All old people should sell up family homes for families.

@moderndilemma

I cross posted with you.

Your post really resonated with me.

There are clearly a lot of people on here who have never been carers to very determined very elderly relatives who have had dementia or sudden strokes, or lose their sight/hearing. I envy them!

Loads of family homes on the market where I am at the moment and none of them are selling anyway. Even if you made them really unappealing to singles or couples to force them to downsize there’s no market for them at the moment here

My DF is in a massive house but the main issue is not that he's "taking up space" or stopping us from having money but that it has too many stairs and he needs to plan what he'll do if he has a fall. He's kind of accepted he'll have to move.

@RegentCafe wowsers! My relatives were lucky to only struggle physically & mentally were still sharp as a tack.

I could downsize to a smaller 2 bed property. It's probably a great idea as I'll have lots of lovely cash in the bank to spend.

But then, as a family, we would need 3 smaller properties (2 young adult sons) whereas now we are only using 1 medium property. And my medium property has gone up so much that younger families wouldn't be able to afford it anyway and me & my boys would be taking 3 properties that they might be able to afford off the market.

So it's more cost effective and fair if we all stay in the one house for now eh 🙄

Agree with you

What happens though if a parent has dementia and you uproot them from something (one of the only things?) that is 100% familiar?

And what happens to the alterations made so that your other parent can still live in their home with their increasing disabilities?

What happens if they downsized and their adult child cannot go home to care for them? (Thank god they didn’t)

When available assisted living/care homes in the area (or small bungalows) only seem to pop up on the same day as Brigadoon?

“ I don’t think OP is saying old people should move, but asking how people who say old people should move support their opinion.

I’d say it can work, though only if the old person genuinely wants to and hasn’t been pressured or emotionally blackmailed. “

I agree @Ofcourseshecan

The thought of anyone giving up their home just because someone decides it is the best solution for someone else is not what I would wish for anyone.

There are many variations to this dilemma. And although it sounds a simple solution when it is said out loud, the reality isn’t always so.

We are in our 60's, our house is too large for our needs and we plan to downsize within the next 10 years. However...

• all our friends and community are where we currently live
• desite living in a hilly county, our town is flat and accessible for us to walk to supermarkets, shops, doctor, pharmacy, hairdresser, range of health and social activities (yoga, swimming etc), plus excellent public transport to nearby city
• There are numerous new housing estates but their locations mean that we would need to be able to drive (it is probable the dh will loose his sight as he ages)
• Of the thousands of new houses I have not managed to find one single property that has single level living, and many are on 3 floors. There are flats and apartments but they tend to be very small, starter homes, too small for our needs as (hopefully) active 70 year old grandparents.

We are actively researching so when the time comes (or the right property comes up) we know what our options are, but after 2 years we are pretty despondent. The lack of something suitable is leading us towards staying where we are until our 80s and then moving to a retirement property which has some kind of social/care support. But by then we will have added to the number of 'old' people living in far too big houses for far too long.

My parents both lived in their family home until they died (or had short hospital stays during which they died). They had various frailties in very old age but I believe their mental health was massively maintained by being part of the community with great neighbours (including one neighbour's children who painted my Mum's nails for pocket money - she had never worn nail polish in her life!). They were able to make gradual adaptations to their house to create a downstairs bathroom and accessible shower, and eventually reconfigured rooms to create a downstairs bedroom which could accommodate a hospital bed. My Dad had only ever lived in two houses - the one he was born in, and then the one they bought when they married. 57 years in the same house meant that as his dementia progressed he could still find the fridge, the bathroom, knew exactly which drawer his watch was kept in, the exact turn in the stair etc. Muscle memory kept him safe when his cognitive memory was in decline. Short spells in an unfamiliar environment and he was a lost soul, back at home he walked into the kitchen and made scrambled eggs (as he had being doing for the previous 50+ years).

PILs downsized to what seemed like the perfect place, a new bungalow on a quiet cul-de-sac, looking out onto fields , sheep, cows... But it was 2 hours drive from family, and on the outskirts of a small village, 1mile walk to the shops. As they became very elderly MILs dementia meant she couldn't find her way around the kitchen, and didn't know how to find her way back home if out. FIL couldn't manage the walk to town, they had to give up their car. They became socially isolated. The beautiful view and rural setting doesn't offer much company.

There aren't always easy answers.

Not really an AIBU, more a hypothetical question really.

Exactly.

Unless we live under a dictatorship, or the government creates some fabulous financial incentives, it's not going to happen.

And where would you begin?
Over 70?
Over 80?
Over occupancy (bedroom taxes?)

Don't agree that they should have to move/downside just because they're old but do feel that more support should be offered for them to maintain their larger homes.

Speaking as someone currently renovating a home bought off an older couple who did nothing to it since they bought it off another older couple who hadn't made changes since the early 00s.

It's got the bones of a lovely home but was starting to suffer from a little bit of neglect.

I plan to be one of those old people that need to be turfed out for the young'uns (albeit in 50 years or so) 😉

This is perhaps the scariest post I have ever seen on here. For as long as someone has capacity, they have the right to make their own decisions about the risks they are willing to take. Even if someone else considers those risks to be unacceptable. Children have the right to say they cannot/will not help any more, but that's as far as it goes.

what bout if they have family regularly staying with them?

😂😂Brilliant! And if the children prove satisfactory, they could be given the option of staying on in the house as future carers when the householders get old and infirm-thereby assisting with the housing crisis and the care crisis.

It's not really an issue of the number of bedrooms for me. I think this would be more realistic if there were plenty of one bedroom bungalows with gardens. I don't want to go back to living in a flat with people stomping above me, I'm more likely to want to use the garden even more as I get older. I think my 3 bed semi is worth a fair bit less than the 2 bed bungalows round here so it's not even v affordable to downsize.

100 % this , well said @TakenRoot

Nope. I've been called selfish a few times. And a comment right above yours says...

From my real life observation it tends to be married happily childless career couples who are hoarding 3/4 bed 'family' houses even though its just the 2 of them (and maybe a pet) and they have no plan to have anyone else live there at any point.

Me three. We bought the house we wanted, and could afford. Families with children were as free as anyone else to put an offer in it for had they wanted it.

Those who consider that selfish are more than welcome to continue to do so. I’ll continue to enjoy my house and not give a shit.

Rather than making people do things we should incentivise them. When an older person I knew wanted to downsize there were no appropriate properties in the area they and their children / grandchildren live.

They didn’t want a retirement village, just an appropriate size single floor apartment or bungalow. The area is full of three and four bed “family” homes. Provide the right options and people will move. Instead of which there are just expensive McCarthy and Stone type places.

If my olds were forced to sell up and move somewhere smaller, not only would family not be able to stay with them, it's likely the young family wanting the house wouldn't be able to afford the mortgage.

4 hours a day is very early dementia
need 24 hour at the end

I find this idea frightening and leading to very nasty outcomes if successful in taking root. You work hard for your home and no one has the right to force you out. I would defend my right to stay in my own home to the very end.

We live in a seven bedroom detached house, with a separate two bedroom cottage, so nine bedrooms in total, in six acres of land. We have four teenage children at home and parents/family/friends that come to stay and so we use all the space occassionally but certainly not all the time.

I can't wait to downsize. The maintenance of the property is immense and we both work fulltime. I am tired of living in a house that never looks as good as it could because something always needs cleaning, fixing, repainting, mowing or weeding. I yearn for my first one bedroom flat in London that I could clean from top to bottom in an hour!

My concern is how much to downsize. Assuming at some point the kids all leave home, I would be quite happy living in a two bedroom flat with access to maintained gardens, but I also love the idea of Christmas at our place with enough room for all the kids to come back, with their own kids in time.

Would you plan enough space for one child to return to the nest if needed? Or all of them? How much room is enough?

£1.2 million in so far
2 relatives each in own home
another just diagnosed and so expecting another £600,000

its £7k a month towards the end for home in the north

It's not practical is it.I'm 74 and live in a modest scruffy 4 bedroom ex development corporation house which I own. Twice I have had children return and my eldest daughter currently lives with me.The grandkids come to stay and being a family with lots of interests the place is busting at the seams. I still work, 5 minutes from my home.I don't drive and its very convenient for everything. Now in some ways, I'd love to move, the place is a lot to look after.Its not worth much and what with moving costs I imagine I could end up worse off, financially.Also I have decent garden here and pets.

I don't think moving is going to happen!