. . . to think parents are being naive about our "inheritance"?

[OhFFSNotAnotherVirus]

Just pondering . . . for some reason it's niggling at me, maybe because I find their lack of understanding frustrating!

I also want to point out that I in no way "expect" anything from my parents - I've been financially independent since I was 18 and I'm proud of what I've achieved by myself.

Parent are 65, I have one brother and one sister. Parents gave my brother their life savings (close to £100k) so he could buy a nicer house than he could afford by himself. Parents told me and my sister that they would change their wills to leave their house (a small townhouse worth about £200k) to the two of us, to make it fair.

I don't think it is fair, though. Chances are the house will be sold in the future to pay for their care. They seem blissfully unaware that this is a possibility - or a likelihood - and seem almost smug about having done the right thing by all three of their children. I've brought up the possibility that the house might need to be sold to pay for care, but they dismissed this, saying absolutely not, they wouldn't be going into a home, they'd rather go to Dignitas first . . .

I'm saying nothing further, there's no point and I know there's no entitlement here. But AIBU to be a bit . . . ?

Oh and this all happened a couple of years ago and they haven't changed their wills anyway

@millenialblush

Also you will lose a decent chunk of that to the taxman. House inheritance isn't that simple. And I also agree with the above poster that inheritance shouldn't be unequal

The taxman won’t take anything from a couple’s joint estate if it includes a property and is worth less than £1 million. Care home fees are the real concern. The value of a house can soon disappear at £1k+ a week.

I work for Adult Social Care. We have a Financial Assessment Team whose sole job it is to determine an individual’s eligibility to contribute towards the costs of their care package.

They do this by conducting a home visit to the person in question & assessing what assets the individual has, including any property that may have been transferred over to relatives for the purposes of deprivation of assets.

They’ll see straight through the token rent thing & the motivation for the transfer believe me. They deal with this trick all the time. If you don’t want your property to be used for your care costs you’d be better advised to place it in Trust.

Hi, I experienced similar unfairness.Fathers benefit their son(s), a patriarchal attitude.I think, a controlling parent will make an unequal will.Try not to let it niggle you,but I do undertand completely how you feel.

@Topia

I work for Adult Social Care. We have a Financial Assessment Team whose sole job it is to determine an individual’s eligibility to contribute towards the costs of their care package.

They do this by conducting a home visit to the person in question & assessing what assets the individual has, including any property that may have been transferred over to relatives for the purposes of deprivation of assets.

They’ll see straight through the token rent thing & the motivation for the transfer believe me. They deal with this trick all the time. If you don’t want your property to be used for your care costs you’d be better advised to place it in Trust.

Just to add to this

The local authorities can and do:

Get information from the DWP as to what benefits someone is claiming
Check the land registry and history
Request bank statements (if these aren't supplied it's automatically a full charge for the care)
Put a charge against a property to be claimed if the property is ever sold.

@dammit88

Have you got a nice house to live in now? If so they maybe feel they made things equal by helping your brother in terms of all of your quality of life.

It can hardly be called 'equal' if the OP has worked for whatever house she has and the brother has been given it! They need to become tenents in common, that will protect 50% of the house from carehome fees for one of them, on the first death the deceased's 50% share goes into a trust for the siblings and can't be touched for other purposes. If the second parent also needs care home fees their 50% will go to that.

I have a similar situation, where a sibling was given a large amount to buy a house 20 years ago.

So for example £100k in 2000 is now worth around £149.7k and repayments on £100k mortgage at approx £500 per month over 25 years is say £150000, means the early gift is worth around £200k. So £100k as inheritance isn't fair or equal.

I'm going to make absolutely sure that my DC aren't in this situation.

Do not rely on any 'advice' given here. Get proper legal advice. Yes it will cost a bit but will most likely be much cheaper than sorting out any mess you get into later on, when the 'advice' you took from unqualified people on here voicing their opinions turns out to be plain incorrect.

I think your parents have been totally unreasonable, OP. I am older than them by a few years and know it's quite hard to think of myself needing care etc. However, having looked after my father in his last years I do know how it can turn out. Your parents are being unrealistic and not having made wills is unforgivable in the circumstances. You can easily find out online what happens if someone dies intestate (assuming UK) - show it to your parents and ask if that's what they want to happen to their estate.

Yanbu.

This bypasses the house being used to pay for their care as long as it's in their sons name for 7 years before any costs are needed.
It absolutely doesn't. Let's hope you don't find out the hard way.

They need to gift it to you now and ideally pay you rent for continuing to living there so that the 7 year rule can operate/that as much time as possible has passed before the care home question even arises. Not watertight re care homes but better than nowt.

Disclaimer: you must take professional advice on this ASAP from a solicitor - to get as much protection as possible from the situation you are envisaging. You're right to be concerned.

I would say expect nothing and you won't be disappointed.

However I would also point out their faulty logic if they ever claim to have sorted everything.

They were mad to give away their life savings just at a time when they will start to need it. Presumably they are about to retire?

Also, it's not just a case of going into a care home. My mother has had a private carer, four visits a day for many years now at a cost of £450 a week.

My mum died years ago and my dad has no assessable. I’m quite glad cos inheritance can cause major issues within families.

Considering those signing houses over to get out of paying for care, so that the kids get inheritance. ( it’s not that simple!) I would much rather my parents use their money to pay for a better quality care home or home support than give it to me when they’ve died.

Funnily enough I was discussing this with my friend yesterday, re putting a house in the children's name. Another fact not mentioned by pps is the second home stamp duty. Should the children who own the parents house sell their own private residence, or buy their first home, they already own a house (their parents) so would in essence be buying a second home. The stamp duty rate for second home purchasing is very high, can't remember exactly but it's a lot.

How old are you now OP? People are talking a lot about the money going on care, but an alternative scenario is that they live to a ripe old age and you inherit the house when you're 80 and don't have much use for the money any more.

Councils are extremely tenacious at getting hold of assets to fund care, as they should be. But it is an extremely stressful process for those involved.

For example, BIL had to prove he paid for his house in full that he shared with MIL when she needed care. It was complicated by the fact she owned a proportion, although had never funded any of the purchase.

BIL was extremely fortunate that he could prove he had paid for the house, in full, back in the 80s.
This is why you should keep any bank statements and old cheque books much longer than the 7 years recommended!

Is it because hes a boy? Years ago this was done on the basis that he would be a sole wage earner .I also think its unfair to you and your Sister. A friend who divorced was given a lump sum by his parents ,with the proviso that his siblings would inherit .However with Care costs,downsizing and so on ,no one can know for sure what will be left at the end of the day .

They might not need care. The majority of people don't need much if ant.
Their house is likely to go in value. In the meantime you are all housed.
I'm not sure they could really afford such a generous gift but that us their business.

@Grellbunt

They need to gift it to you now and ideally pay you rent for continuing to living there so that the 7 year rule can operate/that as much time as possible has passed before the care home question even arises. Not watertight re care homes but better than nowt.

Disclaimer: you must take professional advice on this ASAP from a solicitor - to get as much protection as possible from the situation you are envisaging. You're right to be concerned.

Another one giving terrible advice. Strongly suggest reading the thread properly.

@Grellbunt

They need to gift it to you now and ideally pay you rent for continuing to living there so that the 7 year rule can operate/that as much time as possible has passed before the care home question even arises. Not watertight re care homes but better than nowt.

Disclaimer: you must take professional advice on this ASAP from a solicitor - to get as much protection as possible from the situation you are envisaging. You're right to be concerned.

FFS there is no seven year rule. if you don't know the facts and risks then don't comment

hatgirl
"Just to add to this

The local authorities can and do:

Get information from the DWP as to what benefits someone is claiming
Check the land registry and history
Request bank statements (if these aren't supplied it's automatically a full charge for the care)
Put a charge against a property to be claimed if the property is ever sold."

The charge thing is kind of true....it can be something that the LA will agree to as a kindness if the person they are assessing is a tenant in common or for other reasons, eg the house has been specially adapted for a resident who has a disability. What it means is that the person/people who are the other tenants in common, or the disabled resident, are not made homeless. Its similar to an equity release although I am not sure if LA's are allowed to charge interest. Its one of the advantages of a joint tenancy although if this was set up at a point when one of the tenants needed care or it might reasonably have been foreseen, I am pretty sure it would be a deliberate deprivation too.

They definitely do investigate deprevation of assets. My grandmother signed her property over to my mother and they were both living there. Within 2 months my grandmother had had a stroke and needed to move into a care home.

The LA went over everything with a fine tooth comb. Although in their case it was eventually decided that it wasn't deprevation of assets.

It was a really stressful time and not something I'd advise people to do with the expectation that they'll get away with it.

@godmum56

A charge can be put against the property in lots of situations, including failure to pay for any reason (e.g relatives being difficult about releasing funds, disposing of property etc to pay for care)

It's also commonly used in 'deferred payment agreements' where someone lacks capacity to agree to a sale taking place and hasn't given anyone else the authority. Until that's sorted out or the person dies the council will defer payment.

and yes the council can and will charge interest on those

Tenants in common etc is mostly irrelevant when it comes to paying for care, the property won't be taken into account whilst a living spouse/partner continues to occupy it. It only comes really comes into play if a share of the property is passed on to others after a death AND the remaining half of the couple then also needs to go into care.

Re: Capital Gains Tax and inherited property becoming a second home 'by mistake.'
Isn't it that if the property is valued and sold as part of probate, CGT isn't payable (as long as it's not valued less that it sells for)?

This thread is a great example of why no one should believe any legal or financial advice on Mumsnet (or anywhere else that it's free)!

Half of it is correct. Half of it is dangerous ill-informed nonsense. If you're someone who needs the advice then you've no way of telling which is which!