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?

I understand care has to be paid for from somewhere but I think the OP deserves a bit of compassion. It IS sad that something that has been built up and paid for for years gets swallowed up in care fees over a relatively short amount of time. If I ever have to go into a home when I’m older then I will probably end my life early or go to a suicide clinic. I wouldn’t want my children to lose out on their inheritance to fund my stay in a card home where I wouldn’t want to be anyway, languishing and waiting for the inevitable to happen. I’m working four days a week, missing out on precious time with my DC to pay the bills and mortgage. No way am I doing this to line the pockets of a care home. This is for my children’s future.

If number 6 on your list happened to me Sunny I would rather be put out of my misery than spend the rest of my life in a care home.

We cannot all turn up at a hospital and see whatever consultant we like, when we like. GPs are the gatekeepers to the NHS, ensuring rationing of resources.

Likewise, social workers are the gatekeepers to the resources in LA social care - people have to meet criteria to access the resources. The criteria can be used to limit demand in any system, so its nonsense to say there will be a stampede if social care were to be free - there will still be rationing!

Is it fair that some people die suddenly leaving all their inheritance and some live longer but need care.? It depends how you look at it . This happened to my grandparents. They all lived into their 90s but my paternal ones died suddenly one after the other . My grandpa died of sepsis and not of old age at 95. Had he lived he would probably have needed care and my dad wouldn’t get an inheritance, but then he would have had those extra years of life which we would have all preferred . My mother will not get any inheritance as both her parents are in a nursing home and are pushing 100. They are not unhappy and have been granted those extra years of life that my paternal grandparents didn’t get.

www.legislation.gov.uk/ukdsi/2014/9780111124185

The current criteria for care under The Care Act 2014. However, before that many LAs adopted the "critical" level of FACS - i.e.if the person did not get support in a particular respect, they would be dead. The criteria can be adjusted up or down any time in the future - to exclude people over 65 who just feel like being waited on in a nice care home.

@LadysFingers when I said there would be a stampede, I was responding to a PPs suggestion that social care should be free to everyone above retirement age ie not means tested or rationed by GPs or social workers. Not sure how your system is any different to what we have presently?

Sar501 when you get to that stage in life you probably won’t want to die, most old people don’t want to die and would rather go to a care home than be sent to a dignitas clinic.

@lulu1234

I never suggested that, we ve a system right now as PP said where need is assessed and then acted on.
the big difference is a properly funded system would free up Hospital beds, remove the "for profit care" system we ve got now and ensure proper care is given in a timely manner.
the shortages in care homes we ve got now, just mean people die on a noisy hospital ward, with little dignity.

So, i ve just left Derriford Hospital with a broken hip, 3 out of the 5 beds in our area had elderly patients in them who were clearly very confused, had no broken bones (despite it being an Orthopaedic ward)
the nurses said there was no where else to put them and they were being shoved around the system waiting for a nursing home place.

It would nt matter if they had a 5 bed house in Salcombe, there is no space for them in the private/council sector.

I would ration social care to those, who really cannot meet basic needs without care and support as opposed to feel like, being looked after; but make it all free.

That already happens. Nobody gets social care free unless they have little money, and really need it. We top up a relatives care because all he gets would keep him fed, out of bed, clean and nothing else.

And without social care, he would die.

Well may I ask what is the point of getting up at cunt o'clock every morning hail rain windy sleet or snow flogging your guts out for decades to buy a property for it to be just taken from your when/if you need looking after In your later years.
This is no disrespect to anyone who has never worked but You might as well be on the dole. Get everything paid for you and get free care.
Yes you'll have nothing to leave your kids but If you have to sell your house.
You'll have nothing to leave them anyway. I'm buying my home basically for my daugher. Not to give the government an easy ride.

It's not about giving the government an easy ride. It's about providing yourself with a home when you need your house and continuing to provide for yourself if you need care. Why do people think the next generation of tax payers should subsidise their children's inheritance? Where did this perceived God given right to leech off society to preserve your wealth come from?

Well may I ask what is the point of getting up at cunt o'clock every morning hail rain windy sleet or snow flogging your guts out for decades to buy a property for it to be just taken from your when/if you need looking after In your later years

Because it gives you choice? You wouldn't want to choose where you spend the last part of your life?

No is for not for personal care. Sadly successive governments have failed to put in policies to deal with the care crisis because tackling properly involves unpopular taxes.

NI

I too think the system is wrong. £1k a week for care is an awful lot, that most people can't afford for that long.

There has to be some balance. At least a small inheritance secured?

£23,500 is protected.

Neither my sister nor I expect to inherit our parents house.
My dad has early onset Alzheimer’s and will presumably need care at some point, my mum is physically disabled but in good health otherwise. Their house should pay for their care, I look at it as their savings for old age.
My sister and I have our own houses, families and jobs. It’s up to us to save for our own future and old age.
I’ve made it very clear to my parents and parents in law that I absolutely will not be caring for them in their old age, I Don’t mind doing a bit of shopping and the like but I will not be spoon feeding or wiping bums.

Well Theresa May wanted to ensure everyone kept £100,000 from their house sale should they need social care and she nearly lost the election as a result. No body wants to pay for social care and in the past you would care for your elderly relatives at home without help and your reward would be the inheritance. Nowadays people want their elderly relatives to be cared for by and at the expense of the state without troubling themselves and then get their inheritance when said relatives die. Entitlement abounds

My grandparents cared for their elderly relatives by having them move in with them. It was the done thing, and at the time when this apparent "cradle to the grave" idea started. There will have been no expectation that society's attitudes would change.

My parents didn't offer the same courtesy to my grandparents as they got frail. So the state has to step in. This was never contemplated in the '40s and '50s when the welfare state really got started.

If anyone is upset at this please ask yourself when you last voted for a political party whose manifesto proposed increasing taxes to pay for it all. Who should pay for it? Because the electorate isn't keen.

Cross-post AndromedaPerseus

in the past you would care for your elderly relatives at home without help and your reward would be the inheritance

Actually the reverse is true, more people being cared for at home, by family members than ever before, partly because in many areas, there is no capacity for them to go into care.

Like it or not, Society will need to pick up the tab, most people dont have a house to sell and wages are going to have to increase dramatically to keep staff in the sector.

Personally, as a net tax payer, i feel really pissed off my taxes are being used to fund cuts in taxes for the wealthiest in society, i have no problem in my taxes being used to fund social care, as how a society cares for its elderly is measure of its level of civilisation.

If social care was universally free, you'd still be subsiding some of the wealthiest in society, just in a different way.

i feel sure the millionaire who lives up the road from me, is not going to a Council run home after being discharged from his local NHS hospital after breaking his Pelvis.
Just as he never sent his kids to the local comp.

He is however going to benefit from cuts in income tax and IHT, something he is rather embarrassed about.