Mum's home, not to give it to equity release or a care home.

Mum's home, not to give it to equity release or a care home.

Author
Discussion

AndyAudi

3,007 posts

221 months

Thursday 9th May 2019
quotequote all
Another option,

My grandparents looked at equity release but I didn’t like the cost & was in a position to offer a top up of a few £k as & when they needed it. Once it got bigger we formalised things on advice of my solicitor, it cost a few hundred pounds but I have 1st security on their house against an agreed schedule of drawings. One of the solicitors reasons for formalities was to demonstrate they had loans against their house in the event of needing care somewhere down the line.

wisbech

2,939 posts

120 months

Saturday 11th May 2019
quotequote all
Nickbrapp said:
The Leaper said:
Care is so expensive. I know of a situation where the wife needed full time care at home, which worked out at £6000 pm, and subsequently three visits a day costing £500o pm. She is now in a home costing £4500 pm.

R.
You do have to wonder why it’s so expensive? A carer is quite similar to a nanny, you could have one of those for much less
Nannys don’t work 24/7.

Slushbox

1,484 posts

104 months

Saturday 11th May 2019
quotequote all
Had a similar problem with G/F's mum fifteen years ago. Mum aged 74 couldn't manage the stairs so we converted the downstairs util room into a shower room and the extension into a bedroom. There was a downstairs loo, kitchen and dining room, so it's quite a big comfortable space.

That worked out well, but as mum aged she worried about losing the house to pay for care. Solicitor's advice was to put house in 49/51% ownership with daughter having the major share. No idea if this was sound advice. Did it eight years ago.

Daughter now living at home with mum, so we think the house can't be sold to pay for care, but I'm not a lawyer. Legal advice should be sought. One other option was to buy the house and give mum a secure tenancy. Again, I don't know how sound that advice was.

As to converting the attic: age takes its toll very quickly, and that some form of easier access might be needed sooner rather than later.

There's a lot of home nursing and assistance care these days, so being moved to a 'home' seems to happen only when the elderly can't wash or feed themselves. Strokes, falling downstairs, chip-pan fires, dementia and heart attacks seems to speed that process up, alas, so it's best to plan well ahead. Internet shopping food deliveries are helping a lot of my immobile elderly neighbours.

On the upside, as long as G/F's mum can continue at home, albeit with day help, there's no reason for her to move to a care home.

Homecare is means tested: figures from AgeUK. Attendance Allowances are available, so each case needs individual scrutiny,

https://www.ageuk.org.uk/information-advice/care/p...





Edited by Slushbox on Saturday 11th May 10:24

Grandad Gaz

5,090 posts

245 months

Saturday 11th May 2019
quotequote all
The Leaper said:
markcoznotzz,

Maybe you're showing your age...there's plenty among us oldies who have exactly this concern. I/we grew up in a period when care was available and the matter of cost was not a concern so the concept of me/we making provision for my/our future care was not something I/we thought about. Now I'm supposed to be content to have everything I've been encouraged to achieve..savings, own my house etc..under the real threat of legally being taken away from my control.

I do feel that one's future care is something that should be funded in advance either through increased NICs, taxation or private insurance, but to change the regime as has been done leaves us older persons not in a position to do any forward financial planning for the care consequences.

Having been encouraged by all the political parties to bust a gut to buy my own home in the past, it feels like the same parties are now after getting their hands on it by whatever means.

And now we have the Labour Party thinking of, in effect, nationalising all private property "at no cost to the tax payer" so that means my house could be simply stolen from me. Will this mean that my future care will be free? I don't think so.

I'd encourage the OP to seek whatever means he can to keep the property but from what he says it looks like "deprivation" to me whatever is done, with the inevitable result.

R.
I agree with this.

Everybody I know of my age group owns their own house. not one of them is in rented, which makes us a rather lucrative and easy target.

You have to wonder what will happen in 40 or 50 years time, though. Most of the youngsters today will never want to, or be able to own their own home. The government will have to come up with some other method of getting others to pay for social care, because those that need it in the future certainly won't have the money themselves.

DonkeyApple

54,928 posts

168 months

Monday 13th May 2019
quotequote all
Nickbrapp said:
The Leaper said:
Care is so expensive. I know of a situation where the wife needed full time care at home, which worked out at £6000 pm, and subsequently three visits a day costing £500o pm. She is now in a home costing £4500 pm.

R.
You do have to wonder why it’s so expensive? A carer is quite similar to a nanny, you could have one of those for much less
The trouble is that if you fag packet the basic cost of a low wage employee, an agency and the various insurances etc even the most stripped down of services adds up to a relatively large sum.

Just in its crudest term of simply employing someone on £20k/annum that’s going to cost you around £30k/annum. Add in the other bits and suddenly £4500 seems very inexpensive!!!

This is the pension bit that few workers today fully appreciate. Your retirement calculation typically looks at what you’d need to live on after paying off the mortgage but when did someone consider that 10 or 20 years after retiring they may well need to finance a full time employee for a decade.

wisbech

2,939 posts

120 months

Monday 13th May 2019
quotequote all
DonkeyApple said:
The trouble is that if you fag packet the basic cost of a low wage employee, an agency and the various insurances etc even the most stripped down of services adds up to a relatively large sum.

Just in its crudest term of simply employing someone on £20k/annum that’s going to cost you around £30k/annum. Add in the other bits and suddenly £4500 seems very inexpensive!!!

This is the pension bit that few workers today fully appreciate. Your retirement calculation typically looks at what you’d need to live on after paying off the mortgage but when did someone consider that 10 or 20 years after retiring they may well need to finance a full time employee for a decade.
Yep- my sister had a nanny for a few years. Costs were >50 k a year. (national insurance, other insurances etc,, plus a properly qualified nanny is paid more than a primary school teacher)

Don’t forget paid maternity/ paternity leave and cover if your carer is of child bearing age

Some countries in N Asia are looking at nursing homes in Philippines etc. Move the geriatric care to where there are still pools of cheap labour

Terminator X

14,921 posts

203 months

Monday 13th May 2019
quotequote all
"3- Upload her to live with us, use the house as a rental to generate an income, or sell the house and convert the loft into a living space for her with left over cash as savings."

Granny flat surely better as is she fit + able enough to get up 2 flights of stairs regularly every day? Perhaps yes today but what about in a few years?

TX.

Terminator X

14,921 posts

203 months

Monday 13th May 2019
quotequote all
Slushbox said:
Had a similar problem with G/F's mum fifteen years ago. Mum aged 74 couldn't manage the stairs so we converted the downstairs util room into a shower room and the extension into a bedroom. There was a downstairs loo, kitchen and dining room, so it's quite a big comfortable space.

That worked out well, but as mum aged she worried about losing the house to pay for care. Solicitor's advice was to put house in 49/51% ownership with daughter having the major share. No idea if this was sound advice. Did it eight years ago.

Daughter now living at home with mum, so we think the house can't be sold to pay for care, but I'm not a lawyer. Legal advice should be sought. One other option was to buy the house and give mum a secure tenancy. Again, I don't know how sound that advice was.

As to converting the attic: age takes its toll very quickly, and that some form of easier access might be needed sooner rather than later.

There's a lot of home nursing and assistance care these days, so being moved to a 'home' seems to happen only when the elderly can't wash or feed themselves. Strokes, falling downstairs, chip-pan fires, dementia and heart attacks seems to speed that process up, alas, so it's best to plan well ahead. Internet shopping food deliveries are helping a lot of my immobile elderly neighbours.

On the upside, as long as G/F's mum can continue at home, albeit with day help, there's no reason for her to move to a care home.

Homecare is means tested: figures from AgeUK. Attendance Allowances are available, so each case needs individual scrutiny,

https://www.ageuk.org.uk/information-advice/care/p...





Edited by Slushbox on Saturday 11th May 10:24
Stunned at that, surely 99% of the population have assets worth over £14k eg virtually no one gets funded?

TX.

The Leaper

4,937 posts

205 months

Monday 13th May 2019
quotequote all
You've worked out why the asset limit above which self funding applies is so low!

By the way, a live in carer's costs I mentioned above is salary only. You still need to feed he/her and provide everything else.

R.

wisbech

2,939 posts

120 months

Monday 13th May 2019
quotequote all
Terminator X said:
Stunned at that, surely 99% of the population have assets worth over £14k eg virtually no one gets funded?

TX.
10% of households have less than 13,900 in assets. Obviously this includes 20 year olds starting out

But 5% of over 65 households have less than 13900 (lowest decile)

wisbech

2,939 posts

120 months

Monday 13th May 2019
quotequote all
Terminator X said:
Stunned at that, surely 99% of the population have assets worth over £14k eg virtually no one gets funded?

TX.
Which makes sense. There’s value in not having starving dementia elderly in the streets, but unless that is the the only alternative I think society is right to ask people to pay their own way, or take out long term care insurance.

Isn’t this exactly why you save up money in the first place, the rainiest of rainy days? If you value giving it to your 50 year old children instead, well, your choice, but then go live with them/ don’t expect state to pay

Oakey

27,523 posts

215 months

Monday 13th May 2019
quotequote all
Terminator X said:
Slushbox said:
Had a similar problem with G/F's mum fifteen years ago. Mum aged 74 couldn't manage the stairs so we converted the downstairs util room into a shower room and the extension into a bedroom. There was a downstairs loo, kitchen and dining room, so it's quite a big comfortable space.

That worked out well, but as mum aged she worried about losing the house to pay for care. Solicitor's advice was to put house in 49/51% ownership with daughter having the major share. No idea if this was sound advice. Did it eight years ago.

Daughter now living at home with mum, so we think the house can't be sold to pay for care, but I'm not a lawyer. Legal advice should be sought. One other option was to buy the house and give mum a secure tenancy. Again, I don't know how sound that advice was.

As to converting the attic: age takes its toll very quickly, and that some form of easier access might be needed sooner rather than later.

There's a lot of home nursing and assistance care these days, so being moved to a 'home' seems to happen only when the elderly can't wash or feed themselves. Strokes, falling downstairs, chip-pan fires, dementia and heart attacks seems to speed that process up, alas, so it's best to plan well ahead. Internet shopping food deliveries are helping a lot of my immobile elderly neighbours.

On the upside, as long as G/F's mum can continue at home, albeit with day help, there's no reason for her to move to a care home.

Homecare is means tested: figures from AgeUK. Attendance Allowances are available, so each case needs individual scrutiny,

https://www.ageuk.org.uk/information-advice/care/p...





Edited by Slushbox on Saturday 11th May 10:24
Stunned at that, surely 99% of the population have assets worth over £14k eg virtually no one gets funded?

TX.
Remember the so called 'dementia tax' that everyone was up in arms about? The one that would have left everyone with £100k of their assets rather than the current system where you get £14k!

DonkeyApple

54,928 posts

168 months

Monday 13th May 2019
quotequote all
wisbech said:
Yep- my sister had a nanny for a few years. Costs were >50 k a year. (national insurance, other insurances etc,, plus a properly qualified nanny is paid more than a primary school teacher)

Don’t forget paid maternity/ paternity leave and cover if your carer is of child bearing age

Some countries in N Asia are looking at nursing homes in Philippines etc. Move the geriatric care to where there are still pools of cheap labour
It’s all the hidden and true cost of modern disparate living where the family unit is no longer living in close proximity.

There was a very good reason that older widows rented rooms to lodgers, grannies went to live with the children or the children moved into the granny’s home etc. The speed at which we can have a pizza delivered, the ease of renting new cars or kit out a home with new furniture hasn’t changed the core, fundamental costs of breaking air for everyone in the family but what has enormously changed the cost is that we either don’t want sneaky old people in our homes clashing with the shiffon rugs, our work keeps us too far away to be able to move into their larger home or our homes because they are commutable are too small to move them in.

Whatever the reasons whether logical or selfish we are going through the typical phase of wanting to farm out the problem and for someone else to pay for it all when we all secretly know and appreciate that the real solution is to revert to how we used to do it as there simply isn’t the money to be so decadent.

But until then storage solution for unwanted grannies will remain a superb industry to gear up on bank debt, rake in the State payments and hire some angry foreigners to beat the crap out of any unruly old grannies who don’t tow the company line. frown

DonkeyApple

54,928 posts

168 months

Monday 13th May 2019
quotequote all
Yup. Life’s issues and it’s solutions are never simple and dementia is the cruelest of diseases.

None of us want our wives to end up full time carers and many have no ability in any regards due to the need for two incomes these days.

The harsh reality is that we have a situation in the West for the next 20-30 years of very high elderly care costs that the State never budgeted for and the cost must be met by current taxpayers. The elephant in the room being the massively inflated property assets that it seems only fair are used to help cover these costs.

SpeckledJim

31,608 posts

252 months

Monday 13th May 2019
quotequote all
markcoznottz said:
troika said:
This is the problem with elderly care. Everyone wants it and wants it to be of the best quality, but wants someone else to pay for it.
Just an honest debate would do, under no circumstances should it be means tested.
Today's retirees with homes worth fortunes didn't earn the majority of that money, and haven't paid tax on it. It dropped into their laps as a result of 30 years of crazy house price growth.

The parents of this generation paid for their education, they've been the lucky recipients of peace and prosperity, so are they really expecting their children to pay for their retirements?

The money is almost all theirs, the problem is almost all theirs. They, of all of us, are the best-placed to pay for what they need.

Unless we're really saying that middle-aged kids who couldn't even nearly afford to buy the house they grew up in are going to pay for their parents' care through their mid-life taxation, whilst the large family house just sits untouchable and irrelevant to the whole situation?

SpeckledJim

31,608 posts

252 months

Monday 13th May 2019
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anonymous said:
[redacted]

NickCQ

5,392 posts

95 months

Monday 13th May 2019
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anonymous said:
[redacted]
You miss the point on two counts:
(i) a substantial proportion of household wealth in the UK among the older generation was not accumulated through 'hard work', it was randomly allocated to them through being in the right place at the right time in the housing market. Not making a comment on your parents' situation per se.
(ii) it is obviously inequitable for the government to come out of pocket to pay for individuals' care so that they can preserve their assets to give to their kids as an inheritance!


rallycross

12,747 posts

236 months

Monday 13th May 2019
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anonymous said:
[redacted]
Thanks for sharing your story will be of help to others to read this info.

JB!

5,254 posts

179 months

Monday 13th May 2019
quotequote all
Is a trust an option?

wisbech

2,939 posts

120 months

Monday 13th May 2019
quotequote all
anonymous said:
[redacted]
My father - I wrote about it elsewhere on this site. And I am not sure that getting more money on his death would have lessened the sorrow

Why should we inherit, rather than their money be used to look after them properly?

If anything I wish they had spent more. All the money that they spent on making my mothers burden less as his main carer was great value for money.

It is just bad luck if they need to spend their money on care, rather than other things/ leave it to the kids. If it doesn’t happen, great, you get a bonus. If it does, that’s life. Note that dementia isn’t certain.

My parents gave me a good start in life, but once I had left college (they scrupulously gave me the ‘grant’ money to the penny) it was understood we should be on our own.




Edited by wisbech on Monday 13th May 16:26