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 !

FIL is in a care home, it costs £2K per week. I have been clear with dh that if / when FIL's money runs out not a penny of my savings will go towards it. If dh wants to use his savings that's his choice but I'm not supporting it. The money is to fund our own retirement, to support our dc and our dgc, and maybe even to pay for our own care in old age, if we need it.

Sadly I expect there will be some pressure from dh's siblings (who don't have dc) and I will be the mean SIL, again!

So the point is that fully state funded care homes are often that that great - not all, but many of them, so yes you PiL will be offered state funded care give what you’ve shared. However, families can top up to have them moved into better homes, better rooms, to pay for extra services.

Frankly if my DH wasn’t willing to ensure his parents had the best care in his old age I’d be appalled. He wouldn’t be the loving man I thought he was. And if I banned him from doing so, I hope he’d tell me to take a hike.

if your DH and his siblings are planning to fund it/top up, I think it says a lot bout the level of love and respect they have for their parents. I’m not sure if I were your DH I would ever look at you the same way if you had an issue with this. I’m not sure our marriage would last as neither of us find mean and cold-hearted particularly attractive.

My DH made no objection,I would have been extremely disappointed if he had

It's not expected and it's not a legal requirement, no.
Care is extremely expensive so most families wouldn't be able to afford to pay, especially given how expensive things are nowadays.
It sounds as if you feel that your PIL haven't worked hard and/or have spent all their income rather than making any effort to save. I can see why you would feel resentful given this, especially as you have been more frugal and saved money yourself.

Just to say not many have ever been able to make enough to self fund their care in elderly years. They might have done so if they had had enough money.
People on low incomes, modest homes, who only have a basic pension. No. They won't. If during their working and earning life they had a family, earned modestly, but worked, their money went on their family.
Savings may have been lost, spent, given to help out younger generations. Or non existent in the first place.

Nothing? Not even your home, in a scenario where you and your husband lose your jobs and you couldn’t pay your mortgage because you’ve emotionally committed to paying for your parents care? Or your kids futures, if they have no chance of getting on the property ladder without your financial help?

That's not really true. The great majority of the elderly own their own homes and so will be over the threshold and be self funding, at least initially.
The worry will come in later decades, as far less middle aged and younger people will ever be able to afford their own home, unless we have a huge crash in the property market.

@Imdunferits entirely correct IF we want my mum in a lovely care home. If we don’t give a shit, she can go into a SS funded care home without a top up but it won’t be as lovely as the care home we would pay extra for.

The top up fees are not from the LA it's the individual care home. They can be negotiable if you chat with the care home manager. A certain amount of top up fees can come from the resident's money but most has to be paid by a third party. Ie relatives.

What about someone who is already struggling to make ends meet, or has very little extra but wants to put a little bit by for their DCs future or heaven forfend- their own - so they aren’t a financial burden on their DCs when the time comes.

If the state believes there is genuinely no alternative to a care home then they will pay for it. Relatives may like to make themselves better by having them in an expensive one with bells and whistles, but by the time the state is prepared to pay for anything the elderly person just needs decent care and a warm bed, so it’s often a waste of money paying large sums for an allegedly better experience.

You need to check your privilege if you genuinely believe every decent family has £60 spare at the end of the month.

There was a huge difference between the council-run home that the local authority wanted to put my mum in when she could no longer live alone and the home that she moved into, which she paid for herself. She wasn’t particularly well off, and had about £60,000 in savings, which started to go down very quickly at £1500 per week. She owned a half share in her house, which I had just put up for sale to meet the cost of the fees for another 18 months when she died. The council had made it clear that they would contribute about £850 per week once her savings had been exhausted, which would have meant either moving her to a really unpleasant home in a miserable area, or me paying the extra to keep her in the wonderful home she had got used to. Of course I would have found a way of paying the difference if she had lived long enough - she was my mum and there was no-one else to help her out if I hadn’t been there.

The Council will place people in one of the homes they have contracts with.

The contracts are based on price but the amount paid is less than private clients and probably struggles to cover the costs of provision. Either the Council people are subsidised by others or their relatives top up for more than basic stuff.

Been like that for years.

I am not sure if you have already discussed with your PIL, but one of the things that is really important to do is make sure that you have Power of Attorney in place - for finances and for health. Do this while they are able to consent. They carry on making decisions but if things change then the POA kicks in.

we had this for my parents and when DF became ill it helped us with some important decisions. It legalizes the support we give to DM with online banking.

A family friend had not set it up for his DF and when he was diagnosed with dementia and needed care he had no say in where he was placed. It was a two-hour journey to visit which meant he could only be visited once a week.

Mum is still at home with twice daily carer visits. She has to pay over£1000 a month. She gets exactly the same care as she would get if she were getting state funded care. Her regular carer tells us this.

The free ones are run by the council, my grandmother stayed in one. She hated it as she said it was full of chavs. She did move to a private home, which she loved but it was very expensive. It was around £1,150 a week, the only reason she could afford it is because she received an inheritance. So I doubt you and sil could afford it?! Ring around and ask for their rates, then tell your husband you can't afford it! He will soon be quiet about it!

“At no point was it suggested that the top up fee was a choice or that anyone could walk away”.

You might want to add “from a moral standpoint” into this sentence then. Of course the top-up fee was a choice. Great if it’s the right one for you, but no one HAS to to do it, that’s why it’s a choice, not a legal expectation.

Which is great if you can afford it

As I understand it...
Local authorities pay fir care home places for people who cannot self fund.

These are not in local authority facilities but private care homes that the local authority inspect separately to the regulatory body.

Most are fine because of this.

More facilities with care add ons will be built in next few years so people don't need to move - rentals and purchased.

My friends sold up and bought a place they said they'd never need to move from when they retired.

None of them are free.

@Kimura what about financing your inlaws too? Who is going to finance you in old age when you run out of money after having spent it all on care home fees?

Quite

Do the siblings know how much a fancy care home will actually cost? There is one near me that is like a 5* hotel and that costs £10k a month. That’s a lot of money each month even between four of you and that would be x 2 if both parents go. They could be in there for years (my Aunt went into a care home three years ago and was given three months left but she’s still going strong now that she’s being well looked after and cared for).

I’d be getting my own bank account and not giving DH access to my money. If he wants to pay it needs to come from his money.

Yes they are. My friend’s mum was in a care home and funded by the council. A tv personality’s mum was in the same home.

If my parents or in-laws had no money and had spent their lives in rented accommodation, making no provision for themselves, I would have no objection to them living in a council funded/basic home. Especially if they had made poor dwcisions and not looked adter me and mine to the very best of their ability.

Mother and MIL will have the best that money can buy, funded from their pensions and estates. Hopefully they will be able to stay in their own homes with carers/help from us. I am 100% certain at least one of DH's SILs, who do f all, will object to using money from the estate and reducing their inheritance.

DH and I have discussed our care, we are mid 60s, if we have to we will have the very best available.

So DH's mother had early dementia and went into a care home.
They first took her to a council run home honestly, it was depressing and so basic. It was heartbreaking to see her in this environment. Think, small rooms where elderly people are left to sit for hours with limited interaction or care.
They then decided to move her to a 'better' home which I visited several times. This was a beautifully kept modern home, good food, activities, loads of staff on hand. Days out, communal areas.
The difference I can only describe was like the difference between a dirty 2 star bnb in Skegness Vs a 5 star hotel in Santorini.
The better home was about 1700 a week. Which was paid for by her pensions and by FIL selling their house and moving into a small 1 bed that DHs brother purchased for him to live in.
Then after several years the money ran out and she was so far gone by then she didnt know where she was and she had to move into a council funded home at that point.
I think despite the huge cost it was tbe right thing to do. Leaving her in that first home would have been awful.
We didn't pay for any of it as we didn't have that kind of money. It was paid for by her own assets and pensions.
But if it was my oen mum and I had thr money maybe I would. It's so expensive though. The fees would be more than my income.
Edited to add that DH and his brother now has zero inheritence. And there is no money left if FIL needs to go into a home.

There is a bit of difference between wanting to carry on topping up for a parent that has been funded by their house and savings for a few years and it has run out and OPs in-laws that have no savings and no property to even start funding themselves.