# ward of court? wise or foolish



## riseatdawn (27 Jan 2009)

my first post, and i have a tricky puzzle and hope some of you ultra bright legal experts may give me a helpful steer.

what i have is a complicated case, but i suppose they make for the most interesting.

my father seperated from my mother back in the 1970s, leaving my sister and I in his wake. the three of us got on living our lives. the father had differing partners over the intervening years until settling down with one and buying a property about 15 years ago. our part of the family(mother, sister and I) have been estranged from him and made minimal contact barring funerals in the last 30 years. he developed dementia apparently 4 or 5 years ago, and his partner was caring for him. in a twist of irony that partner died in early 2008. the upshot is that, the property is now totally his(due to her willing her share to him).

that is the background, now the complication surfaces. soon after his partners death, the dementia became much worse.his family and his former partners family deserted him after the death of his partner, because frankly they did not want to take responsiblity for him and would be unsure about any reward they would get from a future will. the health services became very agitated and basically forced my sister and I back into the picture because, apart from our mother, we were the next of kin.

3 months ago he was put into a public nursing home on the call of a combination of his physician/social worker/community officer. in fairness it was the only safe option.

you might call it cold or callous, but the 3 of us choose minimal involvement in the last 14 months(this was a man that deserted a young wife and 2 kids and never paid a dime in maintenance in tough times in 70s/80s). 

in the last week the various health/social workers have returned to us asking to consider the option of seeking a ward of court. the fathers house, quite a nice property, is lying idle and deteriorating. there are outstanding legal proceedings which are certain to have a positive outcome for my father, but these proceedings have stalled because his legal team cannot take instructions from him due to his mental capacity. 

the advantage of taking out ward of court, i assume would be to allow us the latitide(as the appointed committee) to rent out the property, and also give instructions to his legal team to finalise that outstanding case. 

on the flip side, we do not know what is contained in his will, and we do not know if his late partner influenced him (while in the early stages of dementia) about that will, and if she did, the possibility abounds, that we could be totally written out of it.

as i mentioned the gov depts currently involved, want us to engage in the ward of court process( no one else from his family will touch this hot potato): the ultimate question then is as a trio, would we be best to spent the money on the ward of court for the reasons outlined, or alternatively do zero, sit back and wait for him to pass away and then see what awaits in his will.

in the event of selecting the latter option(doing nothing), who becomes responsible for the upkeep of the now vacant property?, and does the outstanding legitation case die a death with my father, or on his death can we still persue it.

sorry for the complexity, i look forward to your responses.


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## mathepac (27 Jan 2009)

Sorry to hear of the tragic, upsetting issues you are trying to sort out.

Have you sought any legal advice yet?

A few questions that may help clarify certain matters :


 Do you and the rest of the parties live in Ireland? (If the answer is "No", then ignore the rest of this post)
 Were your parents divorced / legally separated?
 If they were, what were the terms of any agreement?
 Were your father and his late partner married?
 Did they have any children together?
 Did your father's late partner have a husband / partner?
 Did your father's late partner have children with her husband / partner?
 How was the acquisition / purchase of the house financed?
 Has the will that your late father's partner left gone to probate?
Who is the executor(s) of this will?
 Have taxes been levied on your father's inheritance from his late partner?
If your father dies, my understanding is that any litigation he initiated dies with him. I'm not sure about litigation initiated against him.

With regard to ward of court, please see the following - [broken link removed]

I'm not a lawyer but I'm sure there'll be one along soon.


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## riseatdawn (27 Jan 2009)

thank you for the reply. the answers 1-11.
1-yes
2-7 no
8-small mortgage, eliminated on death of his partner due to life policy
9-yes, 10-a known individual
11-not in a position to know.

thanks for sorting the litigation question, still dont know the legal standing ofthe property, surely someone must be responsible for an idle prperty.


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## suppleness (4 Feb 2009)

For better or worse, he is your dad.
Evil man, or a great man, you or your siblings wouldn't be here without him, he had a part to play in giving you all life, and that is more precious than being written out of any will.

Not legal advice, just my advice:  Just take care of your fathers legal affairs until he passes, let the past stay there, don't think about the money as in the very end its worth is nothing. Give the man as dignified a send off as you can by getting his affairs in order.

Just an opinion.


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## WaterSprite (4 Feb 2009)

I wonder if there is a way to see the will before he passes away?  I reckon you need to talk to a good family law solicitor because, as you say, the situation is pretty complicated.  If you act as the committee for a ward of court, you may only be doing it for expenses (if there is no bequest in the will) and, if you are not willing to do it under those circumstances, I'd try hard to find out what that will says now so that (i) you don't spend time and effort organising the upkeep of a property that may not end up to be yours and (ii) you don't *not* spend time and effort in the upkeep of a property that may end up to be yours.

I certainly don't second-guess your motives and reasoning and don't think anyone else here should either.  I hope this thread doesn't disintegrate into a discussion on perceived moral obligations from people who have no idea what your real life experience has been.


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## Vanilla (4 Feb 2009)

WaterSprite said:


> I wonder if there is a way to see the will before he passes away?


 
There is no entitlement to see the will.


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## MOB (4 Feb 2009)

There is no reason that the Ward of Court process should cost you money.  The costs will be paid out of your father's assets, once he is made a ward of court.  I would go ahead and make the application.


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## Madangan (5 Feb 2009)

mob said:


> there is no reason that the ward of court process should cost you money. The costs will be paid out of your father's assets, once he is made a ward of court. I would go ahead and make the application.


 
+1


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