I had a very nice guy, a financial advisor no less, who’d of thought I would have needed one of them folk, to advise me on making a will. I am leaving everything to a cat charity and needed to make a will but more importantly sort out an executor without it costing a fortune as I do not have anyone to do it.
I have a few quid but I also have a lot of reasonable electronic gear in my flat, TV’s, phone, tablets, computer parts ETC ETC and my concern is that the charity would not know the true value of what these items could sell for so an inventory is called for.
Your will seems quite simple Mr F as there is only one beneficiary it would be worth asking the if the charity would be your executor.( a beneficiary can also be an executor) you could contact them and ask - they do do this and would advise you . It would be in their interest to get the most they can from your legacy .Make your inventory and take a copy of your signed will and put them together.
That was my intention and had spoken to the charity but they were not keen for whatever reason.
As you say it is a simple will and in fact I would given the charity most of my cash and property before I died so there would have been even less to take care of?
Mr Fraggle…do you think it might be better (although it’s appreciated it will cost) to ask someone legal to be an executor, in the light of all your electronic equipment and wanting a sale close to their value?
They would surely make sure the true value tried to be achieved, or certainly the next best price, especially if you stipulate your wishes for that to happen.
Then at least you can be satisfied your particular cat charity will be getting the best possible donation.
It might just take that stress away thinking about getting it sorted. Perhaps if you way up the pros and cons of paying a legal to sort it, and getting a good price rather than the charity selling it for less, (therefore receiving less), the sale of it would still be an extra for the charity, if that makes sense. But you might already thought of that and dismissed it.
(Not good at trying to write what I mean, sorry).
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Off topic and not the same thing, as your post, but briefly I was sole executor for a lady friend who died. She left her large fortune to various folk plus 3 charities and obviously when I’d sold her flat, that added to the large fortune.
One of the charities was a noted hospital for children down in London. I can’t tell you how many times they had the cheek to write to me and the solicitor (who I eventually asked to help me as there were problems selling her flat). Basically this particular charity wanted to know how much longer would it all be finalised! We’re talking nearly 100+ grand to that one charity, who regularly advertise and receive donations.
They went right down in my estimation.
I have looked into using a solicitor to be the executor but I am keen to reduce the amount taken as fees and solicitors and banks charge 5% whereas the guy I saw yesterday charges 1.5%. The financial advisor I saw yesterday was not some random bloke but the son of one of the charities long term volunteers and was far more helpful than the solicitor I saw last year who did not seem to be particularly interested in my small estate.
As to your other point about realising a decent value for my gear hopefully I will be selling the stuff myself. If I have the treatment and if it is unsuccessful then I will obviously need to prepare for the eventual outcome which for me would be selling everything so it would be a simple act of closing bank accout and transferring the cash to the charity.
The charity I am leaving my estate to is a small one, one I have supported for a while. Unlike other charities all monies goes to the welfare of the cats, the Cats Protection charity on the other hand spend only 33% of every pound on the cats. I know the people of the charity well all volunteers so have no worrys that they will be nagging for what little money I am leaving to them.
So much for waiting three months for another CT scan and reassessment though to be fair I had the CT Scan in the first week of December but I have just learnt that my next appointment with an oncologist will be mid March so not 3 months more 6 months.
What is more disturbing is my inability or difficulty to get results from my scans and biopsy. I have requested these from both my ENT consultant who promised to get them sent out asap this was 6 weeks ago. I also contacted the specialist nurse and she to promised to sort this out and this was 7 weeks ago.
I did manage to get a copy of my biopsy report, from my GP after phoning because I could not stop my nose bleeding, which made for some disturbing reading and I am no expert but I do have Google to interpret the jargon the medical profession does love to use and it would suggest that I should have been offered treatment and a start date sometime ago.
I have no doubt COVID will be the excuse but to be honest NHS Lothian have always been poor when it comes to supplying results to patients information useful for us to make informed decisions on our treatment.
I will give both my ENT consultant and specialist nurse a further week before submitting an official complaint.
I think I have past the point or frustration and moved on to anger, there really is no excuse in the 21st century for information not to be readily available to the patient.
Mr Fraggle, l am so angry with myself that l haven’t posted on this thread before. I wanted to wish you well and hope that you soon get the information you’re waiting for.
The trouble is, l see a thread and then when l go looking for it, to post on it. I can’t find it.
Thanks all.
I will phone the specilist nurse agan today and make it clear that I am entitled to the information and if I do not get then I will be canceling my next appointment with the oncologist, how can I be expected to discuss my issues and make educated decisions on my treatment if I do not have all the information.
Edit: if you go to the first post in a thread then click on the three dots you can then click the bookmark which makes finding any thread easier.
Nope even though Our Great Leader would have us believe we have a better NHS service up here in Scotland basically it is rubbish.
I was told by management that they do not send medical records via Patient e-Comms I signed up for some years ago for security reasons even though it requires a password and a code to access my account. No according to her it is far more secure to bung these things in the post.
Up here in in Scotland and my health board you are assigned a specialist nurse as part of your cancer treatment medical team, to be honest you are assigned a anwer machine number as no one is ever available to answer the phone. So I called Monday mornng left a message and waited a call back. This came late afternoon but i missed it as my phone is not glued to my hand particularly when I am home.
I called back but it went straight to answer machine no matter i thought they will try again the following morning except it never came so called in the afternokn left a message again and this time got the call back.
I asked why she had called back in the morning and shockingly she said they only call back once and if they miss you you need to start the whole process again.
Purpose of call was to find out why they had not sent the results I requested.
wishing you all the very best it must be very frustrating for you