Father in Law

[toastyhamster]

My F-i-L is pretty ill, to the point that Mrs ToastyHamster, her sister and her Mum now have a Lasting Power of Attorney. The problem is that he's too gone to remember where the approx 15 accounts he has are, never mind any account details etc. We've traced around 50k, which is nowhere near the total. There's no paper trail in the house and his wife always left him to deal with the finances, so she's no help. The money won't be in "lost" accounts, so "My Lost Account" is no use - any ideas?

My thought was to beat it out of him given he's been so irresponsible, this hasn't been a sudden thing. It was murder getting him to sign the LPA and I wouldn't be surprised if some of this is deliberate (with him thinking we're all out to rob him etc).

We also need to trace all the other stuff, car insurance, pensions etc, but these seem to have a more active paper trail.

[Saleen836]

Can you gain acces to emails? no paper trail is fairly normal these days with everything being sent electronic. Unless FIL is old school (but then why would he dispose of paperwork?)

[toastyhamster]

There was talk of everything being collated into a spreadsheet, this has turned out to be untrue. We've found very little in emails, presumably filed under trash when he was feeling paranoid.

I wonder how councils means test folk that need to go into a care home, they cant just take peoples word for it,must be some kind of process/tool - aybe not available to the public for obv reasons.

[xeny]

Web browser history?

[MWM3]

Credit check may indicate where he has bank accounts.

[Defcon5]

MWM3 said:

Credit check may indicate where he has bank accounts.

This - I use clearscore and it shows all current accounts including balance.

Doesn’t show my isa though.

[toastyhamster]

Well that was a bit rubbish. Did the Clearscore thing and it came up with the balances on the accounts put in as part of the set up and that was it, not even the linked savings accounts in the same bank.

So, no further forward.

[lockhart flawse]

What about his tax returns - who did them? I did my parents when they were in the same situation and kept all the "working" papers as I would expect most financially literate people to do. Sounds like he might be financially literate just not very good at letting go of the purse-strings.

[MWM3]

toastyhamster said:

Well that was a bit rubbish. Did the Clearscore thing and it came up with the balances on the accounts put in as part of the set up and that was it, not even the linked savings accounts in the same bank.

So, no further forward.

Try a Noddle one as well might ping something up.

[Simpo Two]

It's a salutary warning for all who embrace the 'paperless' revolution thinking it's modern and better.

When the st hits the fan you can't beat paper.

I hope you find everything - but will the companies invloved keep records for more than 6 years?