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

Probably the people whinging how hard they've worked, and want to dodge paying their way regarding care

It's not just being able to choose which care home. It's when as well. Rely of LA funding and you are likely to be left at home sitting alone in your piss and shit waiting for one of 4 brief carer visits. Is not spending money on your own care more important than that?
And noone gets it totally free as a minimum they will be giving up most of their pension short of @£30 a week to cover toiletries, clothes etc. There are plenty of people who have worked hard all their lives for low pay so not managed to accumulate assets and that will include a lot of the people doing the bum wiping. What's supposed to happen to them?

If I didn’t have kids, I would have done that. The suffering my dad went through for years, not only with dementia but at the hands of people who were supposed to be caring for him.

if I didn’t have young children, I would have gladly gone to prison to have spared him that.

Yes it's a deprivation of assets but in reality doa is rarely investigated.

However is does really impact people on things like second home tax, second home stamp duty, ability to claim benefits, the amount they can borrow on a mortgage. It's not an easy out and to be honest it's very rarely worth the hassle.

Are you sure the money went towards an actual house deposit? I say that because when my dad gifted me £100k for mine, the solicitors asked him for proof of where it came from and 6 years of bank statements showing how the balance accrued.

If there were any large cash deposits he had to provide evidence of what these were for, even for small amounts under £5k.

I find it hard to believe that a solicitor would request to see this woman’s bank statement and not question why £40k has been transferred to her, what it was for and why. They have money laundering to consider too so the £40k bank transfer would definitely have raised flags and the solicitor would likely have asked for a letter or proof from your husband stating why he gave her £40k and the word “gift” would also need to be mentioned in that letter as any mention of it being a loan, would mean that they wouldn’t accept it as funds for a deposit.

Absolutely this. Unless you’re a millionaire- you will be sitting next to people who is having their care paid for by the local authority.

Lots of people say that though. I do. My dad did, but you don’t realise dementia is happening to you.

He had moments of lucidity early on when he said he wanted to kill himself - guess what, that makes you a suicide risk so they medicate you up to the eyeballs
and put you under deprivation of liberty so you can’t.

Absolutely barbaric.

This!

Yes. I have told the kids if it ever comes to it (me having to go into care) just shoot me first

The problem is that cancer sufferers have only a limited life, for a dementia sufferer it can be decades!

My DM lived with dementia for 10 years, we had carers at home at first, the her last years were in a care home. There were other residents in there who were over 100 years old!

If that's possible I hope that loophole is closed.

You shouldn't have had to pay, that should have come from their own assets, and then the government steps in when it gets to a certain threshold.

Believe me, I tried. We moved my father in. Watching him 24/7 almost broke us. My youngest was a baby at the time. My husband fell asleep and he went into the kitchen, lit the hob and set fire to it.

He tried to jump out of a window while I was running him a bath and the final straw was him trying to feed my child a lithium battery as he thought it was a sweet, again, when I had my back turned in the same room cleaning up a toilet accident he’d had.

My children weren’t safe, he was too unpredictable.

Its not just your lovely old dad sitting in the corner of a room drinking tea. Dementia turns them into an entirely different and dangerous person.

In our family a 600k house was sold to fund care - 450k went to the care home over 8 years. A lifetimes scrimping and saving to pay the mortgage, bills and repairs and the person in the next room was there at the taxpayers expense. My relative, had they still had their marbles would have been devastated.

Personally, I’d rather book myself into dignitas than spend the best part of a decade being shuffled between bed and chair in the same room, but the government don’t seem to be keen on that being legal here!

By topping myself when it gets to that point.

Yes, I think the reality is that everyone should pay. If we can't afford to fund everyone's care then nobody should be funded for some conditions.

I know this might sound outlandish but the only sure fire way of getting out of paying for a care home is to keep yourself well.

Don’t eat or drink to excess, don’t smoke. Keep working, keep learning, keep friends Exercise every day. Go outside. Go vegetarian at least. Vegan if possible and eat as many fruits and vegetables each day as possible and find something funny to have a laugh about each day. Even if it is how pathetic your life has become.
I’ve had times where I have found myself so broke that I started looking for coins on the pavement. Friend saw me and asked what I was doing and when I told her I started to laugh then she started to laugh because it was just so funny and pathetic at the same time.

I think this is the crux of the issue.

If everyone paid for care home fees then I think it would feel intrinsically more fair and there would be less desire to avoid them. As things stand though, people feel naturally aggrieved that they have to hand over a significant chunk of their hard won life savings for something that other people get for free. It feels unfair because it is unfair.

What do you do though with the people that haven't saved enough to cover their care? What is fair isn't always what is humane or kind.

Personally I think that your idea of a tax would be a good idea and should be paid by everyone. It would be expensive but care is expensive. This would stop people drifting through life, largely spending what they earn and then getting to the end and finding they haven't put away enough money to cover their care. It shifts the mentality from societal responsible to personal responsibility.

The first home my dad was abused in was one of those super duper homes.

Yeah, it didn’t stink of piss, I’ll give them that but the actual “care” was no better. He’d still be left sitting in his own shit. I’d go in everyday. They wouldn’t have got him changed, he was still in the same clothes as the day before but covered in shit.

I had to go into hospital for a week, no one else to see him, when I went back, he was in an awful state and he’d fallen in that time, they had left him with dried blood all over his hands and face.

Moved him elsewhere and more awful things happened.

I disnt want him in a home as I used to work for one of the big chains. It broke my heart but I couldn’t keep him safe at home. They are all terrible.

I remember being at a conference once where one of the owners was laughing about dementia research, saying how idiots give money to dementia charities and that if a cure was found tomorrow, it would be hidden as there is so much money in it. he then went on to say how much he loved demetia as that’s what kept him in a new Range Rover every year.

I wouldn’t demetia on anyone, but I hope that man gets it and suffers for years.

What is not fair is that if your elderly relative gets cancer and becomes unwell and unable to care for themselves they are cared for for free until their life ends.

If your elderly relative gets dementia and becomes unwell and unable to care for themselves they have to pay for their care.

That's not fair - it's a complete lottery depending on what causes people to lose their ability to care for themselves as to whether they are expected to fund their care and that is completely unfair.

The alternative is to care for your parents yourselves, or get your kids to look after you.

I accept that it is absolutely reasonable to expect elderly people to fund their own care. But there needs to be far better oversight of the quality and standard of the care provided. So many places charge extortionate fees and the care is atrocious and the carers are on minimum wage. I could write pages of horror stories, but it is too distressing.

Nope! My mum worked her whole life and a single parent!
She rented and had little savings so now she is in a care home she pays a top up and the state pays the rest!
But like I said she was never on benefits and worked (at one time 3 jobs)!

I’ve via agency work been sent to many of the local authority run care homes in the county where I live and they are unbelievably grim.

They reek of urine,are very badly maintained,not very clean,the food is the lowest quality and quantity and staffing levels are appalling.

I now work permanently in a 5* rated home and the difference is enormous.

My dad has severe dementia and did not meet the threshold as he wasn't unpredictable enough (because he was drugged into submission and then couldn't get out of his chair to try and escape or hurt people)

I am honestly not sure what level.of dementia by itself would result in CHC

The assessor even said if he met the threshold for a while he would probably stop being eligible again once he was unable to get out of bed as he would be "easier to manage"