Heartbroken that I'm being forced to sell mum's house, she worked hard for it and paid her national insurance

[Jkoakham]

And now her savings are running out I will need to sell her house to carry on funding it.

It all seems to very unfair, her house was supposed to be passed to me but instead it's affectively passed to government and private companies.

I thought the dimentia tax had been can cancelled?

Its a lesson to us all to see that an inheritance isn't a right.
I stand to inherit IF the money isn't needed for care. It sucks but that's the way it is.
Who knows who'll go first anyway? It might be me.
I rent because I have to and I work just as hard as many homeowners so please don't use the 'worked hard' for sympathy.

It seems fairer for older home owners to pay for the care themselves rather than society as a whole,many of whom are completely screwed over by the fact that houses cost so much.

What isn't fair is:

Some people to be able to pass on everything and others nothing purely on the basis of what illness chances to carry them off

Private funders having to pay substantially more for their care home than publicly funded people in the same care home.

I never understand why people think its unreasonable for old people to sell their house when they move 'house' and go into a care home.
At no other stage in life do you expect to keep your house and move into another one.
Yes it may be hard emotionally, yes it might be because circumstances dictate it and not completely their choice but this can be true of moving at any stage in life.
Mostly the people who think this is unreasonable is those who are expecting to receive a house for free from their elderly relative (or as its commonly known 'their inheritance') - they dress it up as concern for the relatives hard earned asset but the relative is just swapping one domicile for another, what they mean is they are going to miss out on free stuff.
My mother has dementia started in her late 60s, she has care in her own home at the moment which is capped and costs depend on your income. She will at some point (soon) need to go into a home and we will sell her current home to fund this. Yes it's a bit sad but her having dementia is generally a bit crap and if she is cared for and comfortable in her new (care) home - that is all that matters.

Some people to be able to pass on everything and others nothing purely on the basis of what illness chances to carry them off

How is that any less fair than (say) people with lifelong depression not being able to cope with a high powered career that enables them to leave an inheritance vs people who are totally healthy being able to do so? Maybe the solution is just a simple 100% inheritance tax on the entire estate earmarked for social care?

Private funders having to pay substantially more for their care home than publicly funded people in the same care home.

Pretty much the same as how the nursery free hours work isn't it? The reality is the government has the power to set their price and private individuals don't.

if it were not for your ill health, a factor you cannot help, you could carry on living in that house

Old age isn't ill health though. Many of us are living for far too long, or as someone alternatively put it, dying for far too long.

Namechanged but my mum had 6 months fully funded care in a nursing home when it became apparent that her cancer was leaving her with 6 months to live and she was living alone. This was in a major city in England , and the normal fees for the home were £1400 a week. I only had to pay £5 for a haircut once for her.

I can't believe people think this a fair and equitable way to cover elder care in the UK.

It's a lottery- if you get sick, if you need extra help, if you have a long progressive illness, if you need residential or nursing care.

It's as much of a lottery as if you get sick whilst under 65, and no-one hopefully supports the US model of people selling their homes (or even going bankrupt) to pay for medicines and hospital care.

I also find it exceptionally hard to believe that all those saying 'tough luck' have themselves never ever benefited from an inheritance. On primarily m-c mumsnet, I find that incredible.

For some reason, an extreme individualism, indeed selfishness has taken hold- you are sick, you pay (with your home, with your family's money). Those lucky enough not to get sick or just die in their homes needing care- great for them.

Why not have a care insurance system that pays at least a basic standard of care?

It's crazy how FOR a universal credit people are on here, and for universal healthcare in the NHS but not for universal care for the elderly.

I also defy anyone not to care about paying £1000-1500 a week for care fees out of their parent's home that they would otherwise have inherited. What kind of person actively wants to do that, it's not mercenary to wish we could set up a better funded tax system and insurance system to deal with this!

Right now, it's a lottery of care and other countries, yet again, do it better and fairer. Luckily in the Uk we have all those mumsnetters who don't mind losing half a million later in life and paying it in randomly to the care bill whilst others pay nothing, so we don't need to change anything...

Apologies I haven't read the whole thread, but would renting her house out to fund her care be an option?? I know quite a few people in similar positions who have done the same.

for the umpteenth time - older home owners did not set out to deliberately make house prices increase - in fact in many parts of the UK (outside London and the SE) house prices are still very affordable

you know what made house prices increase so much :

increasing population
buy to let being seen as a way to easy money
lax credit criteria - self certification, 100 % mortgages, interest only mortgages - buy now or lose out mentality
insanely low interest rates for over 10 years
government intervention in the housing market
lack of social housing being built (see above about buy to let landlords cashing in)
The generation who saved for a deposit to buy a home for their family did not deliberately screw later generations over. Look at when house prices took off (labour government in charge) and how could anyone have foreseen the recklessness when everyone had to get on the 'ladder' - bidding up the price of houses (todays OAPs are not the reason for that as they had already bought in the 70s and 80s)
to your question OP - unless you have no home at all - I cannot feel sorry for you not getting your inheritance as someone has to pay for the care your mother will receive.

I’m with you op is incredibly unfair. She’s worked her entire life to buy the house, paid her taxes on that money, gone without probably, paying her own way. Now she has to use that money to pay for something someone who has never worked or never saved will get for free. It’s why once we retire we are going to sell up, move into the small flat we have put our pension contributions into and give DS half the proceeds.

I'm all for universal care for the elderly - but we don't have it. And as long as the country keeps voting Tories and for low taxes we never will.

Not much help to the OP's situation.

The mother has a home. She can't live in it. She has to live elsewhere. What you do (in the absence of any other provisions) is pay for where you live. That is what the OP's Mum needs to do. Sell the home she doesn't live in so she can pay for the home she does.

The issue is the inequity of inheritance in general, isn't it. Yes, I think elderly people should have their care paid for. But not while they are passing on thousands of pounds to relatives who are not spending it on that care nor having the elderly person live with them (and I'm not suggesting that is always/mostly appropriate).

The idea of 'people who don't mind losing half a million' is ridiculous when you have people who cannot afford to pay for somewhere to live - never mind buy and own a house. If I could afford to pay for my dad to live in a care home I would - and if he had owned a large house, well, I could couldn't I?

Where will the money come from Summersup?

How much are you happy to pay if they do this?

summersup

I consistently vote for parties advocating higher taxation in order to actually properly fund the NHS/social care etc. Unfortunately, the majority of the population does not. In the absence of that, I find peace with not seeing the profits from my ancestors' hard work by recognising that it buys them a better quality of life, without passing that cost on to me. So it evens out. I'd be prepared to pay higher tax to fix the NHS, and improve social care. But not enough people would.

Which countries has totally free care for the elderly, including for years of dementia ?
I don't know of any atm.

The German care tax is often quoted - I pay this - and it is a compulsory separate tax to income tax.

BUT it would on;y pay a small amount, enough to mostly pay for care in your own home. For a while.
It certainly doesn't cover longterm care home fees

• because otherwise it would be a massive tax that noone would accept

I think people totally underestimate the hike in income tax that would be required.

There seems a disconnect between wanting this huge amount of "free money" to save their inheritances and saying where it is coming from.
Other people ?

My DAunt is in a care home with Alzheimer's and also some additional nursing needs.

Her care is paid for, but her 'living' is not which is £3,000 a month. We have recently sold her house. She has £2,000 a month coming in (pension, state pension etc) so she 'bleeds' £1k a month.

My Aunt is 79. She now has enough to pay for her care in the excellent home for the 7 years. If she lives past 86 then she will be moved to a LA Care Home and the ones near us are not great & it would distress her greatly.

A small increase in taxation for the NHS would be more sensible and maybe politically acceptable
because that is saving lives, not saving inheritances

@nocoolnamesleft I simply cannot see where we can cut any more from our budget to pay for these extra taxes, we're only just keeping our head above water - plenty of people aren't even managing that and have loads of debt. Between rent and food and energy costs and the ridiculous cost of public transport there's just no slack. How can you raise taxes if there's no slack? The issue is that the population is lopsided - too many old sick people and increasingly so as time goes on - for each worker - however that care is paid for it's going to hurt because of that, there's not a single country with an ageing population that is managing it really successfully, it's a massive issue with no easy solution (not even breeding considering that "endless growth" must at some point reach a malthusian conclusion).

I thought there was a relatively simple answer to all this in terms of an insurance scheme. All that is needed is for the government to agree a cap on the fees such scheme would need to cover and we could all be happily buying dementia insurance.

I don't know why it hasn't happened.

An insurance scheme is the best way to deal with things that are massively expensive but don't happen to everyone.....

YANBU I do agree that our taxes should pay for our basic care in old age. These days its so hard to buy property that many peoples only way of owning it is if they inherit it from parents.... Its sad that this only effects a certain group of people as well... if you have wealth to spare your children will still inherit something at least which is quite sad as it mostly means that people who have just about scraped things together to own property are the ones who then loose out rather than people who can actually afford it.

When I look at how things stand now when my parents die itd actually be much better for me to pass anything inherited straight to my children. So that they actually have a chance of enjoying life as homeowners with some measure of security before they are incredibly old. As the population is ageing people in a certain financial bracket will basically never escape that bracket as everything passed down will go straight into funding the older family members care... As opposed to higher financial brackets where wealth will still be passed down.... This just all increases inequality in this country.

TBH, I don't really understand why certain health risks of old age such as cancer are funded, while others e.g. different kinds of dementia are not. I don't understand why we can't pool those risks over the whole of our lives by paying a higher rate of NI so that assets didn't have to be stripped away to pay for care at the end of life.

OP, there will be lots of people on here who tell you that you are massively unreasonable, greedy, grasping for daring to hope that your mother's hard work and efforts to save might benefit her children. Let me tell you my POV: I've spent many years working and saving, for long stretches at jobs I really didn't like, and a big part of my motivation was about making life better for my kids. I do absolutely want them to inherit my worldly goods and I don't think it fair that, if I need care in my old age, the state can claim everything but the last £23k. I don't think that an estate not even worth the equivalent of one year's national average salary is a good showing for my efforts. I'd much rather be paying even thousands extra a year in NI/tax to secure more good quality funded care and I honestly can't understand why no political parties will grasp this nettle.

We all have to pay for our care. The only option would be to keep your Mum with your that way your inheritance will be protected.

YABVVVU.

The money isn't yours, it is you mums.

Your mum now needs fulltime care, and so her money is being used to fund that care.

No one has any right to count on an inheritance.

I hope my parents are never in the position of having to go into care, but if they are I'll have no problems seeing the house sold, and funding the best possible care I can to make sure they have as much dignity as possible.

If that means no inheritance, so be it.

YANBU. I think it's very unfair that some illnesses the care is covered because it's mainly medical, but for others (dementia, Parkinson's, Huntingtons etc) it isn't because the care required is mainly social, in the age of so called mental health awareness it's discriminating.

We are living longer now, not conveniently dropping off the perch from sudden quick illnesses. On third of the population will develop dementia, that's one third of the population who will loose their homes, one third that will not be able to help their families work inheritance, and in a couple of generations that will translate to one third of families effectively locked out of home ownership due to an inherited illness. I do hope that future governments come up with a social care plan or legalise assisted death so it wouldn't feel like there was no choice but to grit your teeth and bare several years of degradation which ultimately leaves your family exhausted, heartbroken and poor.

There seems a disconnect between wanting this huge amount of "free money" to save their inheritances and saying where it is coming from.
Other people?

I think a lot of people are just unaware of the costs till they have to deal with them and then are shocked -so any attempt to deal with it poltically gets no-where.

There also families who pressure or happily let one member take on the care - often meaning the give up work - in my family that's been men as well as women but they often end up caring for many years which impacts on their retirement funds. The costs there are hidden but still exist.

If the cost of living keeps rising for young if you add every increasing taxes I think you'd get more emigration of higher paid higher skilled workers - leaving ever more to be paid by who is left.

I think government have an eye to that while individuals don't.