Mum died, no paperwork, weird behaviour by partner...
Discussion
There’s an amazing mix of good perspective, advice and experience on PH, so I thought I’d see if something like that comes up on this. I’ll try to limit my bias and assumptions in describing the situation, interested to hear what you think.
My mum died a week ago- she had been struggling with a glioblastoma for more than a year, with a couple of much better points across the months, but generally a decline, despite surgery and chemotherapy. She was clearly not going to survive it. It may sound harsh, but I had already grieved in the last year, it was more a relief for her when she died and not a shock for us.
She lived with her partner of 25 years, someone who has tried to launch various companies and seems to have made a career of patter and talking various figures in the Middle East into funding years of some kind of work.
He has been caring for her through this time, feeding her and getting her to appointments, and more recently providing for all of her day to day needs, alongside carers who visit twice a day. He has never had kids and this has been hard on him. I avoided visiting due to Covid, but for the last 6-7 weeks I figured it was better to risk bringing the virus but see mum and I would care for her one day a week 9am-9pm, letting him get out.
For the last year or so, he has said that my mum only wants to see her family “on her terms”- meaning away from the house. With her Illness and family in Lancashire and Northumberland (she was in Hertfordshire), that was impossible. I didn’t understand any reason for this supposed fallout, but he would just say that she had insisted not to see family at home. My aunt drove down from Lancashire and was turned away at the door. She made 52 attempts to plan a visit and received 2 responses, neither leading to a visit. On one of my recent days, I arranged for my aunt to visit while he was out, I’m so glad I did and mum does 3 days later.
Within a couple of hours of mum dying, he called my brother, who has a fairly challenging financial situation at the moment, and told him that he didn’t have. Any money to pay for a funeral. He hadn’t mentioned this to either of us during the past 14 months of illness. My brother an I have both prompted mum about a will in the last year. She told me she had written one but it was not witnessed (ie, it wasn’t a will!) and she was very upset when I pushed on her getting it witnessed. It turns out there is not one single piece of paper related to my mum’s life, wishes, legal status, anything. Nothing written for her grandchildren, this is a woman who always wrote about memories and hopes in their birthday and Christmas cards. Not a single piece of paper.
Then we had the story of him asking the funeral director about whether he was allowed to have an Irish wake. He said “I asked almost half in jest, could I have an Irish wake- with the body in the room for the relatives to come and have a drink and sit with us all night.” This was the day after she passed. Relatives that were not welcome. And it turned out that he had no such conversation with the funeral director.
We had a frank conversation with him, and learned that there is no money in mum’s estate. “Not two pence”. We learned (not from him) that mum was a creditor in his company that liquidated in 2019 (didn’t know about that), for a substantial amount of money. She retired 3 years ago and according to him did not take 25% of any pension as a tax free lump sum. Neither my brother nor I want or expect any money. We wouldn’t mind being able to pay for mum’s funeral from her estate having been given zero notice of financial problems or any need there might have been for us to pay. She was our mum and of course we will, but he could have given us some warning in the last 14 months.
I won’t bore you with the rest of the lies and stories that are coming out now. I am trying to register her death in order to gain some insight into the financial situation and so gain some closure on her life. Knowing what has happened somehow seems important to my brother and I.
This may read like some awful money focused chase- it is not. We are simply trying to uncover some facts about what has happened to our mum. We may prove to be wrong about some of our suppositions, that may happen. But this does seem to be a very dodgy situation. Too late to do anything much about it, hence knowing something for certain would be helpful. People do strange things, some people are psychopaths, people make assumptions and misjudge. I am trying to find my way through all of that.
My mum died a week ago- she had been struggling with a glioblastoma for more than a year, with a couple of much better points across the months, but generally a decline, despite surgery and chemotherapy. She was clearly not going to survive it. It may sound harsh, but I had already grieved in the last year, it was more a relief for her when she died and not a shock for us.
She lived with her partner of 25 years, someone who has tried to launch various companies and seems to have made a career of patter and talking various figures in the Middle East into funding years of some kind of work.
He has been caring for her through this time, feeding her and getting her to appointments, and more recently providing for all of her day to day needs, alongside carers who visit twice a day. He has never had kids and this has been hard on him. I avoided visiting due to Covid, but for the last 6-7 weeks I figured it was better to risk bringing the virus but see mum and I would care for her one day a week 9am-9pm, letting him get out.
For the last year or so, he has said that my mum only wants to see her family “on her terms”- meaning away from the house. With her Illness and family in Lancashire and Northumberland (she was in Hertfordshire), that was impossible. I didn’t understand any reason for this supposed fallout, but he would just say that she had insisted not to see family at home. My aunt drove down from Lancashire and was turned away at the door. She made 52 attempts to plan a visit and received 2 responses, neither leading to a visit. On one of my recent days, I arranged for my aunt to visit while he was out, I’m so glad I did and mum does 3 days later.
Within a couple of hours of mum dying, he called my brother, who has a fairly challenging financial situation at the moment, and told him that he didn’t have. Any money to pay for a funeral. He hadn’t mentioned this to either of us during the past 14 months of illness. My brother an I have both prompted mum about a will in the last year. She told me she had written one but it was not witnessed (ie, it wasn’t a will!) and she was very upset when I pushed on her getting it witnessed. It turns out there is not one single piece of paper related to my mum’s life, wishes, legal status, anything. Nothing written for her grandchildren, this is a woman who always wrote about memories and hopes in their birthday and Christmas cards. Not a single piece of paper.
Then we had the story of him asking the funeral director about whether he was allowed to have an Irish wake. He said “I asked almost half in jest, could I have an Irish wake- with the body in the room for the relatives to come and have a drink and sit with us all night.” This was the day after she passed. Relatives that were not welcome. And it turned out that he had no such conversation with the funeral director.
We had a frank conversation with him, and learned that there is no money in mum’s estate. “Not two pence”. We learned (not from him) that mum was a creditor in his company that liquidated in 2019 (didn’t know about that), for a substantial amount of money. She retired 3 years ago and according to him did not take 25% of any pension as a tax free lump sum. Neither my brother nor I want or expect any money. We wouldn’t mind being able to pay for mum’s funeral from her estate having been given zero notice of financial problems or any need there might have been for us to pay. She was our mum and of course we will, but he could have given us some warning in the last 14 months.
I won’t bore you with the rest of the lies and stories that are coming out now. I am trying to register her death in order to gain some insight into the financial situation and so gain some closure on her life. Knowing what has happened somehow seems important to my brother and I.
This may read like some awful money focused chase- it is not. We are simply trying to uncover some facts about what has happened to our mum. We may prove to be wrong about some of our suppositions, that may happen. But this does seem to be a very dodgy situation. Too late to do anything much about it, hence knowing something for certain would be helpful. People do strange things, some people are psychopaths, people make assumptions and misjudge. I am trying to find my way through all of that.
Sorry for the loss of your mum. If the boyfriend made her happy I don’t think there is anything to gain from chasing the financial side of things. He sounds like maybe he hasn’t had the success in life he wanted, but he has just lost his partner of 25 yrs so even if you don’t like him all that much and think he spent your mums money, I’m not sure that it’s worth following it up for your mental health.
If you find out he squandered it all in the pursuit of more money or even if he’s holding onto the remains now, it doesn’t really matter. Celebrate the life of your mum with your family, have a drink, have a cry, have hugs, don’t fret about whether this chap may not be a great businessman etc. It’s just not worth it imo.
If you find out he squandered it all in the pursuit of more money or even if he’s holding onto the remains now, it doesn’t really matter. Celebrate the life of your mum with your family, have a drink, have a cry, have hugs, don’t fret about whether this chap may not be a great businessman etc. It’s just not worth it imo.
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