AIBU to try and prevent care home fees? Advice appreciated

[Watermelonsuns]

So my parents are elderly, both have health issues but managing well at home. My mum in particular would struggle if something happened to my dad. Recently a friend's parent had to go into a care home and as the parent owned their own house and savings they are self funding and the fees are crazy.
AIBU to try and find a way to protect my parent's property and savings in order its not all gone in care home fees in the last years?
Someone has suggested moving their property into my name but surely that would be an obvious way to avoid fees and would look dodgy? Is there another loop hole im missing? Aby advice from someone working in this area would be appreciated thanks

I went to a joint NHS and social services workshop about this about 12 years ago. At that time the national percentage of people over 65 who did anything but stay at home, maybe with some care, and die after a short illness was 5%. I expect its more now because medicine is keeping people alive longer, but I doubt it has increased massively.

And with assisted dying it may decrease.

My aunt lived 12 years in a care home with dementia.
In Guernsey

All paid for through private health insurance as they don’t have the nhs so pay this instead.

What ever happened to the proposed cap on care home costs.

Has that all been forgotten about ?

My friend was advised otherwise and she and her DH changed their deed in response to the advice. Am going to check with her what exactly she was told now as DH and I were trying to work out whether we need to do it or not. I may have got the wrong end of the stick but can’t work out why she was advised to swap from joint tenancy to tenancy in common otherwise, unless it was about leaving the half belonging to Parent 1 to a child so that the house remains ‘joint’ owned, that way they can’t make a surviving partner/Parent 2 sell it when it is their turn to go into a home?

Yes, kicked into the longest of the long grasses.

Labour are kicking that particular can down the road a bit. I don’t think it’ll achieve anything much when they do sort it out because any cap won’t apply to ‘hotel’ fees.

@JoyousGreyOrca

Its all proportional though
so if one side is less able due to less home ownership irrespective of the numbers if Councils can’t cope now ( let’s not forget the increasing numbers of Working age people also biting into that budget )

They certainly won’t be able to cope in the future
The current system isn’t future proof.

The service charges can be out of reach for many low income pensioners, as these apartments can cost as much as the home they sell. They are often hard to sell as well. The not for profit ones for rent can be a good option, but there are not enough. Not all owner occupiers are wealthy, but selling a house and having a secure tenancy in one’s later years is a great option for some, especially those with no family nearby. No more gardening or home maintenance to worry about, and isolation is no longer a concern.

Get legal advice on how the house is held by your parents as if one has to go in the other's half could be protected so they are not left destitute. Tenants in common with mirror wills possibly - speak to an expert.

Feels like I’ve posted this a number of times on here recently but similar to state pension and the NHS it would be nice to have an honest conversation about care home fees and how they are funded

In what way are you relating those questions to my post?

If the house is jointly owned and one partner is still living in the house when the other goes into care, the house is exempt from the financial assessment while the other partner continues to live there. The exemption only applies to the original home they shared. If the other partner downsizes for any reason, 50% of any profit would be liable towards care fees.

l’m disabled and live with my mum - we each own 50% of the property. We had a care assessment because mum has dementia and l was advised that because l’m disabled they would not take mum’s half into consideration for fees if she had to go into care. The rule is that a direct relative sharing the home who is either disabled or over age 60 would render the house exempt from inclusion in any financial assessment while they continue to live in it. The same rules for downsizing apply.

When looking at putting the surviving partners’ share into any kind of trust so it’s beyond the scope of care fees, you need to make it watertight because there is no limit to how far back SS can investigate for deprivation of assets, and if there was a reasonable expectation of care needs at the time the arrangement was made, they can make life very difficult.

They are elderly and already have health issues. So what you are proposing would be seen as a deprivation of assets and is pretty much bound to fail.

They don’t need either. While a spouse remains in the house they shared, it cannot be used for care fees. SS will look at the care home residents’ income and any other assets, including joint savings.

Also so many people seem to ignore the fact that care home fees are not just paying for care. It is also paying for the person's housing, heating, meals,hotel services etc. that does not all come for free and why should it.

Looking at the attached
Currently
Half a million people live in care homes in the UK - ages 18 plus
Approx 50% of the over 65s are self funding

There are 10million over 65s and approx 440,000 in care homes ( including nursing care and working age people )

As previous stats posted if one third are 18 to pension age then approx 300,000 are pensioners.
If 50% pay the approx 150,000 are council funded

Of the remaining one third ie approx 140,000 18 to pension age people,
2% are self funded so 137,000 are council funded.

There isn’t a lot between the two
Interesting and worrying stats for the future !

of note the figure of 440,000 for the whole of the UK is an approximate as there are no bodies that actually put the individual figures together so the author has compiled the figure from individual stats .

Thank you for this. For me it’s not about depriving the state of possible fees, but making sure we’ve financially planned for the least possible angst and stress - for example when looking at my ILaws who are 84, we want to be sure that they can stay in their home of 60 years until they are too ill/frail to manage alone. MiLs folks all live to around their 95th birthdays and refuse to leave their homes until the last week of hospice care, so I know she’ll want the same. Then there is planning for DH and I (hopefully we have 25-40 years left too) so that we have it all sorted and stress free for our kids.

Think OP needs to chat to a financial planner and be clear about what she wants for her parent’s final years in terms of enabling them to stay in their home as long as possible, ideally together.

it’s only works on death

They can’t take the half that is in trust
so parents change the tennancy to joint
ownership owning 50 -50
& mirror wills

lifetime interest in the will set up for surviving spouse

Example
mum dies
Kids inherit her half ( but they don’t get it right now as Dad has a lifetime interest in the house so he can live there

also should he get remarried ( new wife / family can’t inherit mums half either )

dad needs care home
care home / SS can only take into account dads half of the house because mums half wad left to the kids dad doesn’t own the house 100 percent any more although he has the right to live there by virtue of the life time interest trust of the will

it’s perfectly legal
cost a few hundred quid inc wills

my parents did it
my son eventually inherited the whole estate

Agree
Mine did exactly the same
All perfectly above board

Thank you - that makes sense now! She did mention mirror wills too, now I think of it. But, in effect, this is what OP should consider doing, isn’t it?ETA, just realised also, that if in your example the dad remarried, then his new spouse would be in the house and, again, they couldn’t access the property as an asset?

There is a big diffference in a trust set up to give the house away to kids

and a lifetime interest trust in a will that only starts upon the dearth of one of the homeowners

one your on dodgy ground with

the second is perfectly legal and if you are worried your DH is going to remarry after you die and his new wife / kids inherit what was your half of the house
and your kids get nothing then this is what you need to do to prevent it

Yes it’s what the op should be encouraging her parents to do
and if you are married and want your kids to inherit ( in case you die and your husband remarried) then it’s what you need to do as well

Otherwise if you die - your husband get the house

he then get married again and he then dies it all goes to his new wife / family including what was originally your half of the house

I actually think generational asset protection is sensible, I hope to inherit from my remaining parent and pass down to my DD.

As others have suggested one could set up a 125 year trust and then place assets inside that wrapper.
Ensure properties are in joint names.

Put LPA in place.

When the time comes for elderly care use a specialist advisor to purchase a care annuity.

Currently my last parent is in a wonderful (and very costly) care home covered by said annuity with her cash assets from her house sale untouched and appreciating by £20k a year.

When DM 91 passes as she doesn't have a trust I will do a variation on her will to gift 50% direct to my DD 25.

I hope DD replicates the above for DH and I.

@Snapncrackle we read about remarriages on MN all the time. Just remembered that my FiL’s sister set up her will this way (died young of breast cancer, sadly) and her late husband was seriously pissed off as he didn’t get her half, just the right to live in the property. He found himself a fancy woman shortly afterwards and was up in arms that if he sold up to buy with her he’s have to give half the equity to their kids. Strangely enough, the fancy woman didn’t hang around for long!!