To get annoyed when people try to avoid care costs

[paramedicswift]

People deserve good care in old care, potentially in their own home or in a care home.

While it is completely rational thing to do, people try avoid this cost by spending as much money as they can before they need this care or they give it away to family.

On one side, it is completely rational. I understand that people have paid taxes, national insurance and worked for their entire life. They have a desire to see this work to be passed onto their children for them to benefit from their hard work.

One the other side, it is incredibly entitled. To me, your care in old age is just another cost of life. It is like cost of food, cost of shelter. I wish I did not have to spend money on rent, food and travel to work. But I have to. This is just life.

It makes me even more angry when family inheritances come into it. It is just so greedy and horrible. I do not know why it is unacceptable to some people to apply for benefits and never work but completely acceptable to avoid paying for social care.

It is a bit of tragedy of commons because if everyone did it, then taxes would be wasted on caring for old people that COULD HAVE afforded the care themselves rather than important things such as education for children, public infrastructure projects and healthcare that benefit everyone.

To everyone according to their need. If someone cannot genuinely afford old age care and they did not deliberately avoid the costs, then I have no problems with state subsidised care.

Am I being unreasonable?

I think this is an example of the problem with the phrase 'taxpayer's money' - it implies ownership of your taxes, which is wrong. The tax system isn't that those who put the most in are 'entitled' to the most out of it. "I paid taxes so I should get free care" is ridiculous. Maybe care should be cheaper, but I think that further devalues care. And maybe the cost of care is expensive partly because so many people try and spend as much money as possible to avoid paying for it.

It's playing the system though, isn't it? Just like tax avoidance, or playing the benefits system. Trying to get the most out whilst putting the least in. Which is fine, as long as people understand how that affects everyone else in the system.

I agree with the OP, care needs should be considered as much of a need as other essential bills and those that can, should save accordingly for them.

"And of course homes have to make a profit cause they are businesses."

Ahhh, capitalism at it's very best!

Nursing homes need high staff 24/7, very high staff ratios during the day for personal care, then high heating bills ....

Fees in state-run care homes in our area were only slightly cheaper than the typical private nursing home, about 4k per week. My late mum's savings funded years at a care home with lovely longterm staff & facilities, a couple of steps up from the rather grim basic. So, it really is worth having assets, or insurance.

Here's where the money goes as standard:
She needed someone to sit by her and feed her mashed up food for 45 mins each meal. She could only take tiny mouthfuls very slowly or she'd choke. She had to have her continence pads changed frequently, frequent washes to avoid sores, 2-3 staff for daily baths, then dressing, brushing hair, cutting nails, help her v slowly to the lounge and dining rooms, mental enrichment... Sometimes she got agitated and staff had to prevent her from hurting herself accidentally.

The extra she gained from having savings were: higher staff ratio with better pay & qualifications, much nicer and larger ooms, facilities & food, lovely gardens, more enrichment activities.

IHT has same principle as any other tax: avoidance is legal (but frowned on here for Amazon), evasion is illegal.
Also with benefits, maximise what you can receive, but if you try to hide assets you'll be in trouble.

I agree with the OP, care needs should be considered as much of a need as other essential bills and those that can, should save accordingly for them.

So what should you plan for Dementia , cancer, respite care, home care, ??? You do plan for it if you work and pay NI as you pay into a system.

My parents are in a situation now where their quality of life is crap as they daren't spend anything more than the bare minimum just incase its needed. as they don't know what will be needed in the future and they know that they will have to pay for it. It took 3 months for carers allowance to be approved and the entire money allocated goes to pay for day care twice a week ( with an extra £60 out of their pension ) ... leave you to do the sums , there is so much left at the end of the week that they are unsure whether to pay for the heating or go on a luxury cruise.....

Also older mothers could end up with a seriously raw deal.

OldFarticus, I've been that person in the queue for the till at Boots, with nappies for her mum and nappies for her son in her basket. I was working part-time, too, and a single parent. I look back on that time and it's like looking back on having a fever, I don't know how I did it. (I think how I did it was to do everything badly - being a mum, being a daughter, being at work, too. I don't know how I hung onto my job because I was useless.)

But the tax system for funding care is to help those who NEED it, not those who just decided to spend their money instead. Paying tax and NI is not planning for future care needs, it's paying tax and NI. The tax and NI of other people may be needed to fund your care later in life, but that's not the same thing as paying tax and NI in order to pay for your own care.

You can't plan for specific care needs, just like you can't plan for unemployment, or your spouse dying young. But it's a good idea to have some savings in case you need to spend them. Isn't that basic financial planning? Plenty of people can't afford to make savings. Some can, but choose not to. I think there's a generational thing as well here, years ago you were expected to save and not have any debt other than a mortgage. Now, you may struggle to get a mortgage if you've never had any debt/credit/an overdraft.

Although I should admit that paying tax and NI is currently my 'potential future care needs plan' too. Generation rent and all that.

Ridiculous idea to allow more assets to be passed on for expensive areas in my opinionAngst. That just potentiates the divide as people from outside the expensive areas can never afford to move there.

How do you differentiate? Is this just a bonus for Southerners? Or Londoners? What about expensive areas of the North that are dearer than cheaper areas in the South? If I own a million pound mansion in the North should my children be treated differently to those whose parents own a million pound smaller house in the SE? Surely this becomes just another "gift" to the rich

Just to complicate things people move between areas, DH and I are from the NW but worked around London when younger. Of our 2 DCS one is still up here but the other is living and working in London, should he get less than his GF because of where we live or more than his sister because of where he lives?

If care homes provided value for money I would agree with you.

Well quite, Seffina but if one wants the private sector to provide a solution then profits are part of that.

Sorry my last post was a bit off topic. I can understand the thought process of people trying to protect what they see is rightfully theirs but I think morally you are right OP

The only people we know who have planned and squirrelled stuff away are rabid Tories of the Thatcherite persuasion which fits with their view of society should be there to help and protect but what is theirs is still theirs

I agree with the poster upthread about the need for insurance to cover these eventualities. I think it was recommended in the Dilnot report but no company will provide insurance to offset again future care costs for people now in their 30s and 40s. It was put out to the industry but no company wanted to offer it because of the insurance risks.

For those people with houses / large assets, what that buys you is choice. My MIL is in a care home, having lived in a council house. She has some limited savings, from which she has to pay about £15 a week, but no other assets. She's not allowed to use the rest of her savings to contribute towards her care as she has to offset what the SS pay instead, on a weekly basis - the priority is on SS paying less towards her care, not on her being able to contribute on top of SS to get a better place.

Had she had a house to sell, we could have put her in one of the care homes that charge £1,000 a week, which look like hotels and have en-suite facilities. Her council will only pay £370 a week. We could look at somewhere that charges more than that, but we'd have to find the difference. How many people on here could find £200, £400 a week spare money to top up relatives' care home fees? If we had that sort of spare money we wouldn't be driving a 15 year old car.

We get the delightful "it's a shame she couldn't be somewhere nicer" comments from her friends and my SIL but we are satisfied she has a good standard of care and the best available for her budget in her area. I don't see the "I spent my money on holidays so the Social can now pay for my care in this fabulous home" people out there - the places that councils will fund are poorer quality than the ones you can self fund - we refused to consider MIL being in some of the places that SS will fund entirely - damp, threadbare carpets, insufficient staffing or an inability to handle medicines properly, all of which were listed on the CQC reports for the homes that MIL's local council will fund in full. Who wants to live somewhere damp and a trip hazard?

I disagree. Effectively you're being taxed twice. My FIL set up a family trust with all his money and gave us £20,000 each five years ago, he's divorced from MIL. His money will now fund projects in this country for people living on the breadline. Why should the government have it- he's worked like a dog all his life, payed taxes, sometimes ridiculous ones, and those who don't work get care for nothing? How fair is that?

On the other hand MIL is now in an Alzheimer's care home at the cost of £800 a WEEK as the council one didn't have a place for her. She has £100,000 banked, when that runs out the family are paying. It's going to be hard going, we have a good income but ten thousand a year is going to put a dent in our lifestyle and we have two children we are saving house deposits for. We already pay a lot in tax, and now will be funding her care.

Bigchocfrenzy 4k a week?????? It would be cheaper to stay in The Savoy Hotel. How on earth can 16k a month be justified?

he's worked like a dog all his life

Can we stop with this trope, please? Plenty of people work like dogs their whole lives and still don't end up with cash in the bank.

I think people do it because they bought a house on the assumption that they would have no rent to pay once the mortgage was paid off, and be able to leave some money to their children. If they end up, through no fault of their own, having to sell their house, not leave their kids any money, and be expected to pay rent (part of the care home cost is rent) then why wouldn't it feel like you've been conned? If they are in the same position without the extra costs and risks of a mortgage for 30 years, what did they get out of having the mortgage?

Especially for the current generation of pensioners where it's mostly mortgage vs council house rather than mortgage vs private renting as it usually is for younger people. I can't find a good link, but a recent BBC documentary stated that in the 70s 60% of people were in council or Housing Association housing, and now it's 17%.

You won't have to pay, Shonajay, the council will pay when your mil's assets are down to 23K.

Both pil are in a care home. I can categorically state that money does not always buy you choice. Mil was a "screamer" and no home would take her. We eventually found one that is decent enough, but is a bit like a very down-at-heel Pontins. Dfil followed soon after. Their care costs £4K a month. Both are fairly fit and healthy, but they have (in mil's case, advanced) dementia and as dementia is not in itself life limiting they could trundle on for years. I suppose if you look after your aged relatives, you can avoid paying, but dementia is not a little bit of amusing forgetfulness. Dementia can be double incontinence, losing all notion of time (eg being awake all night), and possibly violent temper tantrums.

Old age is a lottery. I can't help be a bit green at my friend's parents, who both dropped dead within a year of each other of instantaneous heart attacks and left a £1.5m house (not a mansion, just in outer London). She didn't have to deal with long painful illnesses (my parents), visiting people don't know her in manky care homes (pil), and is now relating in great detail the flats she is buying for her dses.

I don't see the "I spent my money on holidays so the Social can now pay for my care in this fabulous home" people out there - the places that councils will fund are poorer quality than the ones you can self fund

As I said upthread my father (a self funder) was in a home with many council paid for clients. Exactly the same care - he was subsidising them, obviously, is that fair?

YY scificam We have a bit of an obsession with house buying in this country, and I think years ago the idea was sold as that you would have an asset when you'd paid your mortgage, something to leave for your children, renting is dead money etc. rather than "you'll have an asset and then you'll need to sell it to fund your retirement". It's more like an investment in your future than an asset. It is a bit of a con.

If you own your own house, of course you're going to feel like you should get to do what you want with it.

If everybody took the view that because they have "worked hard all their lives" then "why should the government get it", we'd live in a very different country. Rather like going back in time 150 years, where old people who couldn't support themselves were sent to the workhouse to die. There were no benefits back then.

Looking after helpless people is one of the reasons why those who are able to do so, contribute via taxes and funding some of their own care costs.

I suppose that all the people who think that they have worked hard all their lives hence should keep everything, mine, mine mine, except other people should pay for my care costs whilst I hoard MY money, are fine with leaving poorer older people to put up with badly-funded care, since there will never be enough money in the treasury to fund everybody's care? Because THEY have worked hard, so poor elderly people only have themselves to blame for not doing the same?

This sort of thing infuriates me. I have elderly relatives who have grafted hard all their lives but weren't well paid and are poor now. Yet, wealthy older people who have been lucky with houses, pensions, education, etc., won't pay for their own basic needs.

Parker I agree it's rotten for those who never earned enough to save.
My Mum's home was £1200 - 1500 per week (as her care level changed) which saved her from much lower quality council homes.
It meant we funded 100% private, but that's fair imo. Those with assets should pay for their desired quality of care, with only any remainder ( zero in her case !) to be handed down to kids.

Yes, private insurance companies won't insure for care - not at a price someone on normal salary can afford.
That's why I favour the German scheme: mandatory state insurance deducted automatically like NI, for longterm care. Only when that sum runs out would they have to sell their homes - it can never be ringfenced.
The usual practice in the EU countries I know is that all assets like homes need to be used, before the state would step in.

"Why shouldn't people prioritise giving money to their children ahead of to a care home which will probably treat you like a piece of shit anyway."

Why should their children not have to work as hard as others for their money? I have friends in their 30s who not only have their own property, but a rental as well - both paid for with inheritance. I have neither and most likely never will. They work just as hard as we do, but have more to show for it.

I don't want to pay someone's rent because they want to give their kids a free house instead.

Ha, I sound very bitter there, I'm not! A bit jealous obviously, but fair play. My grandparents were poor, and neither I or my friends have had any say in how much money our grandparents have.