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Legal Advice re inheritance and housing

layla53

Hi
I was told by a CAB advisor that I would be able to find legal advice through Scope, so I am hoping someone may be able to point me in the right direction.
I care full time for my daughter, who has ME and has been ill since the age of 12, so has no practical experience of independent adult living.
Rather than go into all the details here initially, I would just like to talk to a lawyer about the issues of home ownership as I am feeling utterly stressed because I can't be sure that I have arranged things so as best to benefit her and provide for her after my death. Is there anybody to whom I can talk about this?

Thanks in hope!

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Adrian_Scope

Hi @layla53 and welcome. Unfortunately we're not able to provide legal advice through the online community, but if you call our helpline, they might be able to put you in touch with or suggest someone more local to you who might be able to provide some help.

You can call them on 0808 800 3333.

layla53

Thanks Adrian. I did try, but the best help was a phone number for the Disability Law Service, which is all on answerphone and seems not to have an option that would in any way help me. I guess because this is not so much a specific disability problem, as one of how to ensure that my disabled daughter will be able to live independently as a result of my careful arrangements, and I desperately need to talk to a lawyer who can help and advise me. When I tried a local solicitor they told me of certain loopholes and told me to ensure that I wasn't going to cause myself issues - I thought I was paying them to help me, but they seemed very uninterested in getting involved, so I got nowhere. I guess I will have to keep looking - thanks anyway!

Richard_Scope

Hi @layla53
An advisory service that I have been made aware of is Will-probate.co.uk

There is a specific section about disabled children and inheritance.

I hope it is of some help?

TemplarEP

Hi Layla. Did you get an adequate answer?

I run a legal services company that specialises in wills, trusts and estate planning. This is a common problem experienced so I may be able to provide some advice if you give some details as it depends on your circumstances.

layla53

Hi, no I didn't get the help I wanted. Covid has sort of stopped everything, but I do indeed still want advice,I worry even more about what would happen to my daughter now if I suddenly died. I do have specific I questions,but its just a question of being able to talk them through with someone who knows.

Tori_Scope

Did you trying ringing Scope's helpline @layla53?

TemplarEP

If the helpline can help call that.

<moderator removed - advertising not allowed on the community>

Cher_Alumni

@TemplarEP I appreciate your wish to help the OP is well-intentioned however advertising is not permitted on the community (please see our community guidelines), As such, I've edited your comment above to remove your offer.

@layla53 Sorry to hear the advice you were initially given from Citizens Advice was unhelpful. I'd definitely consider revisiting them to ask for a second opinion. Please let us know how you get on.

TemplarEP

@Cher_Scope. I was not advertising or offering anything for sale. I think I even said it wasn't a sales pitch. If I mentioned my job or my role that was purely to explain my background and expertise.

I came across this forum when looking for some information to help one of my clients. I realised there are some who might benefit from my help/advice, such as @layla53. At no point have I tried to sell anything only offer free advice. @layla53 has clearly been let down by CAB and is worried so offered to help her. If you don't want me to do that, that is fine and I won't post to your forums.

layla53

I will try to respond to everything all in one go. I was a bit surprised when I suddenly got notifications this week as there's been nothing for over a year! Firstly, the CAB lady said she was not sufficiently well up in legal matters to help me when I outlined what I wanted to know, which is why she specifically referred me to Scope, she told me there was a legal helpline. I did phone the Scope helpline and was told there was no help available, and was advised to phone the Disability Law Service, which was no good either, as mentioned in my earlier messages above. My questions were about very particular things to do with ownership of my house, things which my own solicitor asked me to check out for myself rather than giving me an answer, which wasn't very helpful to say the least. Although this is all about securing the future for my daughter it is much more about legal niceties and inheritance law. I had a long phone conversation with a Tax Officer who was extremely vague and non-commital, and so again, that got me nowhere.

I was very disappointed that you deleted the post from Templar EP as they very clearly offered me Free advice, so I don't see how that can be construed as advertising.

I am back at square one now. It is worrying enough to be sole carer for someone so vulnerable, who now has Long Covid on top of ME (as do I, but that's another story), but having tried so hard to find some clear legal advice I just find myself going round in circles. If you don't allow your members to offer free advice, how can that be helpful - I don't want kind words and pats on the back, nor to be told to go back to where I started, I was looking for someone, finally to be be willing to engage with my questions, which are not exactly outlandish or strange! I'm very sad that yet again I seem to have hit a brick wall.

I do have one other important question - I wonder whether anyone can answer this - as a totally housebound person, my daughter has no valid passport nor a driving licence. The time will come when she needs legally accepted Photo ID, when she has to fend for herself after my death. What do other people in this situation use? It would be ludicrous to apply for either of these documents, both financially and practically, as she has and will have no need of them, but in the absence of a National ID card, what else can be used and accepted by lawyers, banks and other institutions?

Thank you

chiarieds

Hi @layla53 - as far as photo ID goes, if your daughter has a Blue Badge, this should normally suffice. I have been able to use mine with a Building Society, 3 different solicitors, & an estate agent.

I hope the health of you & your daughter improves soon.

layla53

Hi Chiarieds
Thanks, but sadly she doesn't have a blue badge as she is virtually never well enough to leave the house, so that's out too!! She feels like a total non- person really, having been ill since she was 12 she has never had an 'adult' legal presence if you know what I mean. Thanks for your good wishes :-)

layla53

Hi woodbine
I have of course already made a will long ago doing just that. If there wasn't a problem I wouldn't have asked for help, but I'm not going to detail it all on here. Suffice to say I know exactly what I want to achieve but I wanted some knowledgeable legal advice which is why I was pointed here in the first place.

newborn

I appreciate anyone who is a lawyer and gives general advice and hints, and if they know of specialist firms (their own and others) it would make sense to be pointed towards them, since, as OP found, a generalist will charge a fee for saying "I dunno, find out for yourself".
The I.D. problem is one which affects many people, and those who have been fortunate enough to have any form of I.D other than a passport may not have been talking of recent experiences, or are unusually fortunate.
The irony is, demanding passports is a recent rule, which was assumed to put a stop to all criminality of any sort, mainly money laundering, terrorists, drug and gun smugglers, and illegal immigrants. Those, of course, are the very people whose routine tools-of-the-trade are a ready supply of documents, fake I.Ds and handfuls of passports. We ordinary people couldn't get any such I.D, but to a crook, it would be as easy as ordering pizza.
Some civil servant decided that because they and their friends wouldn't have any idea how to get fake I.D, then there is no such thing as a black market supply of false passports. Duh

Secure in their ivory towers of ignorance, they changed the law. They brought in rules that because they themselves, and their friends, are never far from their own passports and driving licences, those must be required for every normal transaction of life for the entire population. Nothing will happen without these 'magic' documents, no solicitor or bank or employer or even a bed and breakfast landlady is now legally permitted to deal with anyone who hasn't got them and can't get them.
As double irony, immigration organisations clamoured that it is racist to expect illegal immigrants to have passports, so they, alone, are allowed to access the N.H.S, social services, housing, education, benefits and of course lawyers, because, as their representatives argued successfully, they might have destroyed or mislaid their documents during or after their journeys.

TemplarEP

layla53

Well, seeing another post from TemplarEP it looked as though you got exactly what I'm after,from the scant few words on the email. However when I clicked to come back in the site I find your message is not there so unfortunately I can't know what you were trying to say.

I just want to say I appreciate that you wanted to help, I did in my naivety think that was what this message board was about, and I'm so sad that after all practical help is not available because of supposed advertising rules. Surely if someone is offering free advice it is a genuine service. Why ban it?

Life is so very tough at the best of times for disabled people and their carers, it's a minefield of obstacles and uninformed, unpleasant, uncaring bureaucrats, and always seems to end in a cul-de-sac. I'm an articulate, well- informed person with plenty of researching practice, and if I can't get the answers I need I dread to think how awful it is for others less fortunate. And this is the main purpose for what I am trying to do. If its so hard for me, now, it will be impossible for my daughter when she has to try and navigate this on her own. I am doing my level best to streamline and simplify things for her because when I'm no longer here she will be utterly alone and very vulnerable. So forgive me if I sound bitter at being denied the possible chance of some help.

TemplarEP

@layla53 was looking for more security.

I genuinely wanted to try and help. Nothing more.

TemplarEP

I don't know what's going on with this as it's not posting everything.

TemplarEP

I don't think I posted anything contrary to the rules. If I did, sorry.

Geoark

Hi @layla53 and welcome to the community.

I can certainly understand you not wanting to share specifics on here, but it can be difficult to offer advice or signpost potential services without knowing what type of advice you are looking for.

With regards to homeownership issues at work I use the Leaseholders Advisory Service https://www.lease-advice.org/ and recommend it to our homeowners if they would like to get independent information or advice.

There are some very good housing and property lawyers, I would suggest googling 'housing lawyers' to see if there are any near you. I would strongly suggest finding one which offers a free 1 hour consultation period so you can at least outline the issues and see if they are able to assist before having to pay them.

The Housing Ombudsman website provides a list of useful contacts that might be able to help you. https://www.housing-ombudsman.org.uk/residents/helpful-links/ but would recommend scrolling down to the section for legal advice.

With regards to your daughter proving her identity it would seem a passport is the best way forward. I totally agree for what you pay if you are not going to use it for travelling seems excessive, in the end I had little choice but to get one as without it some basic services are next to impossible to get, I appreciate this is not what you want to hear, but it would make your daughter's life easier to get one if something should happen to you. Your posts suggests that your daughter has limited capabilities so you may find this site useful: https://www.gov.uk/passport-services-disabled. As I said I do appreciate you do not want to go down this route, but all I can say is consider how your daughter will cope doing this on her own if something did happen to you.

Hope something here helps you.