Can I /should I do this? Joint house purchase under power of attorney.

[powerovereternity]

Stuck on the horns of a practical/ethical/financial/emotional dilemma about how best to cope with mother's future care arrangements.

I've been caring for her for about 7 years since she started getting less able.

She's 91, lives alone in bungalow, diagnosed with vascular dementia, mobile-ish with frame in house or pushed in wheelchair outdoors, losing weight, fairly bonkers but sharp enough at times, can be incontinent but washes out her pants and thinks I don't know - very secretive - entirely in denial about dementia/old age/frailty. Bit narcissistic, not much by way of conversation unless it's about her/her sisters/the past.

She would probably refuse other carers so I'm her only carer (no siblings), I live nearby and able to see her twice a day spending probably half an hour in the morning and 2 hours in the evening, feeding her and doing her housework.

I have power of attorney for everything.

She's financially independent and does quite well for pensions - a saver not a spender - as her care costs are nothing.

I feel (as does her GP) that her time of living entirely alone is probably coming to an end soon.

A house locally has come up for sale with a self-contained annexe.

I can't afford to buy it but she could if I sold her house and used most of her savings - about £400k all in.

I would want it to be in joint names - 50/50 possibly.

I have some money but nowhere near enough to buy half and it's all I've got to keep me until the end of my days. I won't be able to work and look after her soon.

If we buy this house, I would be her full-time carer.

I suppose the bottom line is - I'm going to be looking after her until either she dies or I have no choice but to put her in a care home.

I'm the beneficiary of her estate.

Local care homes cost about £1000 per week. She's obviously got the money but she's always been adamant about not wanting to go in a home - aren't we all though?

I know she would prefer the annexe arrangement.

I would consider it if I can own it 50/50 because it secures some inheritance/security/future for me.

Otherwise, I could find she goes into a care home anyway in a few years, she lives to a hundred and ten, the house has to be sold all the money's gone along with most of the rest of my life.

It's quite possible she could outlive me.

Whereas if I go with the care home option now, I might inherit nothing, but I have my own life immediately.

Are there any legal hurdles to me, as her attorney, buy a house with her 50/50 without actually having the 50%?

I understand there are moral issues with this and I am mindful of those.

What would you do?

[timeistight]

First question is - does she have capacity?

[Mymouthgetsmeintrouble]

Have you asked her if she would like to move house and come to live with you , i think it sounds a good solution

[powerovereternity]

@timeistight -

she has vascular dementia and I have power of attorney over all aspects so, no, she doesn't have capacity in a legal sense. Of course, that doesn't mean that she doesn't sometimes know her own mind - she does.
But she couldn't make complex financial decisions or really any complex decisions. She has difficulty understanding sentences with more than one clause or condition and can't really project thoughts into the future or understand consequences.

@Mymouthgetsmeintrouble

We've discussed this several times over the past 10-15 years. Although I'm not a psychiatrist, I believe she has always suffered with PDA - Pathological Demand Avoidance syndrome - so she has always said, 'not now, let's wait'.
About 8 months ago at the GP when he made it clear to her that her future needed to be decided, she said I'm doing fine. When I queried this with her, she said well, we can live in a big house together.

But she has very little short term memory now.

I am 100% sure that if I said to her - it's live with me or go in a care home - she would choose to live with me.

But she always wanted to put everything off until there was absolutely no alternative.

It's not a ringing endorsement, but with my mother it's about the most you can hope for.

[hatgirl]

I think you would be on pretty dodgy ground with this.

You can use your LPoA for finances to buy/sell houses on your mother's behalf, but as POA you can't unilaterally decide to gift yourself half a house using her money, even if you feel your intentions are honest.

Unless someone flagged it up to the OPG or to social services you may get away with it, but I suspect it would be looked on pretty dimly if anyone did catch up with you e.g if your mother did require nursing care. At best social services would probably view it as deliberate deprivation of assets to avoid paying care home fees, at worst they would see it as an adult safeguarding/adult abuse matter.

From a different perspective, the very last thing I would want to do to a very elderly woman with vascular dementia is move them to a new environment unless I had no other choice. It's immensely disruptive and traumatic for people with dementia to be moved from a familiar environment and moves are often followed by a rapid decline in their health.

She may surprise you and be more willing to accept external carers than you think. If she is at the point of needing more care I would be trying that first over some scheme to buy a big new house for a 91 year old woman.

I certainly wouldn't be jacking in my job to provide full time care for her
either without considering all other options. It all seems a bit extreme.

[Furrycushion]

I think Hatgirl is correct, you can't just award yourself half a house. Also think about how her disease might progress - will you eventually need a hoist & 2 people to get her in & out of a chair? This is what people don't think about when they say family should look after their own. We couldn't have looked after my parents, it would have been physically impossible. In this case she would have to go into a home anyway, & it would look very dodgy that you had put the house in joint names.

[Needmoresleep]

Read up on the Court of Protection.

Normally used for Guardianship, but can also be used for a whole range of financial matters. For example I, or rather my mother's solicitors on her behalf, needed to apply before they could act for her on a property litigation. Ditto the Land Registry appears to be becomming increasingly keen on seeing CoP permissions before acting where the transaction involves an Attorney, especially if the sale/purchase involves a family member. You don't, apparently, need a solicitor - I have a relatively straightforward transaction on my desk, so I should be able to report back whether that is true. And simple applications are considered but completing a couple of forms, and without a formal court hearing. The guidance is not is not user friendly and it is difficult to be sure, at least on property issues, when permission is needed. In my case the Land Registry knocking something back came as a surprise to the solicitor as well.

As an Attorney I like the idea of being able to get the CoP to confirm that something is in my mother's best interests. But then my mother has significant, and complex, assets and there is family disagreement on how they should be managed long-term. I have an obligation to manage these in my mother's best interests, but have no obligation to manage them in a way that will maximise the inheritance of others. The CoP, I understand, is likely to take the same line.

[ICouldBeSomebodyYouKnow]

DH is an only child and his parents both have had vascular dementia. FIL died last year, MIL now in care home. I can identify with much of your post.

However, one thing to be wary of is that, even although you have PoA, it does not give you the right to over-rule her wishes, while she still has capacity. You can act on her behalf. MIL was hospitalised and had to be assessed to determine if she had capacity to decide where she would live after discharge. The fact of her having VD and DH's PoA did not give him the right to decide. She wanted to live at home, which was no longer a viable option, but IF she had been assessed as having capacity, then that's what would have happened. Thankfully that nightmare was averted, as she was assessed as not having capacity to make that decision, therefore the PoA was invoked, and DH decided for her that she had to go to a care home (she was livid, but that's a whole other thread!). The official assessment was followed by a certificate to confirm this.

Tread carefully - seek proper legal advice, and protect yourself.

However, before you get too far down that route, ask for your local social services to carry out a care needs assessment in her home. They can supply various aids free of charge to make life easier for both of you. They may also identify that there is funding available - it's not all means-tested. My PIL got a surprising amount (surprising to me, given that they had substantial savings).

Finally, think carefully about whether you want to be your mother's daughter, or her carer. DH found it hard enough just managing his parents' care, as there were multiple phone calls, emails, letters to attend to (he was dealing with all their household admin eventually) plus other errands (we did all their shopping, household maintenance, gardening etc) and we both work full-time. Initially PIL resisted any outside help but they got used to it!

[AstrantiaMajor]

Financial aside, people with vascular dementia can deteriorate extremely quickly. Then unless you give up work or pay for full time carers, she will have to go into a care home. You will be in a house which is expensive to maintain and might be difficult to sell.

In normal circumstances if two people own a house a one goes i to care you don’t have to sell the house, but you do have to use their savings to pay for the care. In this case however, it is likely that the LA would assume that you have deliberately deprived her of assets. They may decide not to pay the fees or take Charge on the property.

You need to take legal advice and I would approach h AGEUK to check if they have names of solicitors who specialise in this area.

[Fortysix]

There is excellent advice in all posts. You ask WWYD?
Exactly like you I would examine avenues and fact find to see down the line what may work out best. After replies above I would discard the joint house purchase idea and not pursue .
I would be tempted to research care homes as my next piece of 'homework' if you pardon the pun.
Obviously putting you DM in care right now is not what you want to do. However, I would try to find out the names of the best 3 in the area that she can afford and arm yourself with actual facts and impressions of them just in case of any future requirement.
Just because you actively visit them doesn't mean that you will send her there. Being a one woman carer/ daughter is a tough gig. If you can summon up the energy and time to visit in the next few weeks when you are not under immediate pressure or super stressed then i would wholeheartedly say this will be time well spent. It's quite daunting going round having a look but some aspects will be better than you thought and some less good.

However knowing the reality of the local care homes empowers you to make more informed choices when the time comes, be it next week or in two years' time. If the care homes turn out to be better than you imagined then this will give you some comfort and maybe make you less worried about the months and years ahead. It may give you some head space to thinks about your own working situation and make you happier about not giving up work. Communal care will never be as wonderful as one-to-one care in her own house but some places do it very well. [If the care home research is positive you can put her name down but you don't actually have to take up the place.]