Fed up of reading threads asking how they can get out of paying care home fees.

This country just couldn’t afford to,pay for everyone’s care fees. I agree it’s not fair!

So many posters on here saying their good decisions have led to their financial position when in fact many have benefitted from huge increases in house prices which can be attributed to nothing more than good luck. Now people are impoverished by housing costs, and the older generation expects the younger ones to pay for their care as well. We need to redistribute the money to reduce economic inequality and I hope we see tax increases to do this, particularly CGT and a wealth tax.

Personally, I feel when I'm no longer able to look after myself due to old age it's my time to go. I'd rather people have happy memories of me than ones that involve pain or being out of it and feeling guilty about visiting someone who probably doesn't know who they are.

It’s tough though isn’t it? My siblings and I were on the brink of having to arrange care homes for both my parents. We would have sold their house and it would have taken all the proceeds. My neighbour and friend was in the same position. We liaised on research.

My parents both died in the pandemic so we inherited. My neighbour’s mother did not die, is now in a care home and my neighbour will inherit nothing.

No government wants to look at social care. It’s provided by profit based operators.

i think a compulsory insurance route would provide more certainty and fairness all round.Other countries do this.

Yes I fully understand this - I’m a carer.
The elderly were cared for at home in the past but not for as long. Many other societies/ cultures still do this.
One problem is that we all live so long now- what’s the solution? The whole system needs a reform, government cannot care for all elderly people for possibly decades! We cannot afford it yet individuals are reluctant to pay for care themselves- people here are calling it extortion!
Maybe we need a new PAYE system where we all contribute specifically to our future care or agree to self fund?

Beware of thinking that putting stuff into a trust gets around this ... Trust Issues - 'Worthless' family trusts sold to beat inheritance tax. - IDR Law

That’s not always possible. But I agree in many instances it could be.

I know a family who own a care home. The lifestyle and unbelievable amount of money they have is sickening. The entire family are in £1m+ houses, private school for kids, £20k holidays and of course the rare luxury to choose to be SAHMs.

I respect people who graciously accept their potential inheritance might pay for care but trust me, behind the scenes your inheritance is being spent on much more than that.

My parents have said they don't want to go into a home and I'll support them with that. I've structured my life so it will be possible. We may need to pay for some additional help at home but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

They're well into their 80s now and still active. They went on holiday yesterday, so we're ok for now. In fact, I'm in danger of losing my inheritance to holidays at this rate😁

You’re conflating two issues.

I don’t understand all this can’t keep them safe at home - care homes don’t have eyes on your loved one 24/07 neither do hospital wards - they climb over cot sides they poo and wee themselves 10 minutes after you have showered them, refuse to eat lose weight and fall over and won’t take their meds. Obviously this can go on and on but usually it’s the beginning of the end, bedridden is much easier regular turns and checks, feeding and chatting but what I’m trying to say after seeing families come onto wards and into care homes and being totally dissatisfied with the care from run ragged staff, take them home, have some time off share it with your siblings and save yourself £1500 a week and make your loved one feel loved in the last part of their life and the care you give with help of carers will be 10 times better than a care home or hospital ward.

If your relative is in a nursing home the NHS can pay the nursing fee so you only need to pay the residential fee.

That's what concerns me slightly about assisted dying. That people might put pressure on their parents not to 'waste money" on a care home as it might be economically favourable to the kids if the parent dies?

Is it extortion to expect those with private funding pots to pay up to £12,000 a year of their own savings towards the care of others ? My Aunt is a self funder and is paying approximately £1000 a month more than a LA funded resident for the same facilities.

This. Human bodies have not yet evolved to keep up with modern lifespans.

My parents are far older than their parents were when they died. It's why their own inheritances changed their lives in their forties, whereas they may outlive me.

'if you are in an average care home and are funding it yourself you're basically covering the person who is state funded next to you'

Really? Or in practice paying for the service you're receiving.

Although Local Authorities in effect pay a 'bulk buying' discount, the last time I looked at care home accounts, it appeared this didn't lead to the direct costs of LA funded clients subsidised by private payers.

This!

My parents are pissing my inheritance up the wall and good luck them. It’s not my money whether its spend on care home fees or luxury holidays.

What if you piss your children off? Can they make you homeless?

Hmmm.... I'm wondering, what is the threshold of putting someone in a carehome? What I mean is, I come from a country where we usually look after our elderly parents 'till the end' and the elderly go to a carehome only if they have no family left to look after them. Usually kids move the elderly mom/dad to their home and hire a nurse to come over if help is needed. I have a granny who is 85 and lives in a small house attached to their kids' house - it's very common. I was somewhat surprised to see so many carehomes when I moved to the UK. But after 15 years spent in this country and also having read many threads here, I see that the family ties tend not to be that strong here and putting the elderly in a carehome seems to be more of a cultural thing.

I know we will have to pay for care of/when the time comes even though we are modest working class people who worked hard and made sacrifices to buy a modest house while others had fun when young and don't have this asset to use to pay for care. Fair enough, that's the way the cookie crumbles, though I will be sad if there is nothing at all left for DD and family who inevitably made those sacrifices with us and couldn't have expensive holidays and some of the things her friends had when she was a child.
The other issue I do have is why oh why do private payers pay more for the same home than local authority funded payers? Tax payers help provide for those who can't work all their working lives ...fair enough ...but why should the elderly, in the last stages of their lives ves, not only pay for themselves but also supplement the local council in providing for those who can't pay. You really couldn't make it up ...I thought someone was joking with me when they said that DMIL's care would be more expensive than the person's in the next room because she was paying for herself 🤔

Other way round. Dementia care is funded as its a medical disease that causes dependency, needing care cos you're frail/elderly isn't a disease so not funded

I look at it this way: I pay an absolute fortune in taxes each years. Thousands in income tax, road tax, property tax, carbon tax on my electricity and petrol. In the UK we pay absolutely extortionate levels of tax. And THEN there's the 20% VAT on almost everything. Meanwhile, I have no children in school, the roads are full of potholes and I haven't been able to see an actual physician at my local surgery since 2019. So "the government" can bloody well pay for my care when I am old - because it is my money for which I have gotten very little out of in services or benefits for decades.

I don't object to paying care home fees and I am likely losing my inheritance as my mum as dementia, what I do object to is private payers subsidising the local authority beds, I have worked in this industry so know a home can be legitimately charging a private resident say £2k a week and in the exact same home with the exact same service the local authority are paying £1k a week for the council funded residents. That's not fair.

Really hope I die before I need care, my house is worth jack shit and the thought of being in a home fills me with horror. Sometimes the point of life eludes me

If care homes vary their fees for the same care according to the Resident's assets, then surely the answer is for the LA to be the commissioner of care home places so the prices are not inflated. The LA could then recoup the costs from self-funding residents and their assets or lack thereof would be of no relevance to the care provider. The idea that care homes charge more to individuals where they see more wealth is cynical in the extreme.

At least this way the better-off would still self-fund but to a set fee applicable to all, so their assets would last longer- benefitting the state and potentially allowing for legacies to family rather than paying for care home owner's annual Range Rover upgrades.

True. If you need carers you still need to pay. And cleaners, anything else you can't do because of illness.