Reply to Original Post Part 1
Some of you may know we were recently accused of financial abuse.
That has been found to be without merit.
However, a capacity assessment was done. The lawyer warned us it was borderline.
If she is found to lack capacity, hubby and I will be in dire financial straits. We are pennies away from trouble each month. If we have to pay for MIL too, we are royally scr@w@d.
I have two small children.
I am very worried.
Is there any facility for the C of P to pay living expenses / bills before decisions are reached / deputies appointed? I'm thinking incontinence products, food and bills.
Cinder,
I've had a look back through your past posts: there have only been 24 of them. I'm no lawyer, and I can only go by what you've said and the questions you've answered, but I can try to act as a detached observer.
If your mother-in-law went into a care home, the costs would be upwards of £45,000 per year. The contribution she is making to your household of £300 pcm amounts to £3,600 per year and
given she has the money, is a perfectly reasonable contribution to the house. I consider it to be a modest one by any standards, and it is just 8% (
eight per cent) of the lower end of the range of care home fees.
I repeat, I do not myself think it excessive in any way - indeed quite the opposite. You were not taking in a pauper, and your part of her family are making sacrifices for her.
I'm interested as to who it was who instructed (and paid for) your MIL's solicitor to look into her financial arrangements with you. There are solicitors who act for different members of a family, but when there is a clear conflict of interest they have to take sides and stick with one party only - who in this case was presumably your mother. I suggest you contact him/her to confirm that.
I suspect your mother's solicitor asked to see financial documents in order to allay fears expressed by other relatives, and from what you have said, was able to do so. It seems to me that your mother's solicitor was satisfied you were not taking advantage of her, reassured the rest of the family and that was that.
I really don't think you are correct in describing it as an accusation of financial abuse.
You seem like other people I know to associate the involvement of lawyers in what in this instance can only have been a civil matter with undertones of criminality. The interest of your mother's solicitor can only have been a civil matter. So please don't feel you have been criminalized in any way - quite the reverse!
I'm wasn't clear to me from your earlier postings whether your MIL had granted you and your husband Lasting Powers of Attorney or not. From post #1 above it now appears that she did not. However, even if she had, the existence of the POAs would have been irrelevant for as long as your mother has legal capacity, even if that capacity were to be close to the margin.
What is your MIL's money is hers to spend even if she should decide to spend it unwisely. Any Property and Financial Affairs LPA is not triggered unless and until she has been declared to lack capacity in a legal sense. Up until that point she can have - say - very expensive gambling and illegal drug habits and any LPA would be impotent.
Your mother-in-law's money and property are hers until she is dead. Perhaps members of your husband's family need to take that fact to heart. Perhaps your MIL's solicitor even told them that.
Fred
