To think it would benefit my 2 sons if their grandad's house didn't have to be sold in the future for care home fees

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We have 2 sons (aged 16 and 18). Everyone knows about the dire prospects of any teenagers today ever getting on the property ladder. My sons have always been close to their paternal grandparents. Grandmother died 4 years ago after having Alzheimer's for 7 years. She ended up in a home for last 6 months as my father in law looked after her at home.

He is now 81 and has been diagnosed with dementia. We own our house outright. My husband has one brother who is married, nearly 5o with no children. He owns 2 houses outright, one which he rents out.

We save extremely hard for our future and hopefully house deposits for our sons but the outlook is very bleak from reading the papers/watching the news and I find the outlook for their future very depressing - will they be living with us until they are 40

After the diagnosis my brother in law said he thought it would be a good idea to get his dad's bank balance down as he has nearly £90,000 in the bank. He and my husband withdrew £3,000 each a few months ago with my father in law's approval But I think it is too late for this to make any difference to any possible future care needs. Even if it was reduced to under £23,000 which I understand is the threshold limit for contributing towards your care, the care home would say the house had to be sold.

I am sure my father in law would like to see his only grandchildren live in the house when he passes away, rather than it being sold for care home fees. My brother in law has no children to worry about, has a brilliant final salary pension and a very large bank balance.

I don't know why he came up with the idea to start reducing the bank balance when it will make no difference to his dad having to fund his care if the time comes. No more money has been withdrawn yet but my husband is burying his head in the sand over this and is just agreeing with his older brother.

I do not want a penny from any estate, I would just love to see our sons get a helping hand for the future but this would be via us as the will is 50/50 between my husband and his brother.

I am a very positive person and don't get depressed about much but I feel utter despair at the housing prospects for today's teenagers.

Please tell me if I am being out of order .

Some homes cant take people who have dementia or alzheimer s so if people cant afford care then that choice is limited which is a shame

"I must admit I do think it is unfair that someone self-funding gets exactly the same accommodation as someone being paid for by the council.

Mil and fil are in the only local care home that takes dementia sufferers. It is pretty basic. Other people, with exactly the same rooms, same food, same care - are being paid for by the council."

So what sort of accommodation do you suggest for the funded elderly man in my previous posts, Laine? A less than basic standard of food, of room, of care because he dared have a low paying job, dared be a SAHP without income, dared to have life-threatening illness which damaged his work and savings potential in what should have been his peak years?

I think it's awful how many people seem to be anticipating with glee their "inheritance". Which they will only be getting because their parents are dead. What lovely people.

I hope my parents, when they are old enough to retire, have a fantastic time and spend all their money as they wish.

Yabu

While I agree that it is not fair those with money are forced to sell their homes to pay for care but that does not seem to be the issue here

The same things was being said 25 years ago how are young people going to be able to afford to buy yet many have, property prices go up and fall and will continue to do so

And you are in the position to downsize if you are so concerned about your children

Bassetfeet she won't pay more. Council paid people can 'top up' out of of their pension etc.

When on continuing health care, your pension pays for that.

there was only one home that would take mil (by that time doubly incontinent and a "screamer") so there was no choice whatsoever.

I think if I were with it and needed care, then I would book myself into a 5* one and enjoy living there till my money ran out and then take my chances with whatever the council would pay for later.

when my grandads home was sold to pay for his care I was glad, because it meant he could go into a fancy home and get the best possible care

I felt exactly the same about my nan. I was proud of my granddad's careful planning and that my nan had had her own business into her 60s. The money they'd carefully put away funded a very comfortable last few years for her. She wanted for nothing. No way was that money better off in my pocket, or my DDs or my moms.

Our relationship with her was VERY difficult too. She was in no way a lovely little old lady. She was incredibly EA to us all and always had been. But to take her cash was just unthinkable and grabby.

When SIL's (very wealthy and lovely) MIL died, her glee was palpable. She's bragged about how rich she is ever since.

It's a sickening trait in people.

I know it's hard to believe but in my previous job I worked for a company which had a care home division. It's extremely difficult to make it work financially and the margains are very low.

just read last few posts

you are fooling yourselves. council run are often better. 5* is no guarantee of anything. and you can be in the same home anyway - first fee paying then council funded - so its not like fee paying makes it any better

(Hard to believe the homes weren't very profitable, not hard to believe I worked there!)

Bassettfeet is correct. Self funders pay up to 40% more than the council pay for the same room in the same home.

Council funding is capped.
So - my parent pays £900 per week for a place in a care home. (self funding). The council pays £500 per week for a place in the same home.
The actual cost of providing the place is about £700. So the person who is self funding makes up the shortfall.

This has been the case for the last 10 years in my experience of several care homes and local authorities.

The housing benefit analogy was a good one. If you have your own funds, you usually have more choice. That said, in certain cases, specialist units will be required and choice is limited but for the most part, having money is a huge advantage.

You may not get allocated your nearest care or nursing home or even the most suitable one. Beds are very hard to come by. My 80 y/old grandma had to travel on 2 buses to visit her beloved husband, despite her own health problems, because they did not have the means to pay for care and thus, choose a place more local to her.

I know some people are sharing stories of John being a privately paying resident and Jill being a council funded resident but a.) Jill is paying a mandatory top up anyway and b.) in many, many cases, money means options. I've seen some care homes that are like 5 star hotels but more importantly, they have a fantastic staff to client ratio. I'd rather see my parents spend all their money on good quality care than have them scrabbling about to save it for me. Nothing more heartbreaking that seeing the one you love losing their cognition, forgetting their loved ones, being taken out of their homes and - to add insult to injury - being in an environment that is not right for them,

Sanfairyanne, maybe it varies in different areas, but when we looked at the council ones near us for my grandad they were very very basic, I mean fine, but basic, the one that we chose in the end using the money from selling his home, had gorgeous gardens, bigger rooms with better furniture, an on site coffee shop, higher ratio of staff to residents and much more regular day trips and activities. Plus the food was waaaaay fancier. So I wasn't kidding myself, his money really did buy him a better standard of living to end his days.

Ps and there were no council funded places there so he wasn't subsidising anyone else's care.

TheHappyMonkey

Were you confident his money wouldn't run out?
We knew we wouldn't be able to fund more than about 4 years and didn't want my mum to be transferred once she was settled. Most people opt for a mixed, "nice" home in the hope that once their funds have run out the council will step in. It is a gamble though as the ratio has to be carefully balanced so that there are enough self funders to keep everything going.

A totally private home would have been way too expensive.

The whole thing is a minefield.

No one gets free care, apart from those funded under continuing health care or section 117.
Everyone else, who has been assessed as needing residential or nursing care through the LA will be subject to a financial assessment. Even those with no capital at all will be required to contribute their income, less a personal allowance of £24.40 pw people as a client contribution.
And yes if it's seen that money has been given away in order to pay less fees it's called deprivation of capital and you will be treated as still having it. If a person puts a house in someone else's name whilst in possession of full capacity and not knowingly needing care in the near future then it will be disregarded. It's too late to do it when you know care is needed. Land registry is checked when a case looks a bit dodgy!

A totally private home where I live is about £1000 - £1500 per week.
That would work out at a maximum of about 4- 6 years based on the sale of an average small house or flat in the South East.

You would have to be confident the person would not live longer than that. IME even very frail old people tend to thrive in a good care home because they are being fed, medicated and cared for.

It was incredibly expensive and we knew that the money would only last a finite amount of time but we took the risk, he didn't go into the home until he was really elderly, I think he was 85, we knew the money would last approx 7 years and he died just before he was 90. I'm so glad that my final memories of him are in that place, to my mind that's worth 100 times the happiness that his money would have brought us if we'd kept it for ourselves.
He was lucky that he bought a house in London in the 60's and sold it in the late 90's so there was a lot of equity, but we never saw it as our inheritance we saw it as money to pay for his care.

Isn't it cheaper to hire two people to look after parents privately in their home? You can do that for a lot less than 1500 a week. Obvs if that's what they wanted.

What if I'm happy to choose a very basic standard of care for myself?

I wouldn't choose it on behalf of my parent when thinking about spending their money and not my own, but when I am thinking about spending my own money and my own care in old age should I need it, I believe I should be able to choose whether I want to pay for the care home with gardens and nice furniture or whether I want to receive the minimum I need in return for the taxes I have paid.

We should be allowed the right to choose what we do with our own money and our own assets, and if state provision is available to one that needs it, then it should be available to all who need it.

But you could choose a much more basic standard for care and you would pay an awful lot less for it. I think it's unrealistic to expect it to be free though, unless of course you genuinely have no money.
The same way that you can't get housing benefit or income support if you are independently wealthy. You can't just say, well I've paid my taxes so I'm entitled to income support, the safety net is there for those who need it not for those who would rather give their money away to their children.

Basic care isn't going to be any good if you have complex needs. If it's that basic you may as well stay at home and have home help, then no one would chuck you out the house.

I agree, I was just answering woowooowls point about not wanting to go into a luxury home. No one is going to force you to choose luxury care, there are usually cheaper options available.

I'm going to look for some statistics on taxes in vs. taxes out. So few people cover what they take out unless they are very high earners.

A friend's grandmother had a nice home in a smart suburb of London. She got dementia in her sixties and went into a home. Her savings went on fees. Then her house was sold - all that money went on fees. Eventually she hit the minimum amount of money and the state paid for her care, after which she promptly died.

Everything that family had worked for, saved and built up was gone. That family do not remember their grandmother happily.