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.

This!

My parents are pissing my inheritance up the wall and good luck them. It’s not my money whether its spend on care home fees or luxury holidays.

'if you are in an average care home and are funding it yourself you're basically covering the person who is state funded next to you'

Really? Or in practice paying for the service you're receiving.

Although Local Authorities in effect pay a 'bulk buying' discount, the last time I looked at care home accounts, it appeared this didn't lead to the direct costs of LA funded clients subsidised by private payers.

This. Human bodies have not yet evolved to keep up with modern lifespans.

My parents are far older than their parents were when they died. It's why their own inheritances changed their lives in their forties, whereas they may outlive me.

Is it extortion to expect those with private funding pots to pay up to £12,000 a year of their own savings towards the care of others ? My Aunt is a self funder and is paying approximately £1000 a month more than a LA funded resident for the same facilities.

That's what concerns me slightly about assisted dying. That people might put pressure on their parents not to 'waste money" on a care home as it might be economically favourable to the kids if the parent dies?

If your relative is in a nursing home the NHS can pay the nursing fee so you only need to pay the residential fee.

I don’t understand all this can’t keep them safe at home - care homes don’t have eyes on your loved one 24/07 neither do hospital wards - they climb over cot sides they poo and wee themselves 10 minutes after you have showered them, refuse to eat lose weight and fall over and won’t take their meds. Obviously this can go on and on but usually it’s the beginning of the end, bedridden is much easier regular turns and checks, feeding and chatting but what I’m trying to say after seeing families come onto wards and into care homes and being totally dissatisfied with the care from run ragged staff, take them home, have some time off share it with your siblings and save yourself £1500 a week and make your loved one feel loved in the last part of their life and the care you give with help of carers will be 10 times better than a care home or hospital ward.

You’re conflating two issues.

I know a family who own a care home. The lifestyle and unbelievable amount of money they have is sickening. The entire family are in £1m+ houses, private school for kids, £20k holidays and of course the rare luxury to choose to be SAHMs.

I respect people who graciously accept their potential inheritance might pay for care but trust me, behind the scenes your inheritance is being spent on much more than that.

My parents have said they don't want to go into a home and I'll support them with that. I've structured my life so it will be possible. We may need to pay for some additional help at home but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

They're well into their 80s now and still active. They went on holiday yesterday, so we're ok for now. In fact, I'm in danger of losing my inheritance to holidays at this rate😁

That’s not always possible. But I agree in many instances it could be.

Beware of thinking that putting stuff into a trust gets around this ... Trust Issues - 'Worthless' family trusts sold to beat inheritance tax. - IDR Law

Yes I fully understand this - I’m a carer.
The elderly were cared for at home in the past but not for as long. Many other societies/ cultures still do this.
One problem is that we all live so long now- what’s the solution? The whole system needs a reform, government cannot care for all elderly people for possibly decades! We cannot afford it yet individuals are reluctant to pay for care themselves- people here are calling it extortion!
Maybe we need a new PAYE system where we all contribute specifically to our future care or agree to self fund?

It’s tough though isn’t it? My siblings and I were on the brink of having to arrange care homes for both my parents. We would have sold their house and it would have taken all the proceeds. My neighbour and friend was in the same position. We liaised on research.

My parents both died in the pandemic so we inherited. My neighbour’s mother did not die, is now in a care home and my neighbour will inherit nothing.

No government wants to look at social care. It’s provided by profit based operators.

i think a compulsory insurance route would provide more certainty and fairness all round.Other countries do this.

Personally, I feel when I'm no longer able to look after myself due to old age it's my time to go. I'd rather people have happy memories of me than ones that involve pain or being out of it and feeling guilty about visiting someone who probably doesn't know who they are.

So many posters on here saying their good decisions have led to their financial position when in fact many have benefitted from huge increases in house prices which can be attributed to nothing more than good luck. Now people are impoverished by housing costs, and the older generation expects the younger ones to pay for their care as well. We need to redistribute the money to reduce economic inequality and I hope we see tax increases to do this, particularly CGT and a wealth tax.

This country just couldn’t afford to,pay for everyone’s care fees. I agree it’s not fair!

I think this is it, it's the unfairness of it all. I have a family member paying over £5,000 a month. This is in a fairly basic, middle of the road home, not fancy at all (in fact pretty tatty in terms of furnishings, paint peeling off the walls etc and I know for a fact most of the carers - who are amazing - aren't paid great salaries, so where's it going- to profit someone already in the 1%). The LA does not pay that much. The care is the same. It's unfair. And people should not be profiting from my relative's illness it's really evil, frankly. Care homes should be not for profit.

I actually would care a lot less about my relative using all their savings if I knew every penny of that 5k plus per month was paid in salary and decent training for the carers as they are amazing and do a very difficult job in difficult circumstances (made more difficult as the buildings aren't well maintained). But of course this isn't the case. And my relative has been in another home that was also creaming off a fat profit but where there was NOT good care (hence the move) and where the carers were not, in my observation, treated well and neither were the residents.

There have already been several cases where parents have signed over their house and the child or grand child then tried to evict them, bth for IHT avoidance and care home fee risk management, Other cases where the 'parent' tried to stay in the home, not pay a genuine, commercial rent on which tax is pauid by the recipient, preclude the risk of eviction and avoid any claim of deprtivation of assets and manage the risk of any surviving spouse future re-marriage.

Tricky to manage competing objectives when the real intention is to avoid tax

I expect more court cases, including against the providers of 'advice', at least on of which surprisingly ended up owning the house in question.

Too many people taking and not putting into the system, year in year out.

The only advantage to paying yourself is that you can move your relative and don't have to put up with substandard care that social services says is 'fine'.

However, in general, there's no really functioning market because so many care homes get large amounts of LA funding. So there's no real attempt to do better. At least where my relative is. And not very good oversight or regulation.

I totally agree. I'd be queuing up for it if I lost the ability to enjoy life. But I just think some greedy people might see it as a way to extract maximum cash from their ailing parents.

I won't be wealthy at that point so you will "pay" although not really because I've already covered it. Think of it like I'm putting my card behind the bar. You're welcome.

Yup, I can see that working.

DS: 'Go on mum, crack on with the dying, I'm desperate for the cash'
Me: 'No, sod off you ungrateful little shite, I'm leaving it to the cats home, hahahaha'

I have no intention of being in a care home, but not because I want to hand on the inheritance to the kids. I would far rather die at home ta very much. The idea of ending up in a care home of any sort makes my blood run cold.

Having seen some council-run care homes, I would far rather pass up my whole house than end my life in one of those places. It was utterly awful.

So who pays the bill then??