101 year old aunty

Does your aunt still have capacity to decide for herself? If so, my understanding is that if she says no, you can't overrule it. It's only if she is incapable of making decisions that you can take it on yourself, or if she gives you the authority to act in her best interests, for example if she is physically incapacitated or unable to get to a bank. That's what we were told when we granted POA to our children, anyway.

I'm not a lawyer though, so someone with more professional knowledge might be along to say differently.

You can only action the POA if your Aunt does not have capacity Doodledog is quite correct.

To find out if she has capacity or not, two independent psych reports would have to be carried out (I believe). Therefore that would need done first

I did check with a solicitor who said I could sell as a 'best interests decision'. I don't want to force it but my cousins do. Seems so wrong for a.house to just be left. Aunty has not been assessed for capacity. Sometimes she is completely with it. Other times away with the fairies

Doodlebug she is completely immobile due to arthritis. Cannot go out at all lives in 1 room and needs help to get on commode etc

I don't think her mobility issues are relevant Honey and a best interest decision can only be made on behalf of someone else if they no longer have capacity.

Honey1958

Doodlebug she is completely immobile due to arthritis. Cannot go out at all lives in 1 room and needs help to get on commode etc

What I meant was that POA is activated if she loses mental capacity or if because of a physical inability to do things for herself she gives you the power to do them for her - not that if she has disabilities you can take decisions on her behalf.

Not wishing to sound rather brutal but at 101 I wouldn't imagine the cousins will have to wait much longer for the sale. If the house is in a terrible state, any future buyers will completely strip it back or even rebuild on the land, so another year or so's worth of deterioration won't affect the sale price overly much.

Why are they in such a hurry to sell?

Does she need the money to pay the care home fees?

Thankyou. My understanding was that if someone had capacity then their decision was final but solicitor said differently.
Flappergirl take your point a year or so house won't deteriorate much more. Thing is aunty is well apart from mobility. I sometimes think she will outlive us all!!
My relations with cousin who still lives in UK are shall we say strained

Callestimon21
No she can afford care home fees from savings and income

Honey1958

Callestimon21
No she can afford care home fees from savings and income

If she is able to afford her care home fees etc, what is the hurry to sell the home?
Would you be able to release funds to make the house watertight etc?

My difficulty is I am unwell with heart conditions and arthritis. I would love to be able to arrange things to sort out Aunty's house but not able to.

I think the advice you've been given is incorrect Honey. Best interest decisions are only applicable where there is no capacity.

Doodledog and Smileless are correct about the POA being applied only if there is incapacity (as confirmed by specialists) AND if selling the house is in your Aunt’s best interests. As she has enough money to pay the care home fees I don’t see how a case can be made that it’s in your Aunt’s interests to sell the house.

Where's the harm in letting your aunt believe she may be able to move back into her home?
'Her' home is the important thing to remember.

It sounds like she has fluctuating capacity which makes things very difficult. We had this with my mother who would somehow rally enough to pass a capacity test with a social worker but was away with the fairies five minutes later. When she went into her new Nursing home, the manager (a health professional) agreed that the capacity had to be lasting so agreed she did not in fact have full capacity. They applied for a DOLS so we were completely covered. A good assessor would realise that the fact that your Aunt could not live alone and care for herself in the home because of her physical and mental limitations should be able to assess that in this instance, she is without capacity.

My mother still believes her house is hers although I was honest with her...she just doesn't remember so nowadays, I let her believe it. Her house was in a state of disrepair and the money was needed for the nursing fees. We couldn't afford to pay double the Council Tax for the privilege of an empty house, it was expensive to heat, hard to secure and leaving it would have meant that it would fall into even more disrepair. Of course, in the state it was in, it would not be suitable for renting it out either. It was the family home for 77 years so the decision was not made lightly.

Because Aunt can’t live alone and take care of herself does not mean she lacks capacity. This is a very unfortunate situation which many of us have found ourselves in. If you can’t get Aunt classified as lacking capacity Honey you have two options, get the house repaired or leave it as it is. Leaving it as it is means its value will plummet but if you are not well enough to get it repaired I don’t see what else you can do. There may not be enough money to pay for repairs anyway.

I would not touch the house. Not worth upsetting your aunt. Maybe clean and tidy, wait and see.

I am aware of what lack of capacity means in the context of the Mental Capacity Act 2005. It may well be that your aunt, if assessed, would be found to have capacity but she isn’t behaving sensibly or with her own or anybody else's best interests in mind.

I can see that you posted about your aunt five years ago and said:

… aunt won’t consider a care home as she is fiercely independent and not at all sociable. She was assessed by social care but won’t pay for carers. She is not poor just very tight and will only have the heating on 2 hours a day even in this weather.

You wrote that, as a consequence of her refusing to pay for care, you and your cousins were having to look after her on top of all your other family responsibilities and that it was causing conflict.

When did your aunt go into residential care? If it was recently, then it isn’t unusual to face some weeks or months of resistance over what needs to be done. If that is the case then there is little harm in waiting a month of so but if this has been going on for six months or more, I think you must take action.

At 101, it seems unlikely that she will ever be well enough to live in her own home again, especially if she still has the same attitude towards paying for home care.

I think you have to be practical. It is all very well for strangers to say wait but someone is going to have to sort this out sooner or later. None of you are getting any younger and have your own health issues to contend with. You are just delaying the inevitable. As you say, she could go on for a few years yet but if she wasn’t paying to maintain her house then, it seems unlikely she would pay to do it now so it will just deteriorate even further. If it becomes known locally that the house is empty, it could become a target for burglars, vandals and squatters.

A late neighbour’s house has now sat empty for three years. There are several reasons for that but the fact is that it was a well-cared for house while she lived. Three years later, the roof is leaking, the external paint is peeling and the gardens are overgrown. There are professional executors but they do no more than send a man round occasionally to collect mail.

If your aunt’s house is sold, the proceeds will have to be invested until she dies. If the house is sold for a net £200,000 it could earn her £10,000 a year; £300,000 could earn £15,000 a year and so on. She may not need it right now but does she have enough other capital to pay for care indefinitely? With nursing care costing around £1,000 a week, does she have £100,000 in reserve to pay for two years? It might appeal to her tightness if you explain that the sale of her house could earn her some money. If she is out of touch with what has happened to the bank rate since 2022, she may be unaware that, after 14 years of neglible interest rates for investors, there are now decent returns to be had.

Interest rates are stable right now. Some predict rates could go down this year. This would make the housing market more bouyant but at the same time, with the house already in such a poor state, the worse it gets, the more likely it is that potential buyers are going to want to chisel away at the asking the price.

I think there is a case to be made for the sale being in her best interests.

there is no need to do anything.
fees are being paid.
does the other cousin have POA also ?

GSM ?
can we have your wise words on this please.

Honey1958

I did check with a solicitor who said I could sell as a 'best interests decision'. I don't want to force it but my cousins do. Seems so wrong for a.house to just be left. Aunty has not been assessed for capacity. Sometimes she is completely with it. Other times away with the fairies

You can only sell as a "best interest decision" if your aunt lacks mental capacity to make a decision about her property. It sounds from what you have said that her capacity may fluctuate

My mother had to go into a care home 3 years ago. She is now almost 104. My sister and I have power of attorney over her affairs. My mother still thinks she will be going home. She has dementia some good days and others not so good. Her house has been empty for three years now. We have to sell it as she is self funding. It will also require work if we leave it any longer. It’s a difficult time but because we have power of attorney we have to go ahead. I wish you well it’s a sad time especially when you have to sort through photographs.