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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

thinking owning a house is a waste of time, as it just gets takenoff you when you get old/put in ahome

229 replies

ohnanaWHATSMYNAMEohnana · 15/01/2011 23:30

one of my aunts has had to go into a care home, serious dementia needs fulltime help

but everything shes worked for and saved for looks liek it will be taken from her.

OP posts:
curlymama · 16/01/2011 00:39

suzi you are probably right. But that doesn't make it any better for someone who hasn't lived the life of reilly or squandered large fortunes because they have scrimped and saved in order to pay a mortgage.

There must be quite a few sensible pensioners out there that had a huge house and have downsized so that they can spend the equity enjoying themselves, or give their kids and early inheritance. Or set up a trust for the dgc. If I was approaching old age, I know that's what i'd be doing.

DioneTheDiabolist · 16/01/2011 00:39

So Curly and OP poor people should not be given an acceptable standard of care in their old age? And the children of those who worked, yet do not care for their parents should benefit?

suzikettles · 16/01/2011 00:40

Mishy, that's what my gran said too. And then growing old and frail happened to her and she discovered that she wanted to live actually.

She's 93 and she wants to be 100. She can still enjoy life even though she needs care. This is the woman who said "if I ever become a burden, take me out and shoot me".

Easy to say when you're young and fit.

Original poster
ohnanaWHATSMYNAMEohnana · 16/01/2011 00:42

lol appletree we can go on the rampage together in our old age!Grin

like the idea of parking up ont he green belt, we can be oap rebels

what age do we need to sell our house by btw?

OP posts:
mishymoshy · 16/01/2011 00:42

I'm a massive control freak. I would like to just go boom, from a heart attack or something, and if that doesn't happen I'll be arranging it myself.

ILoveItWhenYouCallMeBoo · 16/01/2011 00:43

"But that doesn't make it any better for someone who hasn't lived the life of reilly or squandered large fortunes because they have scrimped and saved in order to pay a mortgage."

what do you mean it doesn't make it any better? doesn't make what any better? tehy still get their care, possibly a better standard, if they are finding it hard to accept that some people require social housing then that sounds just like sour grapes to me.

edam · 16/01/2011 00:43

Curly, social care has never, ever, been free at the point of use. It has always been means tested. People don't seem to realise that. Those who have never needed it seem to assume it's like the NHS. It isn't and it never has been.

If you want free social care for all, that's great, but you have to realise we will all have to pay a great deal more in taxes to fund it.

Even the Marmot Review, which called for free personal care for all, wouldn't have made care in old age entirely free - Marmot was just talking about help with bathing, feeding, going to the loo, not the costs of accommodation. (Google Marmot Review and possibly King's Fund if you want to find out how much free personal care would cost the taxpayer and then think about how much buildings and staffing would cost on top of that.)

Appletrees · 16/01/2011 00:44

Ooh suzi my children are lovely.. I hope so too. They'll get the house money though. No one else. No way, no how. This is one thing ain't nobody taking from the family.

curlymama · 16/01/2011 00:45

Dione, read the thread, and especially my posts if you're going to direct something like that at me.

I have never said that poor people should not be given an acceptable standard of care, infact I've said exactly the opposite. Everyone should be entitled to good quality care.

Why do you think that people do not care for their parents if they don't give up work to becaome their full time carers? I wouldn't want my children caring for me in my old age.

animula · 16/01/2011 00:45

suzikettles - dh's grandmother received a telegram from the Queen!

I think the reality of old age is different from what some posters imagine. You can be too frail to live by yourself, often in an isolated place, but v. much mentally alive, and certainly "autonomous" enough to enjoy being alive. Even if not quite autonomous enough to manage solitary living.

Hence care home, and for quite a time. It's not quite as either/or as a sort of "Dignitas" solution.

(Which is why it is going to be a big issue in the coming years.)

Tramadol · 16/01/2011 00:45

Same here Appletrees!

suzikettles · 16/01/2011 00:47

Or you might have a massive stroke like the lady in the bed beside my gran in the elderly care unit and be able to to fuck all for yourself for the last 4 years of your life and no way out.

She died on Christmas Day. What a blessing for her and her husband who had faithfully visited every day for 4 years.

Money could have bought her a better quality of life - even got her to Switzerland maybe. But they had none so they were punished for their profligacy you'll be glad to know.

Sorry, that was extreme but that woman's situation was very bad. Her husband travelled over 30 miles there and back each day by public transport to visit her.

Growing old fills me with dread now. We're not likely to have a big house to sell and I doubt the State will be merciful.

Appletrees · 16/01/2011 00:47

For inheritance tax, hand it over seven years before death.

For care, they aren't stupid, they've got rules about handing it over just so you dn't pay fees. It's like, voluntarily making yourself poor. omething to be investigated.. I'm plannig on downsizing when the children need to buy maybe ten years time? and seeing how they go..then signing over ownershiup of the flat between them. So long as they haven't married horrible people who'll run off with it in a divorce.

animula · 16/01/2011 00:47

suzi - I meant to add that I hope your dg receives one too, and enjoys her life.

Quattrocento · 16/01/2011 00:48

Yes, there is an inherent unfairness in the system. Not much more to say than that.

Appletrees · 16/01/2011 00:49

I don't know, I've travelled a lot, I'm pretty open minded about moving and where I live. You get a lot ofcontentment from knowing your children are settled.

Original poster
ohnanaWHATSMYNAMEohnana · 16/01/2011 00:50

tramadol, want to come and live with me and apple trees in the holiday park?

we will drink, play bingo, burn round the park in an old banger, and take no shitGrin

are you in?

OP posts:
DioneTheDiabolist · 16/01/2011 00:51

Boo, I agree with you. This sounds like sour grapes to me. But I believe that all old people regardless of income or wealth deserve good quality end-of-life care. Ideally it would be provided by family (both my maternal and paternal grandmothers left their houses to the children who looked after them), where it does not it still has to be paid for. Where old dears can't afford to pay for it, then society has to.

curlymama · 16/01/2011 00:52

Edam, so what does happen then? Genuinely interested, I admitted earlier in the thread that I have no personal experience so I don't know exactly how it works. Smile I was aware that social care was means tested, and I realise it would cost a huge amount of money to pay for free personal care for all. But am I wrong in thinking that you can have two people being cared for in exactly the same home when one has paid a fortune and one has not paid a penny?

charliesmommy · 16/01/2011 00:52

If you havent made a Lasting Power of Attorney, and you go gaga, you can be carted off to the local care home, your house sold to pay for it, and there is sod all your family can do about it.

Nobody knows what the future holds from one day to the next, so it makes sense to put something in place just in case, so that it cant all be taken away.

Tramadol · 16/01/2011 00:52

Ohnana - im in!!

bubbleOseven · 16/01/2011 00:54

But am I wrong in thinking that you can have two people being cared for in exactly the same home when one has paid a fortune and one has not paid a penny?

that is correct. And as it should be.

animula · 16/01/2011 00:54

Sorry, but it is a bit unrealistic to think of elderly care being provided by families. The biggest change has been women going out to work. Women, and it was women, are just not around to do the care now. And the elderly are living a lot longer. It is going to be state/private financed care for the majority of us.

And if we want that care to be good, for everyone, we should start making a fuss about it now.

ILoveItWhenYouCallMeBoo · 16/01/2011 00:54

yes curly
the exact same way you could have two neighbours living in houses, one paying her own rent and one receiving housing benefit.

or is that not fair either?

pippop1 · 16/01/2011 00:55

Appletrees, I think if you handover ownership of your house to your children but continue to live in it yourself, then you need to pay them an economic rent for living there (plus live at least seven years) to attempt to escape your estate paying inheritance tax after your death.

If you handover your house to your children (on paper) and continue to live in it, it is possible that you won't have to pay care home fees (if your other assests are below a certain fairly low amount) BUT you must have handed it over a very long time (e.g. 10 years) before you had even a chance of going into care, for example when you were still working.

Best thing to do is go to a lawyer and get advice.