Hi my step father has dementia and I have lasting power of attorney, my mother has passed away but my step dad doesn’t know if he has wrote a will. He has no children as I have known him since I was 3 years old and now 42. Can he still write a will at this stage? He still lives in our family home.
Will writing
- Thread starter wallpaperengineer
- Start date
Only if he is assessed as having testamentary capacity by a solicitor who may ask for an assessment by a medical professional.
A statuary will can be made, these are not very common.
Make a statutory will on behalf of someone else
How to apply to the Court of Protection to make a will for someone who is not able to make one themselves, what forms to use, how much it costs and how the court decides
What are statutory wills, and when are they necessary?
Hi @wallpaperengineer and welcome to Dementia Talking Point. Being able to demonstrate understanding of the process of making (or changing) a Will may be a key factor here. When my wife (who has dementia) and I wished to change our Wills, our Solicitor would not take her instructions unless she was able to prove to her GP that she understood what she wanted to do and why. She wasn't able to give a clear enough explanation to allow the GP to make a proper assessment of her testamentary capacity. As a result her Will remained unchanged.
My step father still understands and has always presumed that our family home will just go to myself and my brothers, but without a will and he never ‘adopting’ us, is there a possibility that our family home could get passed down his family line. He did have a sister and she had children?
Hi @wallpaperengineer
Only adopted children (including step-children who have been adopted by their step-parent) have rights to inherit under the rules of intestacy. Otherwise you have to be a biological child to inherit.
So if your step-father dies without making a will his assets would pass to his sister or if she is no longer alive his assets would pass to her children.
The weblinks below contain more information.
https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/f...t-if-there-is-no-will-the-rules-of-intestacy/
https://www.gov.uk/inherits-someone-dies-without-will
If your Step father wants his assets to pass to you and your siblings then he needs to make a will and given his circumstances this would be best done by a solicitor who would satisfy themself at the time that they had capacity to do so. Needless to say as dementia is a degenerative illness, the sooner he does this, the better.
Only adopted children (including step-children who have been adopted by their step-parent) have rights to inherit under the rules of intestacy. Otherwise you have to be a biological child to inherit.
So if your step-father dies without making a will his assets would pass to his sister or if she is no longer alive his assets would pass to her children.
The weblinks below contain more information.
https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/f...t-if-there-is-no-will-the-rules-of-intestacy/
https://www.gov.uk/inherits-someone-dies-without-will
If your Step father wants his assets to pass to you and your siblings then he needs to make a will and given his circumstances this would be best done by a solicitor who would satisfy themself at the time that they had capacity to do so. Needless to say as dementia is a degenerative illness, the sooner he does this, the better.
