A Personal Tale of Medical Ethics Etc

Black Hole said:
FINALLY I have a substantive reply to my enquiries.

It seems that J, in whatever state of mind she might be now
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It seems to me that your state of mind is not much better. You're jumping from one extreme, dogged/obsessive determination to find/contact her- to the other: to hell with it. Coming up with imagined scenarios.

well...
 
A great deal of water has passed under the bridge.

It now appears that, despite being aware of my ownership of items at the flat, the "legal representative" (which I presume is the brother) authorised the council to clear the flat for re-occupation back in May. The council are disinclined to tell me who the "legal representative" is, citing GDPR – which clearly does not apply here! Surely the council recognise that this "legal representative" is liable for my loss if they were aware of the situation?

I think I have to say goodbye to my HDR2 and Harmony 300, but there should be compensation.

Also, I cannot understand that I never received word from the warden or other residents at the flats. I established a relationship with them over several years, and it will not have gone unnoticed that the flat was being cleared. What negative stories must be circulating about me?

However, to add insult to injury, I received word from an old friend of J's that the brother told the friend of J's death in early July. He's got some real grudge against me not to have the decency to tell me directly, but I can't correct or accept that if I don't know what the grudge is. A letter from my solicitor is in gestation; hopefully he will be more motivated to reply to a solicitor than he has been willing to me.
 
Having been (quietly) grateful for your help for many years, I feel that the least that I can do is pass on my condolences for your loss. Although the specifics are very different, I've had similar experiences over the past several years, and know just how exasperating, tiring and unfair the whole situation is. All one can do is keep calm, and play the hand that one has been dealt. Hopefully, as in our case, one can take some solace from the fact that J's Alzheimer's and memory loss probably meant that she didn't suffer as much as you have. Good Luck, and thanks for all the help.
 
Thanks. I'm not convinced the dementia was Alzheimer's... but I did go through that with a previous relationship.
 
(For some reason the forum has started emailing me once a month about new postings and I picked this up from that.)

Well that was sobering reading. My condolences for your loss BH.

One thing I will say is it pays to plan in advance. At the start of covid I set up LPoA over my mum's sister with me, my brother and my mum as deputies. And also LPoA over my mum with me and my brother as deputies (her sister would be little use in such matters). In both cases both finance and health/welfare. Apparently even though we are the next of kin anyway, that doesn't carry anywhere near as much weight legally as LPoA. All done while everyone is of thoroughly sound mind.

We wanted to set it up for dad as well, but he won't hear of it. He doesn't want anyone with power over his money, which is daft because me and my brother have no need of his money having more of our own (a lot more in my brother's case). Also dad says it's too soon, he's not old enough (he's 83 in December!) and he's not unwell yet. Silly sod doesn't realise by the time he is unwell it could be too late if he's mentally ill. Still, mum and dad are married (60th anniversary coming up in 2024) so provided mum is still OK we have plenty of power over dad's affairs. We'll approach the subject again if mum becomes incapable or dies first.
 
Owen Smith said:
Also dad says it's too soon, he's not old enough (he's 83 in December!) and he's not unwell yet. Silly sod doesn't realise by the time he is unwell it could be too late if he's mentally ill.
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That is the problem. I think it's a generational thing.

Owen Smith said:
My condolences for your loss BH.
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Thanks. The brother has now been flushed out because of my digging over property, and says is is his "sad duty to inform you" of J's death. Only about 7 weeks late! How things proceed from here remains to be seen.

Owen Smith said:
Apparently even though we are the next of kin anyway, that doesn't carry anywhere near as much weight legally as LPoA.
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Nothing "apparently" about it. Next of kin carries a fair amount of weight when it comes to medical care and social services, but none at all in terms of financial matters.
 
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We were very lucky with my dad. He was very understanding of his predicament and could see what was on the horizon. He approved LPoA for me to look after his financial affairs and for my sister to look after his medical/health needs.

He now lives in a care home with vascular dementia. I would say that if we had not been granted LPoA when we did, it would have been too late.
 
Black Hole said:
That is the problem. I think it's a generational thing.
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I don't think that is so. Wills are the classic case of "putting it off until I'm older". From the stories I see in the news quite often of people struggling to get what is 'theirs' because a relative refused to plan for their own inevitable demise, it seems to be as prevalent today as 40-50 years ago.

Heck, I see stories of people who had their phone stolen bemoaning that "All the photos of our wedding and child's birth etc are on it." Disaster planning doesn't seem to be a strong point for most people.
 
I don't have a will, don't need one. I'm single with no children so it will all go to my parents, and if they're both dead at the time it will go to my brother as the only other relative, and then to his children if he's dead. I can't see what making a will gains me, even my pension advisor trying to persuade me to make a will admits it wouldn't gain me anything, so why bother?
 
Owen Smith said:
so why bother?
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Because without a will, your estate goes to the Crown and any sufficiently close surviving relatives then have to apply for it. It's not automatic. The only automatic inheritance is between spouses, and even that has to go through probate.

It won't affect you specifically, but it makes it easier (and cheaper) for those who come after you.
 
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Black Hole said:
Nothing "apparently" about it. Next of kin carries a fair amount of weight when it comes to medical care and social services, but none at all in terms of financial matters.
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I didn't know that. So we probably don't need LPoA for medical for mum and my aunt but certainly do for financial matters. Well we've got both, and any of me or my brother or (in my aunt's case) mum can operate as deputies so we don't have to worry about one of us being unavailable due to travelling on business at a time of emergency.

Dad was so against the entire thing he wouldn't agree to be a deputy for my mum's sister either, and given he's not related to her he has no powers over her affairs by any other means. He wasn't happy about mum being involved in all this, but she told him to mind his own business. Mum has got more assertive as she's got older, it's great to see. When I was a child she would never go against his wishes.
 
Black Hole said:
Because without a will, your estate goes to the Crown and any sufficiently close surviving relatives then have to apply for it. It's not automatic. The only automatic inheritance is between spouses, and even that has to go through probate.

It won't affect you specifically, but it makes it easier (and cheaper) for those who come after you.
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I've read pages and pages of official advice, and none of them make it as clear as your few sentences above. The people that write the UK government web site must be a complete bunch of idiots.
 
Don't be too hard on them: my statement glosses over the details in a way the lawyers might consider inaccurate and probably wouldn't be suitable as official advice. Fundamentally, a will should nominate an executor to wind up the estate in accordance with the provisions of the will, after any debts and taxes are taken out. Without such a nominee, somebody else has to decide to do it and apply, proving they are the appropriate person to do it. Then the estate has to be dispersed strictly in accordance with the rules of intestacy. If there is nobody to do it, an official will be appointed and their fees become payable from the estate.

The estate-chasers who sometimes feature on TV programmes scour the official list of intestate deaths for unclaimed but likely valuable estates, then make it their business to trace potential claimants who might otherwise not know about the possible claim, then offer to help in return for a cut.
 
Owen Smith said:
So we probably don't need LPoA for medical for mum and my aunt but certainly do for financial matters.
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Whoa there. Absent an LPoA for medical (or financial) it will be hard for relatives to show they are able to legally represent the subject's wishes. That can include things like DNR requests, so it's important that others know about and can legally 'enforce' such wishes. As BH's experience shows, if you don't have a signed document you can be stuffed.

My wife and I (now 70 and 75) have had wills in place for 20 years or more and Health and Finance LPoAs in place for 10-15 years. Each of us us is one of the executors or attorneys for the other along with several children and other younger relatives (nieces, etc.) - the mix varying according to their abilities, eg. one of the Finance ones works in banking and one of the health ones used to run a nursing home.
So if we both get cabbaged or killed in a car crash our extended families can handle everything.

Cost to set them all up ... £££s.
Value for peace of mind ... priceless. *

( * Old Visa advert?)
 
My problem is having no children, any wills or LPoAs for me will first be to my parents, then when they die my brother (2 years younger than me), then if he pre-deceases me I have to start asking people I don't know very well like my nephew and niece. Part of my reluctance to set them up for me is I can foresee have to change them once a decade.

And it is a lot of faff setting this stuff up. I did 4 LPoAs (mum and aunt health and finance) during covid lockdown and trying to get everything signed by various people was a nightmare. Then three of the LPoAs had pages they didn't like and had to be re-done, and two of them I have no idea what was wrong with them. The deadlines expired because of covid and the faff but they were processed anyway but no-one on the phone could tell me if they would be. It was all quite stressful and I'm not keen to repeat the experience.
 
Black Hole said:
Because without a will, your estate goes to the Crown.
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And boy, do they charge for it! For one reason or another ( I can't go into details) the Crown took over my mother's estate in 1983. The estate was finalised in 1990 and the bill was in excess of £44,000. The hourly rate then was £40-£70 per hour. Admittedly this was a complicated case, but the charges are staggering.

Make a will! (Use a solicitor too).
 
Owen Smith said:
My problem is having no children, any wills or LPoAs for me will first be to my parents, then when they die my brother (2 years younger than me), then if he pre-deceases me I have to start asking people I don't know very well like my nephew and niece. Part of my reluctance to set them up for me is I can foresee have to change them once a decade.
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I think my experience shows you might be better off with a good friend than family, particularly if that friend has little to gain.

MikeSh said:
Whoa there. Absent an LPoA for medical (or financial) it will be hard for relatives to show they are able to legally represent the subject's wishes.
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Yes. Social Services and the medicos might well take family's opinions into account, but only so long as they agree with the opinion!
 
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