denotes premium content | Nov 22 2008 Elderly Client Adviser archive
Volume 6 Issue 1
Features
A Long Term in Care?
The government has responded to the recommendations of the Royal Commission on long-term care by combining changes for funding care with its proposals for the redevelopment of the health service in the NHS Plan. How will these changes appear to older people, their relatives, friends and carers facing hard and difficult choices about long term care needs?
Benefits in hospital
Complicated rules affect benefits claimants in hospital. This article addresses the position of adults in receipt of the most common benefits paid to older people; if there are children involved, or if there is entitlement to a benefit not covered in the article, further advice should be sought.
Checklists for Advising the Elderly Client: Maximising use of Reliefs, Allowances, Benefits, Discounts and Exemptions
Busy practitioners have the need for, but rarely use, checklists. However, checklists can be helpful not only for the procedures in the office but also in being proactive when instructions are received. Being proactive and giving good advice are one of the keys to future success and it is important to provide the added value element
Grey Matters
Website: It is hoped htat most of you would be at the conference but for those members who could not attend the following should be of interest:
Human Rights for Elderly Clients?
The European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) has at last become part of our law, or to quote the Lord Chancellor
In Practice: What If?
'What if?' is a terrible question. The time of entry of an older person into long term care is nothing if not traumatic and a very serious business. It cannot be made light of in itself. But how many readers recall the nightmare of the College of Law final exams? How many other advisers recall their own horrors? Isn't it true that the most serious questions were always dealt with using the most silly stories imaginable?
In Practice: Working relationship
The Financial Services and Marketing Act is now in force and in doing so are now examining the secondary legislation which will define exactly what activities will be covered by the Act and regulated by the FSA. This of course will change the way that arrangements for remuneration between an IFA and Solicitor and will almost certainly need to be reviewed.
Statutory Wills -
Making Wills for People Without Capacity
Practitioners dealing with elderly and incapable clients will no doubt be familiar with the jurisdiction of the Court of Protection in making a statutory will for a person without testamentary capacity. It is often self-evident when such a will might be necessary and the procedures involved are well-established.1 For instance a person may have made a will appointing executors and leaving assets to beneficiaries who have died, or left a specific asset which has been sold. Circumstances change and just as the capable testator should keep his will up to date so too does the incapable testator have a means of having his will brought up to date.
