denotes premium content | Dec 4 2008 Elderly Client Adviser archive
Volume 5 Issue 5
Features
Book review:The Elderly Client Handbook (2nd Edition)
By Gordon R. Ashton
This is the welcome second edition of a book which has been widely useful in its first edition. Its author, judge Gordon Ashton, is well-known to solicitors who practise in this field. He was there himself for 28 years and specialised in helping and advising elderly and mentally handicapped clients. Although appointed to the district bench in 1992, Judge Ashton took his special interests with him and remains a prolific writer and speaker. He is a part-time chairman of the Social Security Appeal tribunal and thus can also be counted an authority on benefits and associated topics, as well as blending knowledge into the larger recipe for advising older clients of their legal rights. In this edition, he has been assisted by Anne Edis, another solicitor who specialises successfully in this area of work, who is Chairman of
Financial abuse of elderly patients
Prevention & recovery Part one
By Dirik Jackson
The extent to which elderly people are deprived of their property by relatives, carers, attorneys, advisers and others who are in a position to take advantage of any physical or mental incapacity to which they may be subject is impossible to gauge with any precision, but practitioners who are regularly involved in handling the financial affairs of elderly clients can be in no doubt that this form of abuse presents a serious problem. With reference to enduring powers of attorney the Master of the Court of Protection has estimated that financial abuse occurs in about 10 to 15 per cent of the cases where powers have been registered and more often even than that with unregistered powers.
Advising grandparents on their wills in the modern family
By Susan Midha
With one in five children in the U.K. being born out of wedlock, the shape of the family is changing. Many families now include what used to be the unconventional but is now becoming the norm - stepchildren, half-brothers and sisters, parents living together who are unmarried, married parents who live apart, sometimes in different countries, with every conceivable combination of responsibility for, and arrangements for access to, the children. Even for those families where this has not yet happened, in planning wills and trusts many clients now wish to take these possibilities into account.
Enduring powers of attorney
Questions commonly raised about enduring powers of attorney (EPAS)
For this issue of Grey Matters Liz Holdsworth, Partner at Wace Morgan and SFE member, has provided some commonly asked questions relating to EPA's and provided the answers! Liz has also provided a form which she recommends inviting all clients to sign at the time of signing their EPA.
Long term care fees
Insurance solutions for immediate needs
By Margaret Borwick
The insurance market for long term care fee funding is a substantial alternative solution to the question of how to deal with the bill for care fees when it arises.
Tax planning post death: Opportunities and pitfalls
By Emma Chamberlain
Deeds of variation (or deeds of family arrangement as they used to be called), are well-known as a way of mitigating inheritance tax. Disclaimers of an interest under a will or intestacy are less common but can be equally useful planning devices. And for the more adventurous there is the possibility of using what are called two year discretionary trusts in their wills. All these options are worth considering but there are a surprising number of pitfalls which can catch out the busy practitioner. This article attempts to summarise the basic law on post death tax planning and outline some of the opportunities and pitfalls.
