Fed up of reading threads asking how they can get out of paying care home fees.

[Nextdoortomeis]

As per the title.
I'm sure lots of people would like the state to pay care home fees.
But we don't live in a fair world.
Both mum and mil paid nearly £70k in fees
yes I didn't want to pay but I also wanted them to get the best care in their later years.

That's fair enough as you need the help, but others, home owners who say, what's the average hone worth these days ? 400k? Think they shouldn't use their funds to pay for their care

No idea of why the need for caps but they are in a top dementia care home at £2k per week. Yes we could go 24/7 at home but I am not sure the assisted living apartment their partner currently lives in could cope with them wandering and causing havoc on a daily basis. So its not an option.

Being funded by the LA is them getting it at a much reduced cost. They may fund with their pension but its not going to touch the £2k a week.

In my case, I absolutely think I could serve my children better by dying and leaving them an inheritance than by waiting an extra couple of months to take action, leaving it too late and hanging around in a care home for years making everyone feel guilty and uncomfortable on the rare occasions they came to visit and I didn't know who they were.

Confused about this as some posters have said councils will assess you going back years (which is what I always understood) and other posters have said their property is safe in trust and can’t be touched?

Perhaps people like you and the poster you quoted will find that there won't be state provision for you in a few decades or whenever you might need it. People like you, who escalate the demise of the UK with such selfish and greedy behaviour may be in for a shock when you need support.

About 20% of deaths for those aged over 65 take place in a care home. The average duration of care home residency is 13 months but most are a lot less.

Meanwhile only 4% of estates pay inheritance tax. That's a ridiculously low percentage.

The number of estates that are reduced from a significant inheritance to a pittance due to all the money being spent on care is very low, but it does happen. No one knows who it will happen to, so the right thing to do is to spread the risk evenly among those who are at risk, so that everyone loses a bit, rather than a few losing everything.

My proposal is that every individual who reaches the age of 65 with their name on the deeds of any real-estate property, or in possession of other capital assets worth more than £50k, should be required to assign a 30% time-delayed share of those assets to HMRC, retaining a lifetime interest to themselves (ie they don't have to sell their home or hand anything over, but that fraction of the asset is eventually no longer theirs, though they can still enjoy any return on the investment etc during their lifetime). With that in place, all elderly people who end up needing significant care could have it freely, because everyone with assets is sharing the cost.

When the person eventually dies, if the assets are sold then the Government gets its share then, or the inheritors could have an option to enter a shared-ownership agreement and paying rent on the portion that the Government now owns.

I would have found it acceptable to spend all your savings on care if our state did not pay for foreigners, both in the form of foreign aid and at home. I

It sort of makes sense to be person A then!

At least they had more fun!

That's exactly what l think. Tone deaf, entitled and plain obnoxious. Totally sick of both topics and l have zero sympathy

Care homes are a money making racket imo.
The workers are paid a pittance and the owners are making money hand over fist. Care homes should all be not for profit businesses.
Look at all the tax deductibles.

If the husband is still living at home the house is disregarded in any calculations

Yes, I’m pretty sure. The Leader of our local Council told us this himself and he should know!

isn't it - person B saves by buying a house and has the benefit of living in that house for their life. They have small probability (2.5% of the elderly are in a care home at any one time though I'm not sure what the lifetime probability of requiring a care home place) that they have to pay for their own care fees and do NOT subsidise person A's care.

Do you think her daughter can’t see her mother’s suffering? It’s not as easy to force care on people as it looks to be from the outside with half the picture.

We’ve recently gone through this with my husband’s grandparents - his granny has dementia and won’t even entertain any professional care, even though she needs it, and they keep assessing her capacity in the morning when she’s at her most lucid so she gets to decide.

If she’d accept help, we’d rather she spent every penny so she had the best quality of life possible in her final years. Inheritance is the last thing on most people’s mind when someone they love is suffering because their needs aren’t met.

Ha Ha. I wonder how many statements by a council leader stand scrutiny.

The last time I looked, LA commissioned places covered their direct costs and made a contribution to overheads.

Private clients higher fees will make more profit for the care home but that need not equate to a subsidy.

But care work itself is shit pay Therefore when they get old care workers will be the person in the care home being "subsidized" for want of a better word.
Would you rather they all quit and went into another job. Because its either that or paying for the care workers themselves when they need a care home What would you do if they all quit tommorrow and went into better paid jobs so they could afford to pay for it. These essential workers who people banged pans for during Covid
Its not just home owners who blood sweat and tears their job.

I remember as a junior doctor in the late 1980s there being lots of long stay "geriatric"(ugh) wards. People stayed there if they couldn't get home and that was paid for by the state as it was NHS. In the 34 years I had as a GP I watched these be shut down and all the care transferred privately with GPs running the medical side with very little support whereas these people previously had consultants and hospital teams looking after them.

There were a few private homes around and some were amazing.

I haven't seen any of those threads but I agree with you.

It's a lottery who will end up needing to go into a care home and who won't, and I don't think it's fair that it's self-funded, given how eyewateringly expensive it is.

NHS care is free at the point of need (in theory - the downside being you often have to wait). We all pay for that out of taxes and recognise, if we're sensible, that we're often going to be paying for other people's care, not our own, but few of us grudge that because it could be our turn next. Why is it different for social care?

I'd be happy to pay more in taxes or a one off insurance payment to guarantee that free, good quality care would be provided in my own home as long as possible and if/when not possible, in residential care. If in the end I didn't need that care and had therefore paid more than I needed, fine by me. Just like paying for any insurance that in the end you don't need. You're paying for peace of mind.

One way of funding social care could be from inheritance tax. Currently a married couple can leave up to £1m to their children without a penny of inheritance tax being payable. That's a huge amount of money. It would do a lot to reduce the inequality in our society if some of it went back to fund public services.

We should also be funding end of life care in hospices out of taxes. It's absurd that they're dependent on donations and charity funding to cover their costs.

Being in a care home won’t make her any less confused, agitated or less likely to have falls. Ok she would not end up outside in her nightie, but aside from that a persons suffering is the same.

My DM was that lady so to speak except that she lived in her own. My DB and I had no life for years as my DM kept passing capacity tests so it was really challenging to get her into a nursing home.
In the case of this lady she would use savings (if she had any) to pay for a home but not the house as her DH lives there.

Yes but few people require round the clock care by non family. We will stay in our own homes with support during the day then live with family, and some may need more care right at the end but I think it will become more normal for generations to live together again.

No different from a so called benefit scrounger really.

I disagree, a nursing home has greatly benefitted my DM. She simply would not accept any care in her own home. She was starving and in the end very depressed, dirty and laying in filthy bed sheets. Now she eats, is on a lot of medication which is administered regularly and is clean. She was having all sorts of accidents home but there hasn’t been one incident in the last 2.5 years.

A very small percentage of people end up in care homes. If you have assets of course you pay for this. See it as spending money on yourself