Dear Readers,
FC # 77 on Coincidences & Irony had a good readership and response. Thank you.
My good friend Shereyar Vakil asks: “Would the adage ‘Wise men think alike fools seldom differ’ represent a coincidence or a happenstance? Meeting you was happenstance but thinking like you is a coincidence.” So nice of you to say that Shereyar.
Yesterday was Christmas and though Omicron dampened the festive spirit, people did greet one another regardless of their faith or religion. Like Diwali, Christmas too has a universal connection. Both have, mercifully, a unifying effect. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all of you!
🎁 To Gift or Not?
There was a statement made in the press by a certain well-known person urging parents to hang on to their property and not give it away to their children during their lifetime. He was in favour of writing a Will and not gifting away the property.
The underlying apprehension for this advice was the preponderance of neglect of parents once they cede control over the estate to the children.
The neglect could be physical, resulting in the denial of proper food, comfort and general apathy. It could also be medical — the denial of proper medication and treatment. More seriously it could be emotional neglect.
One cannot make a sweeping assumption that all children would stop caring for their parents after they have gifted their property to them. But there is some evidence around us to substantiate this fear of neglect in the parents’ minds.
There are two likely scenarios:
In the first, the parents spend all their savings on educating the children or getting the daughters married, and may hardly have anything left other than a modest roof over their head. If they sell it to clear debts that were incurred for the children’s benefit and start living with the children, in due course fissures may surface leading to resentment, intolerance and general apathy towards the dependent parents.
In the second scenario, the parents decide to gift the property to the children with the unshakable belief that they will be looked after for the rest of their life. The belief may soon be replaced by bewilderment as they begin to sense a feeling of neglect and emotional estrangement.
Let me first discuss the most important challenge before the seniors. I remember my friend Ashvini Ranjan making a comment on FC # 73. He said as we grow older our ability to paddle our own canoe diminishes, and we should take good care of ourselves and be able to do our own thing and not be a burden on the children. However willing they are to look after us, we must realise that we are going to be a burden on them and thus interfere with their busy lives and careers.
As parents grow older, various ailments require treatment and medical expenses begin to spiral. Health insurance coverage becomes difficult to get and even if the cover is available, it comes at a fancy premium. If parents do not have a nest egg, a reasonable pension or eligibility for free treatment (like what defence personnel get), they find themselves miserable and helpless. It is therefore very important to invest wisely to have some revenue stream that sustains them and takes care of the medical and other expenses.
The most traumatic phase for old couples is when one of them dies leaving the surviving spouse in an emotional upheaval. The loss of an intimate partner is a significant trigger for loneliness. Some parents are fortunate to have caring daughters or sons or for that matter a caring daughter-in-law. They manage to get over the bereavement but more often than not they withdraw into a shell. Some begin to find solace in interacting with grandchildren for so long as they are not made to feel that they are babysitting and when the grandchildren grow up they begin to feel they are no longer needed and suffer from an emotional disconnect.
Estrangement indicates a breakdown in communication. Given that it is a two-way process, it is sometimes difficult to identify the party that cut off the channel of communication. Some feel that it is the children who stop talking to their parents or become intolerant of them. On the other hand, the children might disagree and hold the parents responsible for not recognising that they have their own busy lives and challenges to deal with. The children expect a greater understanding of their problems from their parents and for parents to not expect life to go on the way it did before.
Total alienation happens when a parent is sent to an old folks home, also called ‘elder care facility’. It could be for any of a number of reasons. The parent’s medical condition would be such that the children do not have the means to engage a round-the-clock caregiver, and they find it easier to pay an old age home to look after the parent. Couples who are completely consumed by the demands of their careers find it safer to keep the aged parents in an elder care facility than to worry about them being on their own and unattended.
What I have just narrated supports the view that gifting away the property is not necessarily the reason for children to neglect their parents though it may be an aggravating factor in some cases. The fact that a parent is holding on to a property and is likely to deal with it in a Will may disincentivize the children from alienating the parents for fear of being disinherited.
Some hold the view that it’s all about the money. When whatever can be taken from the parents is done with, the parents become liabilities. They have no purpose left in the lives of the kids. This line of thought sounds a bit harsh but can happen.
There are cases where the son has prevailed over the father and made him grant a general power of attorney, which has sweeping powers to deal with the father’s estate. Such powers of attorney are to be granted very discerningly under legal advice after much deliberation and with powers to revoke the attorney’s authority.
Siblings add another dimension to elder care issues. I have seen one sibling shouldering all the responsibilities of caring for the parents while the other sibling living elsewhere or overseas is either aloof or content sending some money which adds to the resentment of the sibling with whom the parents live. And if the parents execute a Will giving the lion’s share of the property to the sibling who took care of them, the other sibling would seethe with anger and jealousy leading to the estrangement of the siblings.
Then, what would you as a parent like to do? Gift away the property or keep children on a leash and keep them guessing how you are going to draw up the Will? I asked a few parents and the majority of them said they would want to write a Will giving away the estate to the surviving spouse or create a life interest and let the children inherit after the demise of the surviving spouse. Their logic was that the surviving spouse should be well provided for and should be seen as a source of inheritance by the children and not be at their mercy.
A couple of them said they don’t mind gifting away the property during their lifetime provided they can revoke the gift if the children neglect them and do not take good care of them. That’s easier said than done in real life though there is a legal basis for such revocation.
The Parliament enacted a law called the “Maintenance of Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act, 2007” to ensure that parents are taken care of properly by their children. Under Section 23 of this Act, the gift can be revoked if the gift made was predicated on the condition that the donee will provide the donor certain amenities and physical needs, and if those conditions are not met. But then this too like any other legal process is long drawn and brings out in the open the discord between the children and the parent.
If parents believe in the adage ‘where there is a will there's a way’, should they opt for making a Will? If they are confident and have immense trust in their children should they go by the adage ‘Gift causes no rift’?
Well, the jury on these dilemmatic options is still out.
Have a safe and healthy holiday season dear readers. Cheers! See you in 2022.
A very difficult but important subject you have brought up.
For those seniors who are not covered by a nest egg built up over their lifetime, there is really no other option but to depend on their children for their survival. Not the best of situations no doubt.
But even for those of us who have no need for financial support leaving a Will may give us some imagined comfort, but real comfort comes only from caring children who are not doing so because of the money but purely because they feel it's the right thing to do. Our next generation mostly are doing better than we did and I doubt if an expected windfall from a Will is going to be a major factor at all.
Along with me let's just hope that our children will be there for us when we need them. Let's also ensure that we act maturely towards them, not letting our expectations show.
Dilemmatic options for us silvered! Maybe make regular gifts in appreciation of their care? And how about a living revocable trust? Sigh, any which way seems such an important but discomforting topic!!
Happy Holidays!!