Are families really expected to pay for care home fees?

[Whatsituation]

I always thought it was paid for by savings or property owned by the person or if they had neither then paid by the government?

Dh has been telling me how if MIL/FIL ever needs to go into a home his siblings will expect us to contribute along with them for a ‘better’ home?? I’ve said no that’s not happening and it won’t be a better one just the same I assume but they will
habe money coming in from various places for each resident it’s not like there are council care home and private ones I assumed the council fund spaces wherever they are ?

He’s said I’m being unkind but there’s no way I’m spending money on care fees for his parents !

Care home fees are astronomical. Some homes will only take privately funded residents and the local authority will not pay the fees in all homes; fortunately, when DF’s money runs out, the local authority will pay the fees of the one he’s in so we won’t have to move him. There is no way we could afford top-ups.

You need more info before you decide. It sounds like it's completely theoretical at the moment so there's no point in having an argument. If it's affordable (especially split 4 ways) and makes a big difference to comfort then DH is reasonable to want to do this. If it's a massive amount then he isn't.

Some homes accept the rate s council funding care will pay, some wont. Around here costs range between £1k per week to £1.4k a week. When the councul fund they give the home just over £800. Some homes make the resident move out if they can’t be topped up to their self-funded rate.

Be also very aware that the threshold for council funding now is very high and even if you know they can’t cope at home the council will assess and do everything in their power to keep them at home with home care provided (ie half hour visits max 4x per day). They may assess one needs residential care and one doesn’t, so if they refuse funding itvmay not mean family topping up but family paying.

This is good advice. It can be a very emotive subject so cold hard facts may be useful here. And I don’t blame the OP for feeling the way she does

We won’t be able to afford it without a huge compromise to our lifestyle which isn’t fair on the dc. We aren’t rich ! I also don’t see how it’s fair when PIL made no attempt to save for old age.

If they rent and have no savings they would not be making any contributions themselves apart from their pension why would they expect others to pay. People that top up generally have relatives that have paid a good chunk themselves and want to keep them in a nicer home when the money has run out.

They are grown adults and like the rest of us , are responsible for preparing for their old age. What have his parents done with their own money? How have they prepared for their own old age?

If they were not very wealthy themselves and worked hard (or were through no fault of their own, unable to work), that is very different I think than people who have simply chosen not to save and assumed they can make their children pay for them.

And if they are not asking for anything from their children, but the children just want to help, then it has to be what is manageable.

What about your own retirements? Savings for your children? You own parents?

But you don't know how much it will be - there's a poster up thread who was asked for £200 a month. So that's £50 a month for your DH on that scenario. I think most people could find that to help their parents out and without causing a huge compromise to their lifestyle.

I'd feel the same as you, OP and I don't think you are being unkind. The care home i know about locally is not especially high end, just quite modern and generally nice and it costs £7,500 a month. The prices go up all the time, sometimes in a jump of 500 in one go. I agree that dh needs to do some maths on this, projected over the next 10 or 15 years for two people. Even split between his siblings, it's pretty substantial and he will be shocked. Once you start down the route of paying, there will be no end to it.

I wouldn’t agree to this. People should prepare for their own future.

If they don’t have much money then they will be limited and often private ones can be expensive and nicer

councils do move people from expensive homes that they have chosen to cheaper ones when their money has run out

I do think it’s up to the parents to save their own funding or make do with whatever they can afford

but unless you are super rich there is no way an ordinary family can make a real impact on this

you could be looking at upwards of 5k a month

is DH aware of the likely costs ? You could probably afford to go along with him until he sees the figures / shows you

after all of it was a couple of hundred a year I’d do it for my parents

I think I would just say no. It’s not a short term issue but one that could last for decades.

My advice would be to focus on affordability and not fairness. Making judgments about his parents is unlikely to go down well even if he’s agreed with you in the past.

The advice earlier for him to do the research and reach his own conclusion about affordability is great. Let him work out what it’ll cost and make sure you include savings and uni fees for your children in the calculations.
Take the emotion and expectation out and just be practical.

Families are required/e pected to pay "top up" fees. My MIL had top up fees of £80 per week, we were told she could not pay it (despite having the money) and that her only child must do so.

There is no must about it.

LA will pay for the bare minimum when people need care.

In the first instance this will be a care package in the home. Up to four visits a day. These will be short and aimed at giving medication, changing pads if needed and perhaps preparing a drink and a sandwich. LA will try to ensure they do not die but there will be little or no focus on quality of life.

If an individual needs residential care they will be placed in the cheapest possible home. This may not be in the area in which they live. And it may be quite horrible - think smells of urine, staff with very limited English, and limited patience, other sometimes horrible residents. Some people are lucky and get sent to a nicer home with a lot of self funders but generally speaking people funded by the LA in the nicer places have been self funding for several years and have run out of their own money.

LAs cannot afford to pay for decent care everyone who needs it - particularly not in poorer areas of the country where everybody rents and has no savings. Problems will get much worse when generation rent reaches old age as there will be no owned homes to seize.

When Teresa May suggested capping care costs at c£200,000 - which would have allowed people to pay for insurance policies to cover costs- she was shouted down by other political parties “dementia tax” Not saying it was the perfect solution, but it was at least an effort to address the problem. Several years on there does not seem to have been another attempt.

I agree that at the moment this is all theoretical, but I’m also concerned that there seems to be a lot of discussion and perhaps decisions made by an unclear number of the children, without reference to their parents’ wishes and without reference to the children’s partners and families.

Does anyone have lasting power of attorney for your in-laws, and if so who? I’m going to guess nobody has it. The legal position is that your in-laws are assumed to have mental capacity for their own decisions unless there is a good reason to suspect that they might not. What do they want to do?

I would be concerned also that one daughter appears to be doing a lot of care but it’s not clear why this is needed.

Having said that, I think it’s a bit unfair to talk about your in-laws ‘not planning for old age’ - I should think they did assume that having four kids, working and living in a state with a safety net, they wouldn’t starve or be on the streets. Saving a quarter of a million quid each or whatever isn’t easily done.

Or they would have to ask her to leave

if she had the money she pays

Who told you she couldn't pay? That doesn't sound fair to her family!

My relative was in a care home, they needed nursing care.
Prior to the Alzheimer’s diagnosis they lived alone in fold type place, partially funded.

The care home was £1200 a week.

The funded part of their fold transferred to the care home, their pension was needed and almost all of their children contributed a "top up fee" (two didn't and they're dicks)

When it was broken down between the children (admittedly there were 6 of them paying)it was £60 each a month.

The relative raised a large family, had no property, no savings. The adult children all have full time jobs, holidays, own their own homes, they handed over the money for the top up fee without question, apart from the two who just ignored it all.

You'd be better discussing this with your husband before the time comes.

Sometimes there is a top up fee and families might choode to pay that extra amount between them to ensure that are in the best home suited to their needs. We did this with my stepmother as it would have been very distressing for her to have been moved to a different care home. We were not asked to pay the full fee though!

I bet it was the down to the £23k limit or whatever it is which they can't access.

Nah, I wouldn’t contribute to my in laws care home fees. Not in these circumstances.

Maybe they couldn’t save any more than they did what with raising 4 children? Many people don’t have enough money to pay for their care in old age.

Also be aware that if you were to start contributing, the rate you pay at the beginning may not stay stable. My mum was in a private care home for the last 16 months of her life (dementia), her house was sold to fund it. As she declined and her level of need increased, so did the care fees. I think the bill in the last couple of months when she was almost completely immobile was £7k per month.

Council care homes are there to support people with no savings or home to sell. They may not be as nice as a private one but they still have to be inspected and meet certain standards.

The best thing you could do as a family is share the burden that the one sister is facing so that they could stay at home for longer. Also ask social services for advice re whether they could fund carers going in to help.