AIBU to think "Its just a house"

[5dcsinneedofacleaner]

First of all this isnt a talk about the rights and wrongs of expecting people to sell their homes to pay for care - tbh I have no clue of the ins and outs of this and this post and the political implications of it, this is soley based of experience of my grandmother who sold her house to move to a home.

She needed more suitable housing and although she doesnt need care at the moment she does need people there to check on her and her needs will increase in the next few years. constantly and she cant maintain a house alone. My dad isnt in the country and neither my sister or I have homes we could fit another adult in plus we dont own our homes so we could offer no stability at all, we have no other family.

When she sold her house everyone was full of how disgusting it was that she had to sell it in order to pay for the care now and in the future (she is 72) and I understood the loss of her house upset her BUT my sister and I were really shocked at the sheer attachement to the house and the fact that it was not just seen as an assest to be used. There was a really clear split between older generation (grandmothers friends etc) and ours (we are in ours 20s).

To me my house is just somewhere to keep my stuff and stop me freezing to death in the winter. I hold no emotional attachement to it and tbh its really hard for me to truley understand the attachement that my grandmother and her friends have to the houses. There is one of her friends for example who I have known since I was a baby she had a wonderful house, but now its is falling apart because she cant care for it either financially or physically, she sits in one room with the fire on rather than heat it properly because she is afraid of the bill. It would make FAR more sense for her to sell it and move, her health would improve etc and yet she doesnt because she doesnt want to leave it. I am not exaggerating when I say I really think that staying in that house will kill her.

I have never owned a house I am not sure that I ever will so AIBU to just not get it? I really dont and people make me feel like a complete freak for not standing and wailing over the loss of a tiny victorian terrace.

That's interesting. I had to pay for my as level resits.

I agree with expatinscotland. I also rent and whatever house I live in is my home. It really doesn't matter that I don't own it, as long as my family (and dogs ) are round me and it's a happy home. That's the same for a lot of people these days

I also don't see this as a generational thing, that an old person would get attached while a younger person wouldn't. MIL is 83 and has lived in her house since she got married. She's 83. Is she attached? No, not at all.

I'm 44, and no, I don't get attached to property either.

I would find it extremely upsetting to have to sell my home in order to pass the money on to greedy care home owners, rather than leaving something for my family.
And yes, care home owners are very rich (I know one, extremely rich).

I see no reason why I should toil till I drop to pay for care homes for people who haven't worked in decades so they can hang on to some house

How vile and wrong you are!!

My mother had to retire early at the age of 57 when she was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. My father paid into a superannuation since the first days of one of the earliest schemes in the 1960s. He still pays a ridiculous amount of tax on his superannuation that HE PAID FOR.

Posted too early.
Maybe I do come across as a bit bitter, but that happens when you watch your parents have to pay over £100 per 4 weeks for an Alzheimer's drug which (at that time) the NHS wouldn't fund, whilst junkies and people who piss their holy all against the wall get all they need handed to them on a plate.
I'm not proud of feeling bitter, but it's pretty bloody hard not to

I agree with MoreBeta in principle, but not the ages!
I can't see my children having left home when I am in my 50s!
I agree however that it is a lot easier to move when you are relative young and fit and healthy, but suspect for the majority this is going to be late 60s early 70s, rather than waiting until late 80s early 90s

I don't think it is unreasonable to expect people to organise care for their old age. A good example of silliness are my own pil. They have a large rather dilapidated house, bad transport links and on a hill so not able to walk to shop/doctor/post office etc. A few years ago at the top of the property market in Ireland we tried to get them to sell and move to a bungalow/sheltered near public transport, shops etc - they refused. Bil offered them a cottage that he owns, near BiL, shops etc, so they could invest/spend whatever they got for their own house and they also refused.

They decided to take out of one of those loans which is repayable after death or when the house is sold. Most of the money from the loan is now gone and the property market in Ireland is now pretty dire so any remain equity in the house, their only remaining asset is worthless.

FiL has been ill for some years and can barely drive and frankly it is unsafe to do so. MiL fell and broke her hip last year and is pretty much immobile. They rely on family (who work or live an hours drive) neighbours etc. Their only option soon may be to move to a nursing home subsidised by the church. They are not that old (mid-seventies). There is no option for sheltered accomodation unless paid for by their kids which none of us can afford. If they had planned ahead and moved a few years ago, they would have been able to keep their independence a lot longer.

she, it's an inconvenient truth, but more people are living longer and longer than the system can support. That's just how it is! If some have assets to sell to pay for their care, then I don't see why they should not when others will have to toil till they drop to pay for them to hang onto an asset and enrich the select few.

'I'm just making the point that they didn't see selling a family house with all its repository of memories as a huge tragedy - quite the opposite. That's why it's strange to me that some people do. It seems such an unnecessarily negative outlook on life.'

My folks, in their late and mid-70s, feel the same. They think it's a great fortune they have such an asset to use to buy them the best quality care they can source for as long as possible. This asset is theirs, it doesn't belong to us, and the money is for them as long as possible.

Makes sense to me and my sister!

It's a house, although they've had it for 41 years. It can't go with them when they die and we'd rather see the fruits of their labour being spent on themselves whilst they are alive if at all possible.

We will always have the memories, the treasured times, nothing can take that away from us.

'Maybe I do come across as a bit bitter, but that happens when you watch your parents have to pay over £100 per 4 weeks for an Alzheimer's drug which (at that time) the NHS wouldn't fund, whilst junkies and people who piss their holy all against the wall get all they need handed to them on a plate.
I'm not proud of feeling bitter, but it's pretty bloody hard not to'

Well, I could write a book on that! I lost my child to cancer, watched it all happen. And yes, the onco unit could have done with modernisation, but to say, 'Junkies get it handed to them on a plate': a) changes nothing b) the second we start going down the road of parceling out care on who is more 'deserving' is the second we start down the road to fascism and eugenics, IMO.

Life isn't fair. There isn't an endless supply of money. That's just how it is.

If you have an asset to use, consider yourself lucky, because there will likely be the square root of FA when people my age (42) reach their 70s.

Unfair? Life isn't fair.

I lived in my first floor flat in Fulham, London for over 26 years. The stairs became more and more difficult as my disability got worse and when I retired I decided to move about 50 miles away to Buckinghamshire to a ground floor flat with a garden.

Although it was my own choice, I cried all the way to my new flat. All the memories came crowding back and I wondered if I had made a huge mistake.

I love where I live now but still miss London. It's natural if you have lived somewhere a long time.

Oh and if I have to move into sheltered accommodation at any time, I won't hesitate to sell this place. It's fair to pay your own way while you can.

YANBU not not understand the emotion, but at the same time all of my homes rented or owner have been very dear to me and I have been emotionally attached to them. TBH I can't understand your perspective and find it quite emotionally cold, but that doesn't make me U either!

We are housebuying at the moment, and DH only wants to look at wrecks (mind you, when you see this town's idea of "done up", you wonder what the point is. So many fitted cupboards that a room looks like the inside of a caravan!). These (large) houses are horrible inside, not just for the condemned electrics and primitive, rickety kitchens, but mostly for the single-glazed windows, the incontinence carpets, the dangerous gas fires (carbon monoxide, anyone?) and cobwebs, damp and peeling wallpaper everywhere outside the used rooms. All that value locked up, destroyed through neglect, and ultimately lost. One house purchase we got quite far with, but pulled out because of subsidence. The vendor (through the agent) got a tree surgeon out and blamed a tree, got it chopped down, said it was all fixed, but we just didn't believe in the house any more: what that said about the neglect represented too great a risk. So that was a heck of a lot of money, lost. And another old person, living in squalor.

It isn't just sentimentality, though. It's sometimes to do with how elderly people cope. If you take someone who's beginning to struggle mentally out of their hope, they can decline hugely because they've lost all the context they had that helped them remember what to do. It is heartbreaking.

I've got to say, having seen that happen, if I were your gran's age I would feel scared of moving because I would feel as if I were no longer guaranteed my own security to have my own things and my own place. And that would be correct. She now can't be certain she will always be able to be in the same room or the same building, and that is genuinely quite frightening.