My father is 75, in poor health, lives alone in a house he owns with a mortgage and in which he can no longer manage the stairs due to COPD causing severe shortage of breath. No downstairs bathroom so currently, following a short hospital stay earlier this year, he has a commode and a carer visits each day - mainly to empty the commode as otherwise he can still mostly manage independently.
The house has been on an interest only mortgage for years and as it stands, if he sold on the open market he'd end up with approx 50-60k cash after paying off the mortgage and another loan.
He needs to relocate to a flat/maisonette because aside from the bathroom issue, access to outside is also very difficult for him at the moment due to the house being on a steep slope. He's ok walking short distances on level ground but really struggles for breath on inclines or steps. He's lost confidence since his hospital stay and hasn't left the house or been upstairs since he came home from hospital.
We've applied for social housing but the council say he has too much equity to qualify. We've applied to a separate social housing association who have a flat he could potentially have (in an area I know well, no issues there) but they need proof of an agreed sale on the house before they can let to him. He also needs to be predicted to come out with under 50k, as anything over that will exclude him under their criteria.
So our options seem to be:
- Sell on the open market and private rent. Not my preferred option for two reasons - his health isn't good and I don't want to put him through two moves if I can avoid it, and private rentals are so insecure. Also there's nothing I've seen in this market that has a fully accessible bathroom, grab rails, emergency pull cords and so on - all things that would enable his independence for longer.
- Sell on the open market and hope there's a flat available with the social housing association when he finds a buyer. If there isn't...hope the buyer waits until there is? And hope they don't pull out down the line after he's moved to the flat and leave him defaulting on the mortgage, because he can't afford to pay both that and the rent for the flat for an extended period.
- Sell to one of the We Buy Any House companies. A quick, guaranteed sale, which means we could probably get the flat that's currently on offer and have him moved by the end of the month. The downside is obviously that he wouldn't get the full market value of the house (although this may also be an upside, as it'd bring him comfortably under the 50k HA cut-off, so that would help on that front).
I'm keen to get him moved asap as currently he's becoming quite depressed at the loss of dignity, having carers, not being able to go out or even have a bath or shower. His health isn't going to get any better and I want to avoid him living out his days in the current situation if I possibly can. On that basis, the third option would seem the most sensible - at the moment he needs to live somewhere safer more than he needs large amounts of money in the bank. However, I don't want to push him towards that option if there's a better one I haven't thought of. He was independent and still working full time until his recent hospital stay (he won't return to work now, although is worrying that he might have to in order to pay the mortgage) and all of this is a new and unfamiliar world that I'm trying to navigate. I'd appreciate all points of view, and especially if anyone here has used a We Buy Any House company and would recommend them or otherwise.
Thank you if you've read this far!