RICHARD Durant introduced himself to a Zoom audience of more than 60 members as the new chairman of Crediton and District U3A.

In doing so he told members that they would have the opportunity either to confirm or reject his appointment at the next AGM. He emphasised our ongoing need for more committee members.

Some groups have been able to "meet" via Zoom but members have told him that person-to-person contact is very important to them. Richard went on to introduce Trevor Worth, of Portcullis Legals, who was going to speak to us about wills and powers of attorney.

Trevor said that we’ve got to adapt to our new challenges and by doing this will hopefully get into a new normal.

He went on to emphasise the great importance of wills and powers of attorney in our lives. The pandemic has stimulated an enormous increase in demand for information on both of these and said that he thought that if more law firms made the communication of information on them much better, it would help.

Some DIY wills are fine, but so many are ambiguous. Completely accurate detail is all-important. Take good advice from someone you can trust. Good legal help in drafting a will or compiling a lasting power of attorney doesn’t cost very much and is very much to be recommended. Powers of Attorney give control to a person of your choice.

The Kate Garraway case has thrown up the importance of Powers of Attorney, The broadcaster’s husband, Derek Draper, developed Covid-19 at the end of March and has been comatose for many months.

They did not have a power of attorney whereby an attorney (in this case it would be Ms Garraway herself) is appointed to make decisions on your behalf in this and similar eventualities, so until Derek comes out of the coma, Ms Garraway is entirely dependent on due legal processes being followed.

The case of Stuart Herd illustrates how drafting a will badly can ruin some lives. Stuart’s father, William was widowed in 1986, but remarried (Dorothy) two years later.

Before his death in 1997, William explained to Stuart that he and Dorothy had made mirror wills, which said that, when one of them died, everything would pass to the survivor, and when both had passed away, the estate would be divided equally between Stuart and his stepbrother, Dorothy’s son from her previous marriage.

But, when Dorothy died in 2012, Stuart discovered to his dismay that Dorothy had changed her will after inheriting everything from William. Under the terms of her new will, she left everything to her son and his family – completely disinheriting Stuart.

Instead of having straightforward mirror wills drawn up, William could instead have opted for Protective Property Trust Wills.

In a Protective Property Trust Will, instead of leaving everything to Dorothy absolutely, crossing his fingers that she would pass it on to Stuart, William would have left everything to two trustees, for the benefit of Dorothy, Stuart, and future generations.

Health issues, particularly the loss of mental capacity, assume far greater significance as we age. Trevor considers completion of either or both of the two sorts of lasting powers of attorney (health and property and health and welfare) to be of more importance than the making of a will and feels that there’s a need for the public to be made more aware of their existence. Applications for this legal document are handled nationally by the Office of the Public Guardian. If we hadn’t already investigated POA’s, Trevor urged that we did so.

We should be aware of making property over to the next generation (whilst continuing to live in the property) in an attempt to save on inheritance tax. This can start all sorts of legal complexities, possibly leading to liability for Capital Gains Tax by the person that inherits. If your relationship with your children finishes, you could be thrown out of your house.

Apathy and inertia are the main factors preventing people from putting something in place to secure things for the next generation, Trevor urged us to make sure that we at least look into buying some peace of mind.

After the completion of his talk Trevor took questions from members. These included one from the chairman asking if we should revisit legal documents to ensure that they were still current. Trevor thought that this should be done every two years.

Richard then concluded the meeting.?Crediton U3A has monthly meetings, open to non-members, on the third Wednesday of the month at the Boniface Centre in Crediton but we have been forced to go “virtual” during these challenging times!

Our meetings are now held on Zoom and the next meeting is on December 16 at 10am. The speaker will be Ian Keable on The Century of Deception; Birth of the Hoax in the 18th Century.

Keith Barker