Not enough room in the subject line to explain my question, so here goes.
Some background first:
My parents are around 80. Thankfully no dementia for either of them, but over the past several years they have experienced substantial cognitive decline, resulting in slowness of comprehension, ease of confusion, and difficulty keeping track of multiple things. It’s come to a point that they have granted my sister power of attorney, and now she is managing their finances on their behalf. (Interestingly, your financial life can become more complex after retirement, when your income is derived from several sources - investments, pension, SS - instead of just income from a single paycheck.)
So what does an elderly person do if they have no family member to whom they can hand over PoA? Maybe your kid is not trustworthy, or is a jerk, or maybe you don’t have any kids. Your mind is dulling, and although you have plenty of money, you’re starting to frequently forget payments on various bills and expenses. What’s the solution?
I think, increasingly, they just sign themselves into a care facility, and sign over all their assets and future income to that facility to provide for them for the rest of their life. A variable would be whether or not the person has already set out a will to bequeath their assets to an heir.
Unless the elderly person has a trusted friend, there don’t seem to be very many alternatives.
You can also hire a personal banker. My sister used to do that for a living. She managed their finances, paid all the bills, arranged for cleaning services, stuff like that. Sometimes she did it because the client didn’t trust her kids, which is kind of depressing.
She herself is now retired, older, and childless - wonder what she will do.
I have an aunt and uncle who are child-free and retired. I am quite close to them, and my assumption is that I will help them out in any way needed. So I am assuming I will get POA, etc. at some point.
I have played chess and bridge for 50 years.
I believe there is evidence that keeping mentally active diminishes your chance of Alzheimers etc.
My retirement income comes from two pension schemes, an investment fund and Premium Bonds.
I’m eligible for a UK State Pension in 2 years.
It all goes into my bank account and I use direct debits to pay my bills.
If they forget to make payments, they are probably forgetting other things, too.
Do they forget to take their pills on schedule?
Do they forget to turn off the stove?
If they leave the house, do they forget to lock the door? maybe even forget how to get home?
It sounds like they may need to move to assisted living, before they suffer more serious problems.
Financial management(such as granting power of attorney to a relative or a hired professional) seems like a minor issue.
Well, friends are likely to be around the same age, so even if they are up to the task right then, there’s a pretty reasonable risk that they will soon not be up to the task, themselves.
And “any family” kind of minimizes how much work and what a big responsibility this is. By definition, it’d have to be a much younger cousin or a niece/nephew. I don’t think one can assume that those relationships are close enough for this sort of thing.
I’m not saying this is a reason to have kids, but I can see it as a real problem with the need for a solution–especially one for people with very moderate retirement incomes/savings, who can’t put enough in a trust to cover management fees.
Thanks for your concern, but you’re too late: they moved into assisted living a few months ago. So yes, their meds are being handed to them by a staff person at the appointed times, and no, there’s no stove in their apartment. No more driving (they don’t own cars any more), and they don’t have the energy to walk very far outside of the facility. For the time being, they’re as safe from mishap as they can be.
Yes, my friends run a business out of their home providing essentially personal assistant type tasks for a number of clients, many of whom are in one of the nicer senior residences. They have POA to complete financial transactions, process their mail, prepare materials for the tax preparer and “other duties as assigned”. This extends to cleaning out apartments after the client has died, etc.
So yes, their meds are being handed to them by a staff person at the appointed times, and no, there’s no stove in their apartment. No more driving (they don’t own cars any more), and they don’t have the energy to walk very far outside of the facility. For the time being, they’re as safe from mishap as they can be.