Can I refuse to have my mother stay with me?

Very well done, OP; I don't imagine for an instant that this will be the end of it as far as pressure's concerned, with "Could you justs ..." and "It's only until ..." but at least you've now laid down the principle and it'll get easier to refuse each new "suggestion"

Well done! Sending best wishes to you and your mum.

I am a retired social worker and a large part of my career was spent finding residential and nursing home places for people - either elderly or brain injured. And my recent experience is in looking for a nursing home for my late OH.

At one time when I was working the vast majority of homes were council owned and led, and they were good homes with properly trained, paid and supported staff. Then dear Thatcher arrived and they finished up privately owned with poor pay, training, regulation and support - hence we have the current mess.

There are some excellent homes around but it does seem to be now that those charging the higher fees are better quality. The LA have a fee ceiling over which they will not pay and many homes simply do not accept LA funded residents because of this. So in essence LA funded residents are likely to get poorer care in homes that do accept this fee and therefore have less money to work with. Relatives are asked to "top up" but most do not.

However it is worth saying that sometimes I found that residents were happier in the "scruffier" homes with happier atmospheres. It is very individual and staff and leadership dependent. The ethos comes from the top and if this is right the home is good.

But I visited one nursing home for my OH and was reduced to a weeping heap in the car park - there was no way my erudite, witty, musical OH was going into that hell hole. I finished up having to sell our home to pay for the vast "top up" needed to get good quality care.

The OP needs to visit all the homes proposed by the social worker and have a list of questions to ask. It is also worth saying that very often there is a gut feeling that a home is right for your loved-one and this cannot be measured in any way. This is why you need to see them. There will be compromises to make as no home will be perfect for her needs.

oh I’m so pleased and a wait off your mind

I'm so glad the social worker was kind and listened to you.

In my long experience as a GP visiting both types of homes I would very much disagree.

Not in my experience. The best care can be found in council funded homes, fancy rooms, activities that most if the residents can't join, food that most can't eat does not make a high quality home.

Also, the homes that the council will pay for are much lower quality than self funded ones.

well done!

@EntropyCentral just to mention by the way there are different lifetime mortgage schemes and with plenty of them there is the option these days to draw down in tranches so you are only paying interest in what you have drawn down- others will set you almost like a 'credit limit' so you don't have to keep going back - at his age it's usually about 55% of value. I would also be paying you all back what you have put in so far-that's not ok when he's sat on an asset. Honestly lovely this can't go on and the greedy buggers need to accept that

@EntropyCentral I would honestly think about and discuss my suggestion of drawing down and live in care- to be honest it won't cost far less than residential home factoring in bills etc but may feel more palatable to FIL- I would ignore those who don't want any 'drawing down on house'- unless they are 100% prepared to do the care or move in- it might create friction but stuff em- in fact I would draw down and then suggest your FIL has a couple of weeks respite care in a really good place and see how he feels-he may realise it's a great option and the idea is worse than the reality -if he totally hates it then look at the live in option

Coming in on the end of this but ‘hanging on to the house’ is a stupid idea. When he dies it will be sold anyway, and if it’s not been maintained properly over a few years, may be sold for less than you’d get now.

when my mother went into a care home (took some persuasion but she loved it once there) we sold her house and put the money into an investment fund. The profits from that combined with her pension income paid the care home fees while preserving her capital.

Do any of you have POA because if so I personally I would be looking at drawing down £150k on the house on a lifetime mortgage and getting in a live in carer if he refuses a nursing home. He's being hugely unfair to you all expecting to subsidise him and do a lot if care too- especially given your personal situation- I wouldn't feel very kindly towards him if I'm honest. He has assets for their to be better solutions- he might actually enjoy a good residential home too- I know a 96 year old lady who was reluctant but eventually went somewhere really nice ( big room with en suite etc) and she really liked it

He is my fil so not 'blood' family so I don't have any say at all. There are 5 children, two with POA one of which is my dh. His take is sell the house and get fil a nice place to live. The others don't all agree. Two don't want to threaten the
house inheritance. The other doesn't care either way and doesn't offer any practical support (He can't. He's too far away.) So there are two who want
to just sell the house and get fil settled somewhere. Two who don't want that because selling the house would mean they inherit less (if at all), and the youngest is the baby so leaves it all to the older siblings. You should read the
family WhatsApp. Half of them maximising the caring issues, the siblings who want to hang onto the house minimising them. It's all a right old mess.

DH is the eldest and will eventually have the last say in the matter.
He's just working his way up to it really. With a little bit of nudging from me.
But he wants to do it nicely, with persuasion rather than force.

@EntropyCentral I feel for you -if however he had a million in assets and£200k ready cash that he got through - doesn't that mean his house must be around £750k? That's quite a lot of residential care payments for many years factoring in his interest and income too and you say he is 93? You may all well still inherit but just not as much I would think - can social services not force the situation if you all want this and he can't cope? Do any of you have POA because if so I personally I would be looking at drawing down £150k on the house on a lifetime mortgage and getting in a live in carer if he refuses a nursing home. He's being hugely unfair to you all expecting to subsidise him and do a lot if care too- especially given your personal situation- I wouldn't feel very kindly towards him if I'm honest. He has assets for their to be better solutions- he might actually enjoy a good residential home too- I know a 96 year old lady who was reluctant but eventually went somewhere really nice ( big room with en suite etc) and she really liked it -

@EntropyCentral i read that as a comment aimed at the op, but it looks like another conversation going on. Sorry.

What?? She already , quite early on, said her dh and her are funding her mum who does not own a house. There’s no inheritance , this is not what it’s about, she’s accepted that for herself long before you managed to get your head around it for yourself, and this comment is really nasty. There’s a woman who’s been making herself sick looking after her 94 year old mum and needs to work out other options while the health care staff tell her she doesn’t matter at all and you want to make up that she’s greedy.

You just have to get used to the fact that your inheritance is zilch.

We've always thought there'd be around 200k, cash each between 5 kids. but in the event it's all been spent, and we (5 siblings and partners) are funding his care, so we're worse off, not better off.
When he agrees to go into a nursing home his house will be sold to pay for it.
So. . . .at the end of it there will be nothing left of his million pound assets.
Absolutely nothing at all for any of us.

I know its mildly annoying initially. But just having a life free of worry and financial spreadsheets, and general pissing about answering the phone at silly o clock from the alarm company because he's pressed his emergency alarm because he can't find his hearing aids or wants a cup of tea or he thinks the cat is ill or needs feeding, or he wonders what time it is, or thinks the radiators are a quite hot, and nothing less than the fire brigade will assuage his worry.

Poor man. His family are not doing him any favours allowing him to stay in his house. It's unsustainable.

I would say to this assessor: I beg you a pardon?

Unfortunately not @Thursdaygirl - she cared for her until she died, nearly killed her too. She endured funding battles and not enough support, constant gaslighting from clinicians, GP, social services etc

I hope she managed to sneak her mother back in???? How was this resolved?

because they sold the family home a few years ago to downsize they have over the threshold in cash sitting in their bank accounts so we’re assessed as having the means to pay for the carers themselves

Yep. That's how it goes. You just have to suck it up. We have the same.
fil had over 200k. It's all gone now, so we, the extended family, are paying a few k a year each. As soon as we can get him into a nursing home we can sell his house and that will pay for it.

@EntropyCentral so sorry to read of your situation, it sounds very hard. I get the guilty feelings but I think you do need to contact adult social services and tell them you cannot deal with FIL anymore. You need to stop paying for the carers so that SS step in, like you say they are relying on your empathy and goodwill to keep it going so they don’t have to.

If you contact them and tell them that you are at crisis point and FIL needs urgent help then it should get the ball rolling.

My dad has recently had a financial assessment as he needs carers every day (should be twice a day but he would only agree to once 🙄). They took into account everything he had in his own name and 50% of joint savings, but not the house. My parents are both disabled and get PIP on top of their state pensions but because they sold the family home a few years ago to downsize they have over the threshold in cash sitting in their bank accounts so we’re assessed as having the means to pay for the carers themselves.

We, a couple in our late sixties, are currently caring for our son with significant SEN at home, dealing with the (also significant) care needs of my brother, which I really shouldn't have to worry about considering what I already have on my plate, (and he's my brother! not a parent or a child) and also dealing with my 93 year old fil who cannot walk without assistance and refuses to go into a care home. He has to have incontinence pads because he cannot walk and thus cannot get to the bathroom. He sits in his chair all day because he is immobile. He requires 4 visits a day from privately funded carers (privately funded by us, his family, now that his money has run out) amounting to about 6 hours a day. Social services have assessed him as needing three 20 minute visits a day. What!? To feed him? Shower him? Change his pads? Administer the considerable amount of medication he takes each day? (He wouldn't have the first idea, truly) Cook his meals? ( obvs usually soup and a sandwich, it all takes time). Not to mention who is to do the cleaning and the laundry and the shopping. He does have 3 children and we do share the administrative and financial load, but surely it has to stop before our mental health is totally trashed.

We have saved the government a fucking fortune. Hundreds of thousands of pounds. I mean, let's face it, between son, brother and father in law, more likely many millions of pounds.

This thread has come at a good time for me. I was just about getting to the end of my rope and wondering if I had the guts to put a stop to it all. To tell SS I can't support my brother any more. To withdraw all the cleaning and maintenance and day to day organising of his medical appointments and sorting out his bills and making sure he has clean clothes. It would upset him if I did that. He'd be gutted if I washed my hands of him. And that's what they rely on. Relatives feeling they 'have' to do this whether through love or guilt.
(Although why I do feel guilt I cannot explain)
To withdraw my quarterly blitz of his dirty house. To throw in the towel with fil and say he needs to go into a nursing home and if he or they don't agree then I am well and truly out.

I'm getting old too. My son with SEN us reliant upon me. So is my brother. My fil is reliant upon us both. I have grandchildren too. If I took to heart what I read from some spectacularly entitled daughters on mumsnet who expect a weekly sleep over at least, and how hard life is having to look after your own kids.

"My parents are in their 60s, fit and healthy, they don't seem interested in holidays, all they do is go off and visit my uncle and my granny. They never go off to Paris or Grenada or Spain or Turkey. Totally not interested in travelling anywhere different or interesting. They just always spend their holiday money going back to their hometowns. How really boring are they? So why can't they spend a bit more time looking after my children while I get a break?"

Of course that's not the opinion of my own children. They are well aware
of our lives and stresses and know we give what we can. It's just a snapshot of what I read from mothers on here. It's absolutely lovely being a grandmother.
I love them and am more besotted by them than I was with my own children.
But I'm so much older now and have more worries and responsibilities and less energy. I adore my grandchildren in short bursts. I love them and I would do anything for them. But I want, now I'm nearly 70, to begin to wind down a bit.

I know I've gone on a bit. Sorry for that. But 30 year old mothers have to realise that almost 70 year old grandparents have their limits.

And OP. Stick to your guns. Even if they guilt trip you. Make it clear that your sofa is not an appropriate place for your mother to be cared for. And that you are not going to do the caring.