Having “the talk” with elderly parents

[Gareth]

Hi all

I’m going back to the U.K. this summer for a visit. While I’m there, I’d like to the have “the talk” with my elderly parents. By “the talk”, I mean discussing health issues, future care, wills, inheritance, housing etc etc.

I’m interested in hearing from those who have already done this. How did you approach it? How did it go? Did anything unexpected come up?

It would also be interesting if anyone has done it in reverse and talked to their children about this too. How did it make you feel? How did your children feel?

And if anyone else is planning to do the same thing and has questions, please ask those too.

Any tips, stories, lessons learned are much appreciated. Thanks.

[Beaglehound]

I would highly recommend setting up power of attorney if you haven’t already done so. If you leave this until, for example, signs of dementia are starting to appear, your parents may be less cooperative about it.

[Wales4rugbyWC23]

I would highly recommend setting up power of attorney if you haven’t already done so. If you leave this until, for example, signs of dementia are starting to appear, your parents may be less cooperative about it.

Setting up a power of attorney is a very good idea. We have set this up with my mother. The solicitor advised thought that it is best to have someone who is residing in the UK who has a power of attorney. For this reason, my brother has power of attorney and not me.

[RetireJapan]

Did that in January with my wife's parents: https://youtu.be/z3C3hKEm1sg

It went really well actually. We kind of hinted at it then they initiated when we were staying over for New Year's.

[Tokyo]

We did the reverse and had the talk with our adult kids. We did not talk about overall inheritance - that’s a bit premature we thought as we are both healthy and still in our sixties - but specifically about investment properties.

I ended up making a short Google Slide show since it was a slightly complex explanation involving overseas property with implications for annual, inheritance and capital gains taxes, both here and over there. The slides made it easier to explain all the factors in a logical sequence and gave them something they could preview and prepare questions for, or look over later.

The talk itself went over well. There were no problems and zero jealousy but we figured there would not be as they know we have never played favorites over the years. At least they now have a rough idea of their future rental income, current inheritance value, as well as the responsibilities (such as opening foreign bank accounts, employing property agents and tax accountants) involved. We are happy we did it. We are likely to do the same for their total inheritance package sometime much later, perhaps in our late seventies. We will see.

[Gareth]

Thanks for replies so far

Power of attorney is something I hadn’t thought much about. I didn’t know there are two different kinds in the U.K. - for medical and for financial.

If anyone else is interested in the U.K. style, here are a few links I read

https://www.gov.uk/power-of-attorney

https://www.ageuk.org.uk/information-ad ... -attorney/