Person going into care home thinks they have avoided selling their house to pay fees?

Oh well, the gloves are off then and I’ll
have to respond with something even more offensive 😂

Are you new here?
Mumsnet is RENOWNED for swearing.
Netmums is >>>>>>> that way.

It's definitely allowed!

Encouraged, in fact.

I didn’t think swearing was allowed on mumsnet?

I've had this conversation with two people recently, including one yesterday who insisted that their home had been put into trust for their DC (couple are in their late 50s), said it was done "years ago" and that now no one would be able to touch their house if they died. It clearly IS possible to do this, although I note the poster earlier in the thread who said they worked for the local authority and that LAs could have this overturned. There must be a definitive answer if this is legal or not? Surely we'd all do it otherwise?

I posted on this earlier, in many cases the care home will agree for the resident to stay at the LA rate, which is negotiated by the resident’s social worker. It’s a guaranteed filled bed for the home, but they get less money for it, so it’s a call they have to make. If the resident had to move, their family member could ask for them to be moved to a home of their choosing that would agree to take them at the LA rate, they wouldn’t just be moved to a random home.

Care homes tend not to be council run these days, they are council funded, and some provide more LA block beds than others.

Money isn’t the only consideration. Many care homes don’t cater for the most advanced dementia cases and residents may be asked to move if they deteriorate beyond what the home is willing to accept. Care homes who can afford to pick and choose their clientele are more likely to do this, and in fact my mother’s specialist dementia unit regularly received new residents from the very smart establishment up the road.

Not the same at all. If somebody doesn’t have assets, of course society should support their care. Conversely, if somebody does have assets, they should use them to cover their own costs and not leave the taxpayer to pick them up because they want to leave their house to their children.

I think in future it won’t be as much of an issue as almost everyone will have their own personal pension, which will be able to be used for care fees if needed, I imagine that was a consideration when bringing in auto enrolment. I wonder if they will also bring in the ability to convert an already bought annuity into a care annuity in the next decade or so.
If I outlive DH then need care I would sell the house to use for care before I would use what was left of our pensions - as long as pensions are kept of of IHT calcs that is.

I do think there should be tax breaks for self funders - if you are having to pay huge fees, having your pension / savings income taxed at 40% is a kick in the teeth, not nearly enough people know about immediate care need annuities (that aren’t taxed).
I really don’t understand why you can’t buy insurance for potential care needs.

Not everyone who needs care ends up going into a care home - if you need carers to come into your own home (which is a far better option for many people) you still have to pay for it. Might be pensions, savings or releasing equity. Whatever, people who need care will have to pay somehow and there are not going to be enough younger people of working age to pay massive taxes to foot the costs.

Such a cop out comment. Take some responsibility.

I work in HR for a national care provider this is not uncommon and self pay residents live alongside LA it makes not one jot of difference when it comes to staff

Who do you think should pay for any future care home fees then? If you are being cared for by professionals, and having "hotel" costs for board and lodging, then surely you should pay from your own money whether that's pensions, savings or proceeds from a property. I don't understand why people think they can dodge care fees in some way. As someone else said, if you have no money you get no choice of care home, you go where there's a space on local authority funding.

People who weren’t big earners had different priorities. One family had a mortgage, the other was fortunate enough to get a decent council house. The mortgagees perhaps had to scrimp, the tenants could afford a better car, and holidays, or spent most evenings going to the local club.

The household earnings may have been similar, but one family had less to spend on the children, or on leisure etc. They wanted to leave what they’d sacrificed to pay for, their home, to their offspring. Both widows move into the same care home. One is wholly paid for by benefits, the other isn’t. Just because their priorities were different.

But what happens if you sell your house to pay for a care home and the money runs out ? at 7k a month, if a person stays there for 3 years that's £252k, so when the money has gone who pays that 7k a month or are you moved to a council run care home ?

Yes, because up till that point she will have been subsidising someone else through her inflated private fees. That’s how the system works. The people who get the most out of it are the ones whose assets are so low they meet the threshold for full assistance. Do you mind paying for them?

100% agree with this. It’s an incredibly selfish and entitled attitude - as if society owes somebody care even though the person has assets to cover it. It needs to be stamped out.

This stinks. Why shouldn’t people pay for their own care if they have assets to cover the cost? Why should it become societies expense/problem just because somebody wants to leave a house to their children? It’s exactly this entitled attitude that has created massive financial issues in this country. I hope they change the law retrospectively and come after everybody who has tried to ‘beat the system’

You would be better owning the house as tenents in common rather than jointly and then on the first death 50% pf the house goes into trust in the names/s of whichever people you want to inherit. They cannot do anything with it until the second death, if the survivor needs care home fees only 50% of the value of the house can be taken.

I don’t think you should worry, @ladyluck13. There are a number of exemptions that apply when other people live in the property owned by the person needing care. You may well fall into one or more of those categories. The information is easy to find, Google “paying for care fees” and you should find information to reassure you.

The trouble is, people just don't see it like this. They think "the government/council will pay", or their thought processes might even make it as far as "the taxpayer will pay", without getting to the final step of considering who those taxpayers are and whether it's reasonable for them to pay taxes to preserve some entitled stranger's inheritance.

Whilst you ‘protect’ your DC’s inheritance, who are you expecting to pay your care home fees? The taxpayer?

Not true, the 7 years is for tax purposes.

For care home it's different.

If say you gave a house to your child in your 40s with no reason to think you were going to end up in a care home, fine. If you give your house away in your 60s knowing that there was a good chance of needing a care home, it will be classed as deprivation of assets and will be sold to pay for your care.
If you give up one house of many to your child, that is not DoA.

Even then, lesser abled dependants and spouses can have an effect too.

Its really quite difficult to get out of paying for your care.

I am always surprised that people don’t think through what going into care actually means. If you go into a care home, that becomes your home.

Realistically would someone in a care home keep the family home empty and continue to pay council tax, gas, electric, water, phone/broadband, insurance, maintenance for 2,5, 10 years? Most people either sell or family move in and take over the bills. Either way the person who is in the care home sees a drastic reduction in their monthly/annual expenditure.

Care homes charge residents for their share of the council tax, gas, electric, water, phone/broadband, buildings insurance, maintenance etc. As well as food and drink. Residents would only be responsible for paying for contents insurance and toiletries, clothes etc. Why should residents not pay this charge? Is it not reasonable to ask a resident to pay for the services they would have had to pay in their own home?

Currently National Minimum Wage (NMW) is £10.42. £10.42 x 24 hours x 365 days = £91,279.2 per year. On top you have employer NI, pension contributions, admin overheads, plus the fact that you need to cover annual leave etc. You are looking at over 100k a year to have 24 hour care in your own home, a care home achieves economies of scale that make it less expensive when shared out. Is it really unreasonable for a resident to pay their share of the costs of providing them with care?

Is it immoral to pay carers NMW, is it immoral to charge for buying and cooking food, providing heating, light and water?