Dad wants to live in my brother’s rental house. How realistic is this?

I thought this too. Im my Dads POA and i don't pay for equipment.

I would visit some care homes and speak to the staff there. They've seen and heard all the issues you and your brother face.

You will get all the stress of worrying about your dad and your brother's house. Which is emotional.

If your dad sold his house there's money in the bank which you would have to use. The council here don't provide live in carers. My friend tried live in carers for a couple of months. It was on a rolling rotation basis. This their mother found distressing too many strangers coming and going.

Kindly, I think you are conflating too many things.

A decision needs to be made as to whether your father is better living in a care home or living in a house/flat with carers. The temporary current situation with your brother is irrelevant because it’s not continuing. Your brother rental property is irrelevant if it doesn’t meet your father’s needs.

Separately, as LPA you need to make decisions in your father’s best interests. That doesn’t mean you need to ignore your own boundaries or knock yourself out. It’s OK to say that looking after your father the way you have been doing is unsustainable and you can’t do it any more. Nothing about LPA forces you to continue. What you do need to do is figure out what the remaining options are and choose between them for your fathers benefit.

It sounds like he really doesn't want to go in a care home? I'd try to honour that, and find out about funding. Attendance allowance would pay for a carer (but disgustingly, probably not enough). Is your brother going to help with any care? You all need to talk about how you could work it between you and the carer. Sympathies-I have that situation and it's not easy when you work and have little kids, and care for older relatives.

Attendance allowance would pay for a carer

It really wouldn't. Nowhere even close.

A quick scribble on the back of an envelope suggests attendance allowance would pay approximately 8% of the cost of a carer.

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It sounds like he's heading for a care home anyway, so I'd just bite the bullet and arrange one.
You'll only have the upheaval of moving him twice if you don't.

If he moves into the house:

he pays rent
he pays bills
he pays for food
he pays for carers
you have to manage all of this for him
you have to manage carers etc
you have to organise equipment and adaptations
in an emergency you will have to help out
you will be running the house for him

If he goes into a care home:

everything is paid for in one go
you dont have to manage anything
it will be cheaper
emergencies are taken care of

Unless you are prepared to spend more money and time and be on call this is an easy decision and will ultimately be better for both of you.

It does sounds like a care home would be better. He will only need more care over the next few years and things can progress quickly with dementia .

talk to the GP and social worker and ask if he can have a therapy ( primarily occupational) review or a comprehensive geriatric review in a day hospital . Professionals will access his mobility and ability to do daily tasks - they will then be able to advise on how much help he helps and what mobility adaptations and be able to advise you objectively . He might be funded for 4 visits a day or live in . The council will want to choose the lesser option.

Your brother’s property makes no sense if you father would have to pay market rate for everything as he would not choose a house with stairs he cannot manage. Single level accommodation is far more practical. So forget this option. The only person it helps is your brother.

One question to consider is ‘does your father have capacity to make this decision?’
Can he understand the information - understand that he would be in a new house - living with people ( often carers in rotation).
Does he understand that he has dementia and understand that his care needs will
increase? Does he understand that he won’t be able to choose to go out whenever he wants and do things that he was previously able to do?

can he retain this information weigh it up over a period of days , come to a decision and tell you the factors that influenced the decision .

If not then he doesn’t have capacity to make the decision and you can just decided what is in his best interests . You can have boundaries - choose what support you are able to give him and don’t be pushed into doing more.

I suspect if even a catheter is difficult for him , that answer will be a care home. How is he going to manage the mechanics of a stair lift if he can’t manage a catheter ??! There is no real advantage in him having in a individual home with the cost of personal carers.

I misread the post I was responding to

His current living situation can’t continue and you are exhausted. It is impossible to try and decide between every option on the planet for all possible futures, and you don’t have to do that. In your circumstances I would contact social services, explain the current placement is breaking down and everyone needs your dad to have a respite placement in a nursing home. Do that for something like 3 months and reassess.

I doubt your brother can keep the rental house free for 3 months and not should he. He should get on with renting it out to someone else. If living with care in another house were the right thing for your dad (doesn’t sound like it but who knows), your brother’s house doesn’t sound at all suitable and requires an unreasonable amount of input from everyone to make it suitable. At first sight your dad would ideally be in a small bungalow that we previously owned by an elderly person so is already adapted. I’d bet however that the nursing home setup will become permanent. Which sounds fine.

This. You don't have to set up an arrangement that is unsustainable for you (and therefore for your father) because it being unsustainable for you means it isn't in your father's best interests - because you will burn out.

Care home is way more appropriate in this setting.

Hi, He risking infection by removing the catheter and this behaviour may increase as his cognition deteriorates. I think he’s past living alone with one carer, his needs sound too high for extra care sheltered or residential, so it makes sense to do one move that meets all his needs and has nursing staff around to manage the catheter and incontinence care. Safety is priority here I would say. Situations like this can spiral quickly when people live at home with multiple risk factors. Your dad will feel more secure and you won’t be worrying about him 24/7.

I would say to the social worker that your DF will inevitably need to move to a care home as his needs increase, and it better to have one move rather than two and for it to be to the care home so he has a chance to get familiar with his surroundings and the people. I also think as PoA you’re meant to manage the money sensibly, so you can absolutely point out that a care home is cheaper and therefore more sustainable in the long term.

Separate to being a POA you are a person so you can also state to the social worker how much or how little you can do. So say he moves to your Bs flat then as POA you will sort out his bills etc and manage any changes, but due to the time taken on that you will not be able to do anything else and you cannot offer overnight care at all due to your own health conditions which you are trying to manage whilst working full time.

Your B really is a piece of work isn’t he - come join us in the Cockroach Cafe also in Elderly Parents, there are many annoying siblings there.You could offer to let him take over as POA if he insists on forcing your DF into this foolishness.

As PP have said, making a decision that is in your father's best interests is fine but you don't have to commit to doing a load of stuff you dont have the time and energy to do.
So for example, you may say that you need to pay someone else to run the house for dad, arrange carers, pay bills etc. Because you don't have time.
So factor the whole cost in not just the rental cost.
I can't remember exactly but I recall there's a statistic around average use of stairlift and the basic point was that they get very little use because by the time they get put in the person is not long before they need to be in a care home.
I would also say that you are better getting dad into the place he will be best off longer term. Putting an elderly person with dementia into a care home is very tricky and upsetting for them. Putting him in now when he can get used to it and the staff may be the kindest thing long term

PoA requires you to make decisions in your father’s best interests.

It doesn’t require you to do anything in particular- it doesn’t make you a carer or on 24 hour call or anything. It doesn’t control you. Please don’t let it, and don’t let anyone else pressure you into it.

The demand for rentals is through the roof I doubt he’d have any problem finding a tenant
Not sure that’s his motive

Has he had an assessment recently from adult social care and/or nhs continuing care? They can help you come to the decision whether they believe he is better in residential. Visit a few and see what you think - try to look past the flashy decor of some care homes, it’s the care and the staff that matter, the one we chose looked old fashioned (painted woodchip) but staff and management were great, family owned

Live in care is all very well but social services are very unlikely to honour this when they pick up funding later.

Look at care homes that take council rates and he won’t have to move when his money runs out. Round here many of the good homes will drop rates.

Also he won’t get CHC at this point.
Almost impossible to get 🙁