or wills and dementia what is the likely outcome?

[Skippythebeercan]

So as above really, MIL has dementia (although still awaiting diagnosis), it seems likely that she has had it for some time - looking back maybe as long as 7 years. We have brought up the subject of POA and wills several times over the last couple of years and have been met with a flat no. I have scoured the internet for articles to send on explaining why it is a good idea and have looked through forums for ways of presenting it, and still a firm no. We are now at a point where I'm not sure we could ask MIL to sign it as I don't believe she would actually have any comprehension of what she was doing.

FIL is 10 years younger than MIL and still in good health and determined that POA is not required, it is clear now that we are not going to get it and so I wonder what this looks like going forward. I'm well aware that we could potentially be looking at deputyship in the future and that bills and finances may become impossible. But, I'm also aware that sometimes things do not play out like they are supposed to and I wondered if anyone had any experience of a parent with dementia with no POA and a well husband/wife where the lack of POA wasn't too much of a barrier.

If you can get him to add you to his bank account as a 3rd party it helps a lot to mitigate the difficulties. But if he won't set up a POA I guess he's unlikely to agree to that. When FIL died and the POA for MIL was still going through her care home bills just had to go unpaid until it had been processed. At the time it was taking 6 months and it was lucky care was partially funded so had been arranged had been arranged via social services and they were the ones billing so were fine to wait. I don't know what would have happened if we were paying direct. When she first had her stroke even cancelling her book club subscription was a nightmare for FIL.

Google the intestacy rules to see what you're dealing with first. I did this once when a friend was getting extremely stressed about her imminently dying ex-husband's failure to provide a will for their children, and we worked out that the rules of intestacy were pretty much what she would have wanted to see anyway.

My mum never gave us POA for health. It has been far from great, but most of the doctors we met with have been quite pragmatic. They're supposed to get your opinion before making decisions in her best interests anyway.

If she does or did anything at all by email, see if she will share her email password, at least with her partner if not with you.

Consult with her partner, and draft letters giving her GP permission to talk to a named list of people. If he can get her to sign it, it's a good backup. Likewise third party access to her bank account.

If you can't get any of this... stop worrying. Que sera sera. You can let go of trying to get things right for her, because she won't let you.