To think we have to accept that we need to use savings to fund care in old age

[LastDuchessFerrara]

My parents died before reaching old age but I'm now watching family and friends caring - in one form or another - for older relatives.

Many seem to be in denial about the fact that savings, pensions and, in some cases equity in their home, needs to be used to enable their relatives to continue to stay in their homes or go into care.

"But they've worked all their lives!" they cry in protest. Well, yes - and now that money needs to be used in their old age.

It's really focussed my mind on how any money I accumulate might not be spent on amazing holidays but paying for cleaners and carers.

I'd be interested in views but please can this not be a "boomer" bashing thread. I know plenty of impoverished old people and plenty of entitled non-boomers.

I have a really significant problem with the idea that we have worked so hard to buy a nice house and that instead of my children inheriting that money it would all go yet someone else that didn't work and/or didn't buy a property gets the same level of care.

Makes you think it's not worth working and saving.

@Countrygirl2021

I have a really significant problem with the idea that we have worked so hard to buy a nice house and that instead of my children inheriting that money it would all go yet someone else that didn't work and/or didn't buy a property gets the same level of care.

Makes you think it's not worth working and saving.

This kind of bloody meanness absolutely does my head in. Some people work their arses off all their lives for minimum wage with no prospect of ever owning a property to end up council funded in some geriatric shithole. Money means choice. It means you get decent care in a decent home of your choosing.

It isn’t the same level of care at all.

@Countrygirl2021

I have a really significant problem with the idea that we have worked so hard to buy a nice house and that instead of my children inheriting that money it would all go yet someone else that didn't work and/or didn't buy a property gets the same level of care.

Makes you think it's not worth working and saving.

Well you could always choose to live in rented accommodation and risk living on poverty in your old age. If you think it's not worth it. Of course if you do need care your choices will be limited and you may end up somewhere that smells of wee and boiled cabbage where family find it hard to visit. But that's your option.

@Countrygirl2021

I have a really significant problem with the idea that we have worked so hard to buy a nice house and that instead of my children inheriting that money it would all go yet someone else that didn't work and/or didn't buy a property gets the same level of care.

Makes you think it's not worth working and saving.

It wouldn’t go on someone who didn’t work or didn’t bit a property.... it would go on your own care.

Like someone else said you have the option to sell up, spend your money and rent so the house money can’t be spent on your care and then you too would also have to rely on whatever the local authority asked to fund for you in old age.

Btw my parents don’t own a home.... mum worked from age 15 until when she retired with only 2x 6 months off when her 2 children were born. She worked cleaning mod offices and in supermarkets, as a cleaner in hospital etc. All neccissary and needed jobs.....with pay so shit she couldn’t ever afford her own home. What do you think should happen to people like her in old age.

@Countrygirl2021, do you really live a life so sheltered you fail to realise people don’t choose poverty. Not buying property isn’t an option, you can’t buy a house if you don’t earn enough. You must live in an ivory tower.

We need a new definition of 'rich economy'
When a country has high levels of inequality we should stop thinking of them as 'rich'

I agree. It would be interesting to see how we stacked up if we were just measuring the incomes of the poor.

We have had two family members go into care.

MIL decided she didn't want to live on her own any more and didn't want to live with any of us. She chose her own retirement home and was extremely happy there, just wished she had gone in sooner. It was £1,150 per week.

Dad - had always said he dreaded having to go into care but when his dementia got too bad it wasn't really an option. He would not sleep for days on end, so impossible to cope with at home. His fees were £1,250 per week.

I had no obection to MIL spending her money as she wished. However, my Dad was ill. here was no way he could care for himself. I would have been more than happy for him to pay 'hotel' costs but I did object to him having to payfor his nursing care. He was not there by choice but because he was ill.

I have a really significant problem with the idea that we have worked so hard to buy a nice house and that instead of my children inheriting that money it would all go yet someone else that didn't work and/or didn't buy a property gets the same level of care.

I have a really significant problem with you thinking that any housing or care you need at the end of your life should be paid for by others so that your children can financially benefit.

@Countrygirl2021

I have a really significant problem with the idea that we have worked so hard to buy a nice house and that instead of my children inheriting that money it would all go yet someone else that didn't work and/or didn't buy a property gets the same level of care.

Makes you think it's not worth working and saving.

Will you also expect them to care for you in old age, if required? Because that’s the logical consequence of your plan for them to inherit.

I have a really significant problem with you thinking that any housing or care you need at the end of your life should be paid for by others so that your children can financially benefit.

Ditto.

And how nice to make judgements of people who are often economically & educationally disadvantaged from birth. These are the NMW workers who care for your children, clean our hospitals, and care for our elders.

These are the NMW workers who care for your children, clean our hospitals, and care for our elders
The people who do the most important work, work which is difficult demanding does not get proper recognition and is not properly renumerated, surely these are the ones who should be well looked after for free in old age?

CountryGirl...your comment makes the assumption that only homeowners have worked hard. Lots of people work hard and earn low wages and are never able to buy a property. Do they not deserve care too? Do they deserve lesser care?

There are 2 issues in people’s mind who object to people finding their own care:

1. They think that money they have saved or property assets they have built up should not be funding their care, even though it is them that will benefit from it. Because they would like to leave it to their kids, they think it is wrong it should be used to pay for their care. BUT they fail to really acknowledge the cost of care or that as a society, to fully fund it for everyone, regardless of circumstances is just too expensive. Plus why shouldn’t people pay for it if they need it?
2. I think this is often actually more the isssue for some people.....they don’t like the thought that some people receive care and the state pays and they aren’t having the state pay...and in their minds all those having the state pay are lazy scroungers and so there is no reward from saving or buying property. This argument fails to recognise that LOADS of people who are funded by the state have worked hard all their lives and just never earned much or been fortunate enough to buy a property or accumulate savings. It isn’t a case of the lazy scrounger gets it for free and I should too. There are all kinds of reasons why people need the state to fund it and can’t fund it themeslevws.....it’s the whole point about means tested benefits. You only get them if you can’t pay for them yourself....for the state to pay for everyone would simply be unaffordable. We have to accept that most benefits, especially the expensive ones need to be kept for those who can’t pay themselves.

But I suspect people who feel a strong sense of unfairness that some people get the care without paying themselves, also have an objection to things like social housing provision, most means tested benefits and things like free school meals....they are of the view that people receiving them are lazy scroungers and it’s not right, because they have to pay for their own housing and children’s meals and council tax etc.

If you have savings and a property, it may well be the case you worked hard to get them, but you are still fortunate to have them. Through your life, you spend on things you need, many of which don’t remain as inheritable assets. If you need a car, you buy one. If you need a new washing machine, you buy one. And you should be glad that when you need one you can buy one without difficulty and get some choice about what to have...because not everyone can easily buy those things or face choice. And old age care is the same really....if you have savings or a house which means you or your family will be able to go and look at several homes and choose one which works for you and suits them in terms of distance, you are very fortunate. Lots of people won’t have those choices. Having saved or built up assets IS giving you a benefit that those who haven’t still never have.

And given life expectancy is now so much longer, we probably need a mindset change....from thinking the house WILL be passed on as inheritance to EXPECTING it won’t and EXPECTING care to be a normal requirement of later life. In the same way you find your pension for later life you expect to fund care. And if by chance you do t need it a just drop dead at some point or die quietly at home and the asset is still there, well that’s just an additional bonus, but it’s certainly not a right.

Who is it who takes this attitude that the state should pay and it’s not fair some get their place paid for and others have to sell their home to fund it? I think it’s often those who are only 1 or 2 generations into home ownership and who have developed quite a Daily Mail kind of simplistic attitude about hard workers who have houses, and lazy scroungers living off the state who don’t. It’s so simplistic as thinking and actually just selfish really because it has zero recognition of the myriad of reasons why people might not be able to pay themselves, and an attitude of if someone else is getting something, I should too, regardless of circumstance. I expect such people also think the winter heating allowance or the free TV licence should be given to their elderly parents too, even if they are well off, because other people are getting it.

Sorry..rather long!

Long but excellent @WombatChocolate.

Well said Wombat. The business about not wanting to sell your house to fund care also ignores the fact that many people's property has increased in value beyond any reasonable amount, through no effort by the owners. They haven't 'worked hard' to see a house increase in value from £100K in 1995 to £500K in 2021 (and before anyone says it, yes, some people will have spent a lot of money on refurbishing, but most don't). If you don't want to sell your house to provide care, maybe a CGT on property would be a way of funding social care.

@o8O8O8o

Surely the solution is for people to start planning for their later years much earlier than they currently do? it becomes the norm to make a proper plan...not just let things play out and then expect others to pick up the pieces?

You are right - but life can throw curveballs at you, ruining your calculations. The WASPI women for instance, and people who have had to use their savings, through no fault of their own, because they've not qualified for government help during this pandemic. Anyone with savings of more than £16,000 cannot claim UC. We had healthy savings/plans until my husband was made redundant during the 2008 financial crash and couldn't get another job. We had to spend a lot of what we'd saved just to pay the bills. So yes, good in theory, but not that simple.

@lindylou2020 exactly. We were in the same position. DH got made redundant in his 50s and struggled to find a decent job. We ended up using a lot of our savings for him to retrain and start his own business.

Yes, I agree that the boomers probably did work hard, but also had a number of benefits which other generations might not get in the same way in terms of easily accessible mortgages for the first time and rising house prices which gave them their equity. They didn’t work harder than other generations. In fact, if most of them were doing the jobs they did when they bought their houses today, the salaries wouldn’t be enough to buy or afford the house. They have simply benefitted from rising house prices.

And yes, they’d like to pass it on to their kids and their kids would like to receive that asset which may well be more than they could buy, or very likely more than their grandchildren will be able to afford, but in itself, this isn’t an argument. WANTING to keep the asset and not pay for care, doesn’t in itself make a sensible case for people not HAVING TO or NEEDING to sell the asset if necessary to pay for care.

All the arguments about having worked hard, it being the role of the state to provide care homes, if the state provides care homes, they should be free for all, lazy scroungers getting freebies and hard work being unrewarded are all too simplistic and don’t recognise the variety of situations which have led to some people having a valuable and some not having one. Really, it comes down to people would rather not spend the money and have the state buy the care for them....well yes, I think we all get that. But then we would probably like the state to buy us all a house, or to give us all money so we don’t work....but we don’t expect the state to actually do that, but expect to support ourselves if we can. And we know, that by doing that, we have a better life than those who do have to rely on the state (unless you still believe beneftis are generous and allowing people to go to Spain for weeks on end) and quite simply, the same approach has to apply to care home funding too. If you can pay, then you will need to, and if you can’t, the state will make sure you’re not on the street, but your choices will be far more limited.

As others have said upthread, rather than worrying about the boomer generation, think more about the current teens and twenties and what their old age looks like being. With massive debt from education, unaffordable housing in large parts of the country and difficulty in funding the pensions that they won’t get until their mid 70s anyway, the least of their worries will be whether they can pass their big family home that they bought 60 years earlier, with a mortgage based on the earnings of one very averagely paid male worker.

The "I want to give my children an inheritance" brigade can get totally bizarre about it. If you're eating rice and beans for years, never turning the heating on, sitting on your dragon hoard and desperate to cling onto it and get state funded care so you've got something to leave to your children, they need to do a bit of maths.

I'm thirty. My mum and dad are 65 and 70. My mums mum is 93 and still hanging on in her own flat with a daily carer visit. My mum and dad raised two children and bought a house without seeing a penny of the alleged inheritance because their parents just weren't dead yet. Now they've retired and they're talking about the money they're going to leave me and haven't even had their own inheritance yet! I also expect to be retired or thereabouts before they are both dead, so I'd better have made my own provision for my old age!

If people really want to give their children a leg up in life, an inheritance is a terrible way to do it. They should buy an annuity to cover their expenses then hand over as much cash as they can as fast as they can, while it can still make a difference to their children. There are plenty of ways to gift money.

But people fetishise "the inheritance" (from both sides!).

Yes, the idea of leaving an inheritance or receiving one (especially a property) is fetishised. That’s exactly it. The idea has become some kind of cultural urban myth and people feel it is their right to do it or receive it. It’s odd, because actually only this boomer generation, or possibly the one before, have been in a position as a large group of people to even own property....so there isn’t a long history of the masses handing property or assets onto their kids.

In reality, you can give what you have left, if there is anything. It’s like the rest of life, if you have surplus money after day to day living, you can have a holiday. If you have a high enough income to afford private school fees you can have it and most people can’t. If at the end of your life, if after paying for all your expenses, which might include care home fees, you can leave an inheritance, but if there was nothing to start with or there’s now nothing left, you can’t.

And my goodness, the "family home"...! Everyone has an emotional tie to somewhere, but it's not a human right to die in possession of a few bricks just because you've lived in them for a while. It's just a house. And, when you sell it, just money. You'd think they'd built it with their own two hands on unbroken prairie sod like Pa Ingalls.

I have a half thought out 'theory' about the inheritance thing. It's only fairly recently that it has become possible for families who are not at the top end of the wealth scale to routinely leave an inheritance worth anything. If it goes back to how it used to be, with again only the richest having anything of real value left to leave by the time they die, it's very hard to continue selling the lie that we are now a classless society, that we aren't plagued by inequality, that anyone can 'make it'. The divisions between the rich and the rest will become very obvious again. And that won't be helpful to those in power.

I would like to know what the people who think its unfair would consider to be a better system.
People who can't pay denied care? Free care for all with higher taxation?
Insurance has been mentioned, but would still potentially be unfair as premiums would probably be based on your assessed likelihood of needing care, meaning people with disabilities and health conditions would be disadvantaged.

What about something like the same ways education and medical care are provided? So taxes are increased, relative to income, to provide a basic level of care that everyone is entitled to, with expensive private options for those that can afford it? Just in the same way as state schools provide an education for the great majority of children, and the NHS provides medical care for the majority of the population. Everyone contributes, everyone gets a basic level of care.

Unfortunately the care sector in the U.K. is utterly dominated by private providers, in a way that medical care and education still (barely) are not. No Tory govt is going to raise taxes to establish a social care version of the NHS.

I think people feel cheated if they worked hard all their lives, lived within their means, saved and paid off their mortgage with the intention of it being their legacy to their kids... then they get dementia and the government snatches their home and 50 years of careful savings away... to pay for a grotty care home! It must feel like all your life’s savings and choices were wasted.

Especially if half the other residents didn’t work or save and had no assets... so they get their care free!

Miimble, I think that theoretically your idea works.
The trouble is the total bill is so vast and only going to increase as the elderly population grows, that the tax increases would just be vast. And evidence suggests people just won't accept that...and government can only do what people will accept.

The crazy thing is, that some of the biggest objectors to bigger taxes (and it would mean substantial rises) are likely to be those who also argue that their parents shouldn't pay for their own care home places, and be funded by the state so they can keep their houses to give as inheritance. Loads of people can't see that in order for the state to fund a massive massive Bill suchbas care homes for all, they will have to pay more tax. Logic doesn't always play a big part in people's thinking.

It would be a significant step towards more government intervention to decide to provide for all regardless of income, funded through general taxation. The country isn't in that place to go for something like that and neither is the government...well maybe Jeremy Corbyn, but he wouldn't have the support needed.

People need to expect to pay if they have assets. They need to prepare for care home fees in the same way they prepare for pensions and for saving for any large purchases. If when it comes to it they are short, the state will fund some level of care.

Those of us who have elderly or not so elderly parents need to get out of a mindset of expecting an inheritance and to provide for ourselves. We shouldn't view our parents savings and their houses as rightfully ours, so that if and when they have to be used and sold, we don't find it traumatic and weep and wail, but are pleased there are the resources to choose quality care and to select it to suit.