Property for old age pensioners - this really needs sorting out

[Egggyweggghead]

My mum is 83, and fortunately still quite active and independent. My dad died a few years back, so she sold her house and moved near me
She lives in a 1 bedroom private flat with garden in a small town, that she pays £800 per month for (which is cheap)
Her landlord, due to an illness is selling up, so she needs to find somewhere else to live.

It has been quite an eye opener over the last few weeks over how few options there are regarding housing for this age group

Because of where we live is really expensive She has just enough money to purchase a 1 bed flat or terraced house with no or unkempt garden in a not very nice area of town or in a bigger town 10 miles away,

There are no rentals- anything that comes onto the market gets snapped up quickly and she needs something on the ground floor.

There are hundreds of retirement houses around us that have been up for sale for months/ years, yet they are building more and more 'luxury' retirement villages
The maintenance and service charges on the places up for sale are £2-5000 + per year
All are being reduced in price, so the prices are as low as £70,000 and still dont sell -whilst a small bungalow would be £350,000 which she can't afford

Also the retirement homes take 3-4 months to purchase, like a normal house and she needs to find somewhere quickly

I have hunted for retirement homes to rent, but they are either stupidly expensive at over £2000 per month or are for social tenants only, which my mum doesn't qualify for.

It seems to me that we are desperate for housing in this country, and loads of oaps are living in houses that are too big for them and they want to downsize and move to a more manageable property

But the only option available is to move to a retirement home that they have to purchase which will lose them money and will be unsaleable in the end

I wish someone would look at the 1000s of retirement properties that are sitting empty around the country and change the leasehold and allow them to be rented out at a sensible price.

On rightmove there are 335 retirement properties for sale within a 5 mile radius

Where I am , there are many 1 bed homes. Can she find a tiny house and put in French doors on the living room , my in laws did it

They are houses, French doors for wheelchair purpose etc

If I had a retirement flat I think I'd be inclined to leave it to a charity to save my dc the stress of trying to get shot of it.

I told my people I am not going to anything like that either. I have few homes back home though. So plenty of choice but my kids speak English only and will be here forever.

There are many like these where I am. Also lovely 1 bed two storeys houses

About five years before he died, we moved my father from a three bed house about three hours away to an apartment in a sheltered 55+ complex.
He was concerned about the service fees, but when I added up the cost of house insurance, gardener, house maintenance that he could no longer do himself, window cleaning, difference in council tax,,, there wasn't much difference between what he was paying on the upkeep of the house and the service charges - plus the onsite warden meant that he was able to live independently for a lot longer.
Utilities were way cheaper too.

What was the thinking behind DM paying £10k a year in rent and depleting the equity she had from the original house sale, rather than buying a house to live in then?

Correction to my post of 06-04-2025: extortion not exhortion. My apologies.

That would be great.
The fees in our local retirement villages are £500pm, which is obviously £6000pa.
Which, as a pp says, is something you'd have to compare with what you might be paying in utilities (gas, electric, water) in a 4 or 5 bed house + broadband + TV Licence + (not sure how Council Tax works there?) + gardeners + maintenance + service charges for things like boiler + replacing things like carpets occasionally, if not roof / bathroom / kitchen. You'd have to do the maths.

He isn't in London or the Home Counties.
His house cost £60K more than the flats he had initially started looking at.
Monthly fees (under various names) were coming in at considerably more than £166pm.
Flats and hoses all in the same area here so commute no different.

Obviously still a lot of money if you can't borrow or save it, but far better value in terms of all the money goes to paying off his mortgage not making some management company rich.

My dh is a director of our residents management company. The fees are not making anyone rich. We need to have at least 70k in the sink fund for the roof. Prices of tradesmen have ballooned in the past five years but our service charges have only gone up 16 pounds per month. I think in the past flat service charges were artificially low and the chickens eventually came to roost as the buildings became older (a lot of new build flats are badly built too, mine is 1930s so it has to be maintained).. if you look at Germany and france their service charges are also around the 2000 to 4000 euro mark. My husband's uncle had to fork out loads of money for solar panels for his apartment in frankfurt.

It does make sense in cities like London, Frankfurt and Paris as the price of freehold is 700k to 1.4 million where I live and 700k house is literally next to the north circular. Given the difficulty of timing the market if you are relying on downsizing to retire which would be common if you are borrowing so much (financial crisis like what we would probably experience which will probably cause house prices to plummet and some people's retirement plans to scupper), I am not sure tying all your money up in a house is that sensible..

I agree- our DC have flown the nest and we're retired. We own our house outright in a nice part of our town. It's a 3 bed but it's been extended twice and we have 3 reception rooms. Perfect for a family. We looked to downsize to a 2 bed bungalow but there are very few round here and so are priced really highly. We don't want to take on a mortgage (even if we could get one) or wipe out our savings.
We're stuck.

Hi all, jumping on this conversation as I'm interested in hearing from people with retirement home stories that may be sitting empty due to not selling - at Action on Empty Homes, we're keen to research this topic. You can take a look at our call out here and feel free to share it far and wide: https://www.actiononemptyhomes.org/retired-homes
Thank you!

In the 60s, the councils used to build lots of terraced bungalows for the elderly which were ideal. They need a programme of these as well as more social housing in general.

Could you get a ramp installed so that he could get out into the garden? You might get some help towards finance

Might not be possible - if it's like my house, where the garden is up several steps from the back door. I love my garden and hope to fix rails to help me get up the steps if it's ever necessary, but there are four steep concrete steps up and I'm not sure how feasible this might be.

I only mentioned as I temped for a company who do the alternations when people are discharged from hospital and I remember ramps being one of the major considerations to get people home.

I don't think the retirement flats are as bad a deal as some people make out.

Second hand they go cheap as chips because no one wants the huge service charges. If you factor in the service charge into the price and are willing to sell at the same low price rather than insist the place should put on £££ per year it might work out ok.

The people that get really done on them are those that buy them new at full price.

It's all about actually doing the maths rather than listening to the hype.

Unfortunately since this post, Dad has gone downhill dramatically. He is now in a nursing home permanently. His life is pretty miserable there, but at least we know he's safe.

If her flat is being sold by her landlord she should qualify for council housing or housing association which will probably be cheaper than private.

Oh I am so sorry to hear this. Sending love and hugs to you both

I tell you I think would be useful, if the council could buy up the retirement blocks cheaply (the whole thing not individual flats) and rent them out as social housing.

Currently if you die leaving your home to your direct descendants your IHT nil rate band is increased from £650k up to £1m.

Imagine an elderly person has a property too big for them. They might prefer to remain in it until they die in order or ensure they pass on the maximum to their heirs IHT free rather than sell up and rent somewhere more suitable. It’s daft that the tax system incentivises the elderly to live in unsuitable accommodation.

Haven’t read the full thread, sorry, but have you looked at Anchor Housing, MHA and Housing 21? Lots of new flats/ bungalows available near me

Not for single people. I think the nil rate bad is £375K plus property allowance of 125K. But the late wife husband or civil partner can pass their portion on hence giving £1m tax free allowance