Hello, good people.
I am looking for advice to help and support family members who don’t live in the U.K. and who are struggling to support their father who does live here.
The situation is that their father(my cousin) returned to live in the U.K. over 30 years ago. He is now in his late eighties and was living in sheltered accommodation until several recent spells in hospital. He is now showing signs of dementia and has been discharged to a care home pending a care assessment. Everyone involved seems to be in agreement he cannot return to his home. His family are doing their best to work with Social Services here to get the best outcome for him, but they are hampered by a lack of knowledge of both the U.K. legal system and Local Authority practices.
My cousin has not helped anyone by refusing to provide details of his financial affairs to his children and has apparently left an instruction to his solicitor (no idea who that is) that his family should be informed of his death only after his estate has been settled. He seems to have done this in a misguided attempt to free them from emotional and financial responsibility for him.
As you might imagine, this has totally backfired. Social Services are pressing for a financial assessment to be made. It’s very unlikely that my cousin will be self-funding but without any information about his affairs, no one actually knows. His family also have no legal rights of access to his affairs and have explained this to the Local Authority, who I suspect does not believe them.
The family have suggested that the LA should apply for Deputyship, but that’s been batted back to them. SS have said they are not required to do that and have suggested that it is the family’s responsibility to do so. Emails that I’ve seen from SS have been badly worded and as a result, my cousin’s children are now panicking that they may be asked to foot the bill for his care.
I feel that there may be a game of bluff and double bluff going on here. It may well be that there is no legal requirement for SS to apply for Deputyship, but I’m thinking that also applies to the family as well. They are entitled to refuse to do so on the basis that they have lived abroad for most of their lives, have never been British taxpayers and have limited funds to take all this on board. I don’t know if my cousin has capacity, but even if he does, he would certainly refuse to give his agreement to anything.
Sorry to be so long winded, but the family abroad are struggling with the system and I’d like to help. If anyone can point me in the direction of the Deputyship issue, I’d be grateful. Also, what happens when it seems impossible to make a financial assessment? If the LA has ultimate duty of care, do they just have to suck it up and take all responsibility for my cousin if there is no one else willing to do so?
I am looking for advice to help and support family members who don’t live in the U.K. and who are struggling to support their father who does live here.
The situation is that their father(my cousin) returned to live in the U.K. over 30 years ago. He is now in his late eighties and was living in sheltered accommodation until several recent spells in hospital. He is now showing signs of dementia and has been discharged to a care home pending a care assessment. Everyone involved seems to be in agreement he cannot return to his home. His family are doing their best to work with Social Services here to get the best outcome for him, but they are hampered by a lack of knowledge of both the U.K. legal system and Local Authority practices.
My cousin has not helped anyone by refusing to provide details of his financial affairs to his children and has apparently left an instruction to his solicitor (no idea who that is) that his family should be informed of his death only after his estate has been settled. He seems to have done this in a misguided attempt to free them from emotional and financial responsibility for him.
As you might imagine, this has totally backfired. Social Services are pressing for a financial assessment to be made. It’s very unlikely that my cousin will be self-funding but without any information about his affairs, no one actually knows. His family also have no legal rights of access to his affairs and have explained this to the Local Authority, who I suspect does not believe them.
The family have suggested that the LA should apply for Deputyship, but that’s been batted back to them. SS have said they are not required to do that and have suggested that it is the family’s responsibility to do so. Emails that I’ve seen from SS have been badly worded and as a result, my cousin’s children are now panicking that they may be asked to foot the bill for his care.
I feel that there may be a game of bluff and double bluff going on here. It may well be that there is no legal requirement for SS to apply for Deputyship, but I’m thinking that also applies to the family as well. They are entitled to refuse to do so on the basis that they have lived abroad for most of their lives, have never been British taxpayers and have limited funds to take all this on board. I don’t know if my cousin has capacity, but even if he does, he would certainly refuse to give his agreement to anything.
Sorry to be so long winded, but the family abroad are struggling with the system and I’d like to help. If anyone can point me in the direction of the Deputyship issue, I’d be grateful. Also, what happens when it seems impossible to make a financial assessment? If the LA has ultimate duty of care, do they just have to suck it up and take all responsibility for my cousin if there is no one else willing to do so?