My mum had a neighbour, P, who she bullied into doing lots of free admin for her after my dad died. P's late mother had been a friend of a friend, so P got involved in the first place because she thought her mother would have wanted her to help her friend's friend. It's a slippery slope when you have a kind heart.
At first P was willing to help but had to set boundaries because of her own personal commitments. Very soon my mum expected P to come round every day to sort and action her post. P might have told her that she'd come at the weekend, but this wasn't good enough for my mum. She would ring P and cry and demand that she came round straight away. Poor P had a full-time job and an elderly disabled father to look after. Nothing she said made any difference to my mum who was consumed by anxiety and became utterly selfish in consequence. I could not help either of them. My mum got hysterical at the thought of me 'interfering with P's system', and P had been forbidden to talk to me.
There is a point to this saga, bear with me!
My mum went to the solicitor and got a POA drafted naming P as her attorney. P declined to act. My mum was furious, but you cannot force someone to be your attorney. Well I suppose you can. You can instruct your solicitor and they will say Yes because they will get paid for it, whereas a lay attorney is being asked to do all the work for free. See my mum wanted a free service from P, who is an accountant, but not to pay her for her professional services.
Even though P had refused to be her attorney, my mum then named P as co-executor of her new Will. P was not informed. It is good practice to let executors know and to give them a copy of the Will, but there is no legal requirement to do so. Some years on I got in touch with P and when she found out she was named as an executor she was aghast. She said that when the time came she would refuse to act, even though there's a nice little legacy included for her that was intended to make sure P would act out of obligation.
OK, sorry to have gone on so long. My point is that E may find this is the thin end of a very large wedge.
She needs to find out what the donor expects from her and stamp firmly on any unreasonable expectations. That's just my opinion, based on our family experience. Being bullied into helping someone does nobody any favours in the long run.
