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

Depends on the reasons people don’t have anything to sell doesn’t it ? If life were a level playing field and everyone had the same start in life, ability, luck of the draw, accident of birth, etc, I’d agree. But life isn’t like that and whether or not you own property or have savings isn’t a yardstick by which to measure how hard you’ve worked in life. The largely defunct concept of the deserving and undeserving poor still seems to be alive and kicking.

Find a retirement village that has care if required. Normally an assets can not be sold to fund the care as you would have to buy the retirement flat to live in, inside of the retirement village. The council would then provide paid care through the care service at the village. The care team would call nessasary people to assess. SLT, OT that kind of thing when required. You buy the property, you pay service charges each month and you have on site facilities.

Agree @LordEmsworth ( although im guessing as a Lord you have a nice Manor 😁)

With fewer people owning their homes this idea that home owners pay for their own care and part fund tax payer funded people
all falls apart!

Less home owners = less self funding = Oh dear !

We need a policy for the future and we need it set up soon.

It isn't deserving or undeserving. I don't think anyone should sell possessions to fund care. Renters included. It must be a level playing field and homeowners should not be targeted.

We take all this crap amd we should all be outraged. If people want to pay for private healthcare, private education fine. However when they are old and need support in a care home they should not pay for that by being forced to sell their home. It belongs to them!

Your mum shouldn’t have that much input into what happens to your nan. Does she have lasting power of attorney - if so, report her to the office of the public guardian because she’s abusing a position of trust. If she doesn’t, there’s nothing stopping you voicing your concerns and asking social services to reassess and investigate for financial abuse. At 94 and with dementia, at some point full time care will be deemed necessary - usually after admission to hospital after a fall or similar, and the maximum at home care package won’t be enough. Your mum will need more than financial reasons to stop that from happening.

Then, given that no-one wants to pay the level of tax appropriate to fund care, who pays ?

So because your parents don’t want to sell their house, they expect Tax payers to pay for it? This entitled attitude is why taxes are so high.

Why should tax payer pay for their care when they have hundreds of thousands of pounds in assets?

Look after your parents yourself if your that bothered about care home fees. Take on the responsibility yourself and look after them like they looked after you.

Nobody wants to have the conversation though. Government certainly doesn’t - the can is currently being kicked further and further into the long grass.

No one ever wants to pay higher taxes

Yet ….we have taxes

There will almost inevitably be an extra tax to fund the increasing SC bill. Or a requirement for all WAP to pay into a health insurance scheme to pay for long term care ( as some countries do )

The Number of younger people in SC are rising so even when the larger numbers of elderly die off we will still have an ongoing problem.

Agree
Hasn't it always !!

And in a lot of these places you need to be claiming disability benefits to qualify for residency, the service charges are astronomical and largely unregulated and if you need to sell up, the provider takes a cut of the sale price. In some cases it’s legalised abuse of the vulnerable.

And a health insurance scheme would introduce more unfairness because those who have pre-existing conditions or disabilities would inevitably end up either being excluded or gouged.

Nope .. they will check and its deprivation of assets

The only way is you care for them and keep the money which is what most people do

My mum has just gone to a care home , I'm currently liquidating her estate and I'm going to buy a care annuity which will guarantee there is something left although it also may mean I give away )100's of thousands but it's a risk I'm prepared to take

You can't fiddle the system !

Don’t agree. I think if you have income/assets that can fund your own care then you should have to use them. You don’t get to live free at the tax payers’ expense so you can pass on wealth to your children. What l do think should happen is that social care should be taken out of the hands of the private sector who are only interested in profit. The care sector should be in the public domain, fees strictly controlled and completely transparent, and care self funded by those who have the means. Those who do not should be funded by the tax payer and not subsidised by effectively stealing from other people’s funding sources.

If you transfer the house into your name and the local authority can prove you knew of the charging policy it will be taken into account.

I love that everyone wants their parents in a top class care home yet no one wants to contribute to it via their assets or pay more tax. Care costs a shit load of money.
If you get cancer and die in a hospice your care is free as hospice is part of hospital care. If you die at home then you might get continuing health care funding. Very difficult to get and a long and painful process.
I am a social worker that deal with this daily, my biggest headache are children who see their parents stuff as their own and somehow think paying for care is robbing them of what they are owed. Inheritance is not guaranteed, you get what's left after that person has lived their live....at home or having paid for a care home!

My parents made it so they each owned half of the house so when my mum died, my brother and I inherited half. This was in Scotland.

My dad has gone into nhs continuous care and will stay there. This is free apparently.

They would not go into the hospice for long term care, hospice admission is usually for a short stay for symptom control.

If you don't pay, your relative will be evicted. Simples.
And you'd likely be taken to court to get the funding.

I'll look after mine as I'm nearby and happy to do so. I wouldn't expect my dc to do the same hence finding ways to avoid selling houses if it came to it.

They are not. This is so the OP can inherit the house. Personally, I believe that inheritance tax should be 100% for all estates. I realise this is an unpopular opinion. If it was the case though, we could live in a society with first class, health, social care and education.

Problem is, once your relative has died, family are stuck with this property and have to continue paying the fees whilst trying to sell. Lots of previous posts about family members being stuck with these 'retirement flats' sadly.

It can be done, a few ladies at my yoga group, set up family trusts years ago and way before any care would be needed...there is some admin involved and a solicitor, they also reduced IHT by a large amount by having a trust, the key thing is to plan way ahead.

I think this is exactly why it is currently/and getting so strict for anyone to “hide/shift/transfer” assets like people could say 20+ years ago whilst acting perturbed or confused if they were challenged. The local authorities are VERY strict on this now and very detailed in looking at records of assets and properties - and you simply cannot get away with it.

I also think more and more of us will need care (as we are living longer) but this also works three fold as will ensure 1. money into gment coffers from care fees 2. force/incentivize some into work (who were expecting huge inheritance) and 3. they will hope it also helps equal out some of the wealth inequalities.

If inheritance tax was 100%, we would have even worse services as there would be no tax take from inheritances. Everybody would be doing what they could to spend or give away their money before they left this earth.

There's a big appendix on how capital is calculated re care home fees in some of the social care guidance. Most of the obvious ways aren't possible.

The better way may be to think about how to make it possible for your parents to stay in their own home until the end of their lives.

• are there physical adaptations that would help (wet room / bath lift / downstairs bedrooms / stair lift / no steps at the front door etc). If one of them was a full time wheelchair user could the house accommodate that? Do they have riser recliner armchairs or similar (usually good for older people to sit with their legs up to get blood back towards their hearts)? Can they sit to shower? (Can be safer than standing?) Is the garden low maintenance? Are there any trip hazards that can be removed?

• is there technology that'd help - like a light weight kettle?

• is there money to spend on non care services (cleaner / window cleaner/ gardener / odd jobs person / someone to help with decluttering/taxis/a traditional milkman)?

• are they able to use the internet? (grocery shopping / other shopping/banking)

• are they connected with the local community (U3A, Women's Institute, Trefoil Guild, local library, a religious organisation (if relevant)) etc?

• what care services would they need / want? Do they need help getting up / toileting / dressing / making breakfast? Help washing/ putting night clothes on / going to bed? Can they do the personal care stuff but need help with cooking? Do they need help with medication management? Diary management if there's lots of medical appointments? If you're paying privately you should be able to find someone who can attend to the stuff they find hard / time consuming.

• what capacity do you / other family + friends have to visit to help?