Is this possible. Re Tm and "dementia tax"

[monkeysox]

Have been thinking about this.

If many people no longer inherit big ish sums due to care costs (home not taken into account at the moment for care in own home) how will this affect the housing market?

Government may end up "owning" shares of lots of houses but who will have a deposit to buy one of them?

It would take loads of potential homeowners out of the market.

Aibu does that make sense?

I don't have personal experience of this however my understanding is that a spouse or family member is not automatically put in control of the persons financial and health decisions. It may be that currently this is what happens without an lpa however I have read about cases where the council has just taken over and cut the spouse out of any decisions basically using the persons money as they see fit.

I think most people want to retain control of their money and their care. However councils may see the opportunity to charge for care in the home based on wealth as an opportunity to raise money.

Starla for a whole generation unable to buy without a deposit they can't expect until their 50s surely a reduction in property values would be a far better thing than only those with property owning parents who leave them large inheritances ever being able to buy, and most people not being in a position to buy until they are over 50...

Sorry that's a bit incoherent, Dh arrived home while I was typing

I have personal experience. That is not what happens. The council has to apply to the Court of Protection to become the deputy. All interested parties are notified and given the opportunity to oppose their application.

If the family oppose, the council check that the family understand their responsibility as deputies and then ask the court to appoint the family to be the deputy.

Dementia is progressive so the idea that they need a bit of help with housework/cooking etc will probably be correct at some point but it doesn't stop there. I know a lady in her 80s, she is terrified of the little dead men dancing in her living room and making a noise so she can't sleep, she is starving to death as she thinks she has eaten and the carers don't have time to supervise her, they just prepare the food and leave it for her, she thinks her dead husband is angry with her and shouts at her. She is frightened and goes round knocking on neighbours doors and increasingly people are refusing to answer the door to her. She is severely mentally ill and very vulnerable and she needs to either be in a hospital or specialist EMI care home. This is what the NHS is for. It most certainly isn't social care.

Whilst I'm not denying it's hard to buy a house it's not, I would suggest, quite as hard so people are saying here. There are a number of low cost home ownership scheme, gifted deposit schemes, or you can save up. It's not exactly uncommon to be a homeowner.

50 year olds are severely limited in the type of mortgages they can get - so an inheritance to cover a deposit isn't really enough at that point.

Re later stages of dementia the NHS take over if medical care is needed. The care home can provide basic palliative and hospice/ end of life care. Many people die of dementia without needing medical treatment.

Drinking, a little incoherent but I think I got the jist?!

I suppose my concern would be what happens to the generation of 50+ people who don't own homes and who still need care. This scheme seems a really short term solution to a problem that is going to affect every subsequent generation

What would you expect the NHS to do though granny? Fwiw- grim as this is, so I apologise- stopping eating isn't an unusual way to die with dementia.

What would the NHS do, medically? They are unlikely to force feed her- her quality of life won't get any better. There isn't any medication. I agree it's likely she'd be better off in care but that's not medical care is it? It would be something like a care home, which needs to be paid for because she'd live there. Why would
The NHS pay her living costs? She pays her own electricity, gas, food etc costs now.

This is another reminder to make sure you and your relatives have both financial and medical power of attorney so that if you do end up with a relative, e.g parents with dementia when they are too ill to make decisions for themselves you are able to quickly step in and act on their behalf.

I think maybe it's an age difference thing insta. I'm 10 years younger with you, so the property boom started before I had the chance to buy. Those that bought before it started or in the earlier years are fine. Those that didn't... and then you're waiting years to buy a house, biological clock ticking so then you need a bigger house not a starter home...

It's not just inheritances from parents - it's actually more inheritances from grandparents that have given my friends the step up that they needed.

My experience of dementia (early on set) is more like grannytomine's.

Currently for those who don't have funds, including property, they will get the same level of care in a care home as those who are paying for it. For those who are paying and run out of money, their care will continue.

Yes my sister is your age and lives at home. A few of her single friends have bought but most need to be buying with a partner. But that's always been the cAse, 2 salaries...

Insta, the numbers of young homeowners are falling (falls in all age brackets aside from those 65 and over) and numbers of mortgages for first time buyers have also decreased significantly since the 80's. So yes, it is harder to buy a house and less people are doing it.

Of course it's been declining since the 80s! You could buy a house for £20k then 😂 No one is denying it's harder to buy now, but people still do. It's not the rarity this thread suggests.

No, it hasn't always been the case. My childhood home for example, sold for approx £60k in 2002 - so someone on a £20k salary could have bought it. Similar properties are now selling for £180k.

I also disagree with the notion that people living with dementia don't need medical care. Very often they will be receiving support from specialist NHS teams in the community. They will also in most cases have co-morbid physical health conditions which will impact on the dementia so will also need medical input. Care homes very often struggle to care for people with such complex needs and hospital admissions are extremely common with a huge number of people with dementia dying in hospital because there is no where properly equipped to care for them outside of hospital.

The current system leads to huge bureaucracy in terms of social services and the NHS arguing about who should be funding care as people needs increase (continuing health care funding). What really needs to happen is for us to have a properly integrated health and social care system which is properly funded so people can receive the care they need as and when they need it without having to try and navigate two separate systems, each of whom is often trying to pass the buck to the other to save money,

Insta, they've also fallen significantly since 2001, they are falling year on year. I don't really get why that was funny. I'm pointing out that less young people own homes, that's a fact - despite how easy you might feel it is to get on the property ladder.

I think you're deliberately misunderstanding my posts, but it's really not the point of the thread anyway. I agree dementia patients often do need medical care.

I wonder what will happen with the cost of housing if a larger portion of people can't get on the housing ladder so are renting into old age but can't work anymore - surely a ticking time bomb in the form of huge housing benefit increase?

I don't know anyone who has bought a house without some kind of inheritance or other payout of some kind.

I did. Deaths in my family generally involve losing money. The only thing I've ever inherited from my family is a history of depression (har har.)

What would you expect the NHS to do though granny I expect them to do the same as they would do for any other person with a serious mental illness. In trying to help this lady I was told by a Social Worker that it is age discrimination as no younger person would be left like that, they would be sectioned.

I think it is a good policy for numerous reasons:

1. The system was never set up to cope with people needing the amount of care they now do
2. Most people have, apparently, had back from the state everything they have paid in within 5 years of retirement
3. Capital accrued in houses is, in effect, unearned, untaxed income
4. Large inheritances in expensive areas keep the prices high in those areas so reducing those may help balance the market and, maybe even, reduce the North-South divide a bit
5. The current system is a disincentive for people to downsize as free capital is used for care costs but not home capital. Changing this might result in more people downsizing and freeing up houses for younger people who need them
6. People downsizing and spending some money may stimulate the economy
7. Younger or poorer people who cannot afford to get on the housing ladder should not be contributing to subsidise someone else's inheritance
8. This is preferable to a cost cap as that allows the rich to keep more (e.g. If a cap is set at 75k the person with a £100k property keeps 25k (25%) where the person with a £1milliion keeps £925k (92.5%)

Overall I think the pluses outweigh the minuses which would largely depend on how it is administered and charged

Anecdata but I know several early 20's homeowners including myself. It doesn't seem to be that much of a rarity here.

As I have said on another thread the boundaries between social care and health care are essentially meaningless. Carers may be brought in to give a dementia patient their tablets because they forget to take them because of their medical condition - to treat their other medical conditions and keep them out of an expensive hospital bed - this is apparently social care, and yet if the medication they require is an injection eg for diabetes it will be done by district nurses on the NHS. This is one example of how arbitrary this divide is. It is not just cleaning cooking and admin. In fact it's more often washing and dressing and bum wiping. Which is done by nurses and nursing assistants in hospital as part of basic human dignity - the only "treatment" there is for dementia. It is absolutely outrageous that people with one of the cruelest of conditions are having to worry about finances at the hardest time of their life because they were "unlucky" enough not to get cancer or some other condition the consequences of which are deemed sufficiently "medical" to require NHS care. We wouldn't dream of treating patients with cancer like this - and rightly so. It shouldn't be any different for dementia. NHS and social care should be merged and additional funds raised through progressive forms of general taxation

Yes granny fil is scared of people on tv. It's a horrible illness. MIL is his carer but doesn't get allowance as is his wife. She's worn out.