To think older people need to sit up and take notice of this

[OwlOfBrown]

So the Tory manifesto includes a plan to make (elderly) people pay for their own social care costs until they are down to the last £100K of their wealth. Andrew Dilnot, who chaired a commission on social care costs during the coalition government which suggested a cap of £35,000 on care costs borne by individuals, has condemned this plan.

www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/may/18/tory-social-care-plan-example-market-failure-andrew-dilnot

www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-politics-19286845/andrew-dilnot-on-social-care-cap-and-inheritances

I know a lot of MN'ers will say that this is fair, and I do have some sympathy with that opinion. Why should someone be able to sit on hundreds of thousands of pounds of wealth when the state pays for their care? But is it really fair? What about when others have the same amount of wealth but enjoy the good fortune of not needing social care so get to keep their wealth? After all, we don't make people with long-term illnesses pay for their medical treatment (yet...) so what is different about social care?

Debate away - I'm interested to hear other people's opinions on this.

I should probably say where this 1971 thing has come from.

Its from a study dated 2004 but reported in the House of Commons Work and Pensions Committee Intergenerational fairness
Third Report of Session 2016–17

www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201617/cmselect/cmworpen/59/59.pdf
If you are really interested in the subject this is the paper to read.

The actual 1971 thing comes from this graph

Does anyone know what would happen to an unmarried partner who is not on the title deeds of the house. Will the whole house be used for care costs of the person owning the house? Are they just homeless?

Ultimately the country is bankrupt, less than half of all citizens are paying income tax, more than half claim some form of benefit.
Benefits are being paid for by borrowing billions of Gbp per year.
The only money making venture the UK has been successful at for 20 yrs is ramping up property prices.
It is easy to see why the government sees houses as rich pickings, it is our only real industry.

Im not just plucking the 1971 mark out of my arse! It's from reputable source

I wonder what happens with a married couple, say they have a £400k house and one goes into care the other survives them and never needs care. Does the govt take £300k leaving the £100k or do they take £100k from half the house leaving £300k. I don't suppose they have said yet.

"Does anyone know what would happen to an unmarried partner who is not on the title deeds of the house. Will the whole house be used for care costs of the person owning the house? Are they just homeless?"

That person should look very carefully into whether they are classed as dependent & also , wills , other documents. I do not wish to get into the whole , marriage vs partner thing , but there are certain legal advantages to being married rather than a partner, Some of them can be sorted out via a solicitor. Sorry that is not a proper answer always but a spouse or civil partner has certain rights which a live in partner ( for want of a better phrase - i.e. someone who lives with their partner without a contract in place) does not unless they have clearly put those in place via a solicitor. Which would include wills , house , pension etc. Which can be done.

does not unless they have clearly put those in place via a solicitor
Absolutely.

There are two options.

One is get married and the legalities are automatically sorted out.

Two don't get married but ensure that your legal affairs are completely in order in every respect, house, pension, wills, etc.

If you choose to do neither of these things then you will have no more legal rights than any body else.

Thank you for the advice it's a complicated situation that can't post on here, but it's not looking good. The house is in the will but if care is needed that house will have already gone in care fees

Instead of carping on about immigrants we should have been talking about a population demographic for Brexit. As it stands old people need immigrants to pay for them and young people need them to have any future at all. Housing actually comes second to the need for workers and the economy.

But yes in essence the country is all but bankrupt and the finger on the eject button screws everyone all the more.

www.theguardian.com/society/2017/may/19/conservative-tory-social-care-plans-institute-for-fiscal-studies?CMP=twt_gu
Tory social care plans fail to tackle basic funding challenge, IFS says

The IFS warned on Friday that the complex new system outlined in the Conservative party’s manifesto, which would force more elderly people to pay for their own care, “makes no attempt to deal with the fundamental challenge of social care funding”.

While some households would fare better because of a higher, £100,000 means test, the IFS said that overall the new system would be “less generous”. It would fail to tackle the “insurance problem” that means individuals cannot plan for the risk of having to pay very high costs in their old age.

What is needed is affordable housing for the youngsters who are already here so perhaps they could have a family. They graduate with huge debt and even if they have a good job the housing costs make things a real struggle hence them desperately needing some cash from the gps.

It's all very well the government bleating on about building more housing but who will be given it.

Tory social care plans fail to tackle basic funding challenge

Yeah... and then some.

It is difficult enough already as an adult social care social worker to try and explain the care funding system. As a social worker I shouldn't be having to weigh up how much money someone has before being able to assess their needs. In theory, (particularly following The Care Act 2014) how much money someone has should have no bearing on what care they are eligible for.

In reality social care is on its arse. We cannot afford basic standards of care for people as it is. This suggested policy will not address the inequality in the system, it will just make things slightly better for some people's inheriting children. It will not inject more cash in to the social care system it will merely make an already overly complicated funding system more complicated.

It will never become policy because it is ridiculous. I doubt it is a coincidence that Mrs May announced this which subsequently distracted attention from the fact that she refused to engage in the leaders debate.

I'm not particularly political, but this stinks of Tory capitalism at the expense of the greater good.

@Always Basically yes unless a will leaves the house to the partner after death. If the partner dies intestate it goes to his heirs or if no heirs back up the chain to parents and then if they're dead back down the chain to their remaining children or grandchildren, as I understand it.

I think a lot of people are going to end up homeless if this gets in. The £100,000 left sounds great but when you've lost your home and then can't afford to buy another.

missed a bit in my rant we should be able to make the same care offer to everyone despite their assets/ income.

In reality when you pitch up at someone's house and its clear they have money we can make some suggestions to them around better care agencies not funded by the council, or different private organisations that can make life easier e.g cleaners, shopping delivery, alarm systems etc. All of these things can help someone stay in their own home for longer. If they do need to go into a home they have a greater choice of care homes because they can afford to pay the top up.

If you are 'poor' you have to put up with the bare minimum, and the bare minimum is pretty fucking bare at the moment! If I go out to an elderly woman who is in a council house and is living off the state pension I know that she has extremely limited options. She can't afford to employ a cleaner or a shopping delivery service and we can't offer that any more. She isn't ill enough to qualify for state funded residential care so she is left eking out an existence at home on her own with carers visiting 20 mins at a time 4 times a day.

Changing the funding system will make little difference to that. I highly doubt Mrs May intends to plough the increased fees (because that's what they are if you receive care in your own home - the majority of people) back into properly funding dignified adult social care again.

It is a difficult conundrum and its brave of May to start and tackle it.

It is fundamentally fair that we start taxing unearned income and unlocking the massive wealth locked up in peoples homes is a good start. Harking in vain back to last century where we can just add a penny to income tax and everyone gets full on care from cradle to grave is for the faeries.

Instead of carping on about immigrants we should have been talking about a population demographic for Brexit
I don't understand why the issue of immigrants has to be all or nothing.

Why can't we have a sensible policy in which immigrants who would benefit our society are welcome but without the current every person in the EU is welcome??

Basically yes unless a will leaves the house to the partner after death
Sorry I think this is wrong.

If you have an unmarried partner and all the money is used up on care except £100,000 then I think that the living partner could be made homeless.

These are all issues which need to be sorted out.

If people are cohabiting and own half the house as tenants in common each then when one dies it is only their share of the house which goes to their heirs. Presumably the same will apply with the £100k. If the house is worth £200k and they have half each and only one needs care then as they have £100k each the home is safe - yet another example where couples unlike we single people get a much better deal all round.

Janet Brown - It will all depend on how the house is owned. Legally there are so many scenarios that it is a nightmare.

While I see no reason why people who can afford to, shouldn't pay for their own care, I'm suspicious of the real motives behind this. Who actually ends up owning the home sold off to pay for the care? I read this on Facebook earlier which makes the whole thing sound completely corrupt, as I'd expect from this government. Fingers in pies.

A quote from a city worker :
"The Conservatives will attempt to soften the blow by promising that pensioners will not have to sell their homes to pay for their care costs while they or a surviving partner are alive. Instead, 'products will be available' allowing the elderly to pay by extracting equity from their homes, which will be recovered at a later date when they die or sell their residence.
I have just seen this post online:
'People need to read the small print associated with this because its a lot nastier than it looks.
I work in the City. The insurance industry was approached by the Government several months ago with the aim of creating a new market for a new product.
This arrangement is a culmination of those discussions. You wont have to sell your house PROVIDED that you purchase an insurance product to cover your social care. The "premiums" would be recovered from the equity after the house has been sold and the Insurance company will have a lien on the house and can force a sale if it wants to. So your offspring cant keep it on the market for long in order to get the best price.
The real kicker in this is that in order to encourage the industry to market these products the government guaranteed that there would be no cap on the premiums.
This was in some ways "attonement" for Osborne's destruction of the highly lucrative annuties market. This means that the premiums could be up to (and including) the entire remaining equity in the property after the government has taken its cut. Compamies will be falling over themselves to get their snouts in this trough.
In short your offspring and relatives could get absolutely nothing from your estate.
If you buy one of these products you need to read the small print very very carefully indeed because there will be some real dogs on the market.
I suspect that this is another financial scandal waiting to happen, but by the time it does May will be long gone." The bits the tories don't tell you
Edit

Who actually ends up owning the home sold off to pay for the care?

It would get sold on the open market just like it does if you go into a care home. That policy has been around for many years under Labour and Tories.

It would get sold on the open market just like it does if you go into a care home
That is how I understood it as well.

A charge can be put on the house to prevent the money being spent before the house is sold.

Does anybody actually have any official proof that an equity release style scheme is even being proposed??

Piglet if the post above yours is correct then there may not even be £100k left for inheritance purposes

This means that the premiums could be up to (and including) the entire remaining equity in the property after the government has taken its cut.

You wont have to sell your house PROVIDED that you purchase an insurance product to cover your social care
they'll sell it to the elderly with the 'dont worry you can stay in your home' angle, this means that they can siphon the equity out of the home.

Surely the smart move is to downsize while you are relatively youthful and can cope with the stress of so doing, then you can use the equity released to pay for care if/when you need it.
Plus a smaller easier to manage property is likely to enable independent living for longer, and there will be less work for any carers to do