legal elderly housing advice needed

[ednaclouda]

legal question - if dad 97 recently widowed Call him Lewis
NOT LISTED ON MORTGAGE DEEDS has paid into the household for 35+ years has a good pension (army) thats been paying ALL the bills for spouse Call her millie who has recently died

lewis and millie are married 35 years ago. again. he's not on the deeds

Lewis in a wheelchair we can't get a guarantor to fund his care costs to go into a residential home where he would thrive and hv a much better life quality
millies chldren want him to sign a lifetime residency (don't know what this is )

I KNOW HE'S NOT ON THE DEEDS I KNOW THIS DONT KEEP BRINGING IT UP

Millies kids will start pushing for the house money how can I find out if they have begun contentious probate
a will was drawn up july 2025 by both of them but we have gp + nhs paperwork that is dated april 2025 where millie has been diagnosed with dementia I dont want dad drwn into legal solictor lagal mess cos it just stresses him out.

millies kids are back stabbing and underhand and lewis is scared that hes going to be put out of the house. what is my next move how do we get evidence of 35 years of keeping the house going by Lewis HIM.

advice please not just stating facts he's not on the deeds.
I know this.
I know this

OK, so lewis children are to receive 50% of the total estate, that's enough to pay for him to move into a carehome. Probate will be needed which will take months and the house can't be sold until all the estate accounts are settled. As equal beneficiaries I'd ask for a copy of her will and the executors instructions.

This sounds exactly right.
You need to do everything you can to protect Lewis from being coerced into signing anything.
Speak to Age UK and ask about safeguarding/elder abuse/financial abuse.
If you are Lewis' child, you (and any of your full siblings) have been left 50% of the estate. So as long as nobody signs anything, you have time to get legal advice. Make sure you have all your facts and paperwork straight before you see your solicitor.

Do not agree to lewis or yourself signing anything, do not ask millie children to act as guarantors, he doesn't need that. As pp says take advice from ageuk, you cannot change the locks if 50% of her house belongs to her children, they cannot force him out if 50% of the house now belongs to you. Nothing can happen without probate.

some things need to be done by deadlines in legal situations, such as six months, so don’t dawdle get legal advice for him asap. sign nothing.

Is Lewis in England or Wales?

So you're saying Lewis your dad needs to go into a care home? Has he had a social services care needs assessment to confirm that? Or could he cope at home with daily carers visits.?

If he went into a care home, you're saying that he doesn't own a share in the property. Does he have savings over £23k ? If he has less he wouldn't be a self funder.

I want to be helpful

I am quite confused

If 50% of the House is going to you, then can’t you cover the guarantee for the care home?

Also, when you say that Millie’s kids want him to sign for a lifetime trust, isn’t that them offering him the chance to live in the house for the rest of his life? Obviously, if he doesn’t want that, it’s different. But it sounds like they are offering.

finally, if they were married, isn’t he automatically entitled to half the house?

Your posts here are quite confusing to be fair. I know all the legal stuff can be incredibly stressful, but I’m not sure that you are presenting a correct set of facts. I think you might have misunderstood something.

It sounds to me like they had mirror wills whereby 50% of their estate is left to their own children and 50% to each other.
Say the house is valued at £400k.
Millie owned the house so it forms her estate. It’s likely that she has left the house in trust to her DC (50%) with a lifetime interest to Lewis. The wording in the Will will indicate this. This means that he can stay in house until such point as he goes into residential care, in which case it can be sold and he receives half the proceeds. The other half will go to Millie’s children. It’s possible that her children are trying to get him to agree to the sale of the house because they want their share of the money. The solicitor dealing with Millie’s will should notify Lewis of the contents of the will. The house cannot be sold with Lewis still living there, probate is also required. Once probate is sorted you can get a copy of it and a copy of the will online for a few £’s.

To be honest I think OP needs care advice, not housing advice.

If Lewis doesn't part own his home, the value of it wont come into it if he moves to a care home.

If Lewis stays at home and receives home based care, the value of the home doesn't come into any financial assessment whether he part owns it or not.

It sounds like Millie bought the house will her money NOT Lewis's and not joint funds. Therefore the house is Millie's outright, NOT a SHARED possession with Lewis.

Everything that Millie and Lewis jointly owned was 50% Millie's and 50% Lewis's so Lewis 50% goes to his children and Millie's 50% goes to her children. However the house is 100% Millie's so 100% of it goes to Millie's children. They get a 400k house because it was ALL their mum's so all of it goes to where she wants it to go, which is to them.

The lifetime tenancy for Lewis will mean that, while the house is 100% Millie's children's after her death, they CANNOT kick Lewis out or order him to buy the house off them to stop them. The lifetime tenancy affectively means they have no right to kick him out until he dies EVEN though they own the house. After he has died, the house reverts to Mille's children's house and is split between them.

Because the house is not Lewis, if Lewis moves to care, the house not his asset and therefore, cannot be counted in funding his care home bills. While it means that Lewis's children don't benefit from the house sale money, if Lewis does go into care it could be good.

If Mille and Lewis had jointly owned the property, then when Millie died if would have been 100% Lewis's until he died. However if he'd then gone into care 100% of the property would have been his, so 100% of it's sale value would needed to have been used against his care unless he dies before that value of money is needed for his care. In this case none of the kids would have seen anything of it at all. At least this way, Millie's children still get to benefit off it, even if Lewis goes into care.

I would also add though- get proper advice from a solicitor. My knowledge is recent because I have lost my dad and my cousins lost their aunt, but it is only from what I have needed to know for our situation... wills are complicated!

Just tiptoeing back to mention that mortgage deeds are not the same thing as title deeds.Perhaps OP has checked but it isn't clear. Is the mortgage paid off? If not, is there life insurance to cover it?
Also, hopefully, bank statements will show evidence of who paid for utilities, home insurance, domestic expenses. OP, if Lewis is frail/ likely to need care, have you sorted out POA? Age UK are excellent for advice around this too.
I couldn't see whether you have confirmed which part of the UK Lewis is in. The law is different in different parts of the UK.
Is there any documentation that states whether Millie and Lewis were joint tenants or tenants in common?
You would need to establish the above to get correct advice.

X posted with pp. It took me so long to type.

Yes in addition to my other points, if Millie's will is valid and leaves Lewis nothing and Lewis doesn't wish to challenge the lack of provision for him and Lewis has no other assets or savings over the £23k threshold and needs a care home, his local authority will pay for him (assuming England/Wales not Scotland, OP hasn't actually said). If all that's the case I don't really get the need for Millie's children to be guarantors so I'm guessing either one of these is untrue, or the home OP wants him to go to possibly is more expensive than the local authority will fund - in which case I really think it's on Lewis' children to pay the additional if they've been left half the house?

Thanks for all this advice sorry my info is a bit garbled xx
the Will is being read on Tuesday 13 or 14 October

millies kids are being very nasty and causing Dad (lewis) stress

I’m sorry you and your dad are having such a difficult time.

I would suggest you pop over to Elderly Parents topic and start a thread there asking about care options, in addition to continuing this one here about the legal side with the house.

Although there is some overlap, they are not really the same thing and there are things you can do in regard to getting your dad into care that don’t rely on the house situation being fully sorted.

If someone has a dementia diagnoses they may still be able to make a Will. Indeed getting a diagnoses of dementia is exactly the type of event that prompts someone to write a will. Solicetors are trained to assess whether people have mental capacity to write a will.