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.

Why can’t the family care for their elderly relatives? That is the way it was done for millennia. That is the compact between generations that no one has time for anymore.

This - I don’t understand why there is an assumption the state is ever responsible for you. It should be the back up plan for those most vulnerable and in need, not the status quo.

I think it’s quite telling that people’s primary concern is their lack of inheritance rather than the quality of care their parents receive.

As I get older I have grown to realise nobody cares about kids or the elderly.

Like national insurance, taken from wages/ income at source? I'd prefer that to the current system

I don’t intend for my DM/FIL to go into a home at all. I won’t be doing it myself either. I think it is cheaper and better to be cared for at home.

Don't forget that many people had tax relief on their mortgage interest so their purchase was subsidised by the state.

The majority of people who are happy to lose their inheritance to care fees tend to be reasonably well off. It's very easy to sit in your own house with your car and savings and sound high and mighty about the moral highground.

The fact is we have built a society that is increasingly unfair to those on the bottom of the ladder and inheritance is one of the few ways that these people can feel secure as they approach their own older years. Especially as we dismantle the NHS and social care programs.

I'm not talking about people who are set to inherit stately homes with a 50 acre estate plus orchard. I'm talking about someone on a very low income who may inherit a tiny bungalow and that's the most valuable thing they'll ever own in their lives.

Make society fairer and only then should we talk about taking away granny's house.

FWIW, every single person I know who has smugly referred to not needing to worry about care home fees as they've taken advice and created trusts for the family home appears to be heading for a train wreck when they answered a few questions about what they've done, how it operates, the nature of the trusts and the advice.

Different kettle fo fish for my acquaintances with significant wealth.

With the best will in the world I couldn't have cared for either of my parents. I live in an upstairs flat with no spare bedroom and 2 adult dcs at home. Where would they have slept?. I also have a shower where you have to step over the bath to get in. Dad had dementia,mum lost all mobility. Oh,I work full time too.
Not everyone on MN lives in a huge house with help on hand! Dad's house funded his care home and mums would have funded hers if she hadn't died 3 weeks into her stay.

I enthusiastically agree with the second paragraph

It’s definitely not cheaper to have 24 hours carers than it is to be in a residential setting.

This is a weird take on it. The ‘inheritance’ is what’s left at the point of death, after all is sorted out, not what a person has in their later years when they need care.

Greedy relatives considering their families money to be their inheritance before the people have even died is just plain greed.

Because it’s really hard. I know, because we did for my grandma for more than a decade. It is physically and emotionally gruelling, you will be screamed at, punched, sobbed at, you will watch someone you love lose themselves. The hoists require two people to manage safely but you’ll end up doing it alone and wrecking your own physical health. Have you ever tried to change incontinence pads on a physically aggressive, fully grown adult, who can’t remember who you are and thinks you are trying to kill them? It’s impossible, and you will end up covered in faeces and cleaning up everywhere. You can’t do it and work in a paid job, or look after a family. You will be skint, in pain, exhausted, and could be doing it for decades. It’s not an easy thing at all.

I just wanted to say that there was no help when my DH was dying of cancer. I looked after him alone, there was no hospice space available. So it is not always true that people with cancer get looked after. We had young kids too - it was a nightmare.

What's interesting is there is a lot of talk about the so called boomer wealth trickling down the generations. But nothing will come, it will go on care home fees.

I quite agree with you, Always, and I'm 75 so technically in 'God's waiting room'. I'm not worried, I do my best to keep as healthy as possible and live for today. I own my home so if it became necessary, it could be sold to provide care. My one adult child has already been well provided for so has no need of anything I might leave behind - though of course I hope I will just live at home and pop off quickly and quietly when the time comes (don't we all wish that). However he is caring, has had the idea of buying a big house with an integral flat for me but I prefer being on my own. I do know that if it became impossible for me to stay at home, even with regular carers, he would oversee any changes and be scrupulous about it.

My late husband and I never thought about what we would inherit from our parents, except in passing. My mum had a leaking abdominal aneurysm and just died; it was a shock at the time but she was 86 and had always been fit and well up to that point. His poor mum had Parkinson's on top of other health problems and we cared for her, with hired help, when she needed it so she died at home.

I am with the op but, honestly, haven't seen many threads about this subject.

Surely you know there's millions of working people with who are renting and have nothing left over for savings. In fact, a good chunk of these people will be the very people caring for those in nursing homes. 🙄

In my experience, the remaining local authority-run homes are, on average, better than the equivalent privately run homes and they avoid featuring in the the truly dire private sector homes that surprisingly manage to avoid the expected regulator scrutiny and remain open. No bells and whistles and cosmetically not the best buildings but adequate client-focused care and no terrible poor nursing practice hand offs to primary care or the other extreme of doing less than the expected minimum, taking no responsibility and expecting live in presence from the practice.

Unfortunately, in my professional locality, the remaining LA homes are now being sold off or closed, having managed to survive LA budget cutting until now.

Everywhere in life some people have more money and resources than others. This gives them more choice in the services and products they buy. If I want a great choice of care facilities in my later years I expect to have to pay for it. Wealth accrued during your life is largely down to luck anyway - social status, health, intelligence etc

My parents are both in nursing homes and have been self funding for two years. They started off with care at home but due to high medical needs it did not work out.
As they live a long way from me and I am still working with a sick 20 year old daughter who needs extra support there is no way I could I help look after them.
They are both very well looked after and unlikely to be moved when they run out of money.

My former in laws have care at home, there are two carers to cover daytimes seven days a week, it’s about £50k a year and doesn’t cover nights. They don’t need proper nursing care though and the one with dementia is still doing pretty well. Once they get worse night carers will be needed too, at which point a care home will be cheaper alas.

Indeed.
My exH and his sister are outraged that they either have to pay for their mother's care, or sell her house ('but, my inheritance!'). The alternative is to care for her themselves, between them (1 retired 1 doesn't need to work for £). Their choice.
For those who have no-one to care for them and no assets, then the state pays.

I will end my own life rather than have the kids' inheritance go on care home fees. Having spent time in a lot of care homes professionally and personally (for my Mum), there is no way I want to end my life in one of those places. I'd hate it. Why spend a fortune to spend my end years in somewhere I hate?

To be fair some people's care needs get so high that the individual can no longer care for them at home. This happened to my Mum after a UTI led to a rapid deterioration physically and cognitively.

I got it for my OH - on appeal after 2 rejections.

How did I succeed? ... I am intelligent and highly educated, I had worked in the field, I was determined not to let them get away with a wrong refusal, I would not let them financially assess him until his right to CHCF had been established or not, I was incensed by those advising me who knew less than I did and gave erroneous information (aka lied), I doggedly pursued the claim going through every tiny nuance so they could not wriggle out of it, I somehow found the energy and determination to do this in spite of also being in the process of watching my OH dying.

How many others have these advantages? - they just believe what they are told. Even when those statements are untrue.

The system stinks - it needs total overhaul. But which government is going to grasp the nettle and seriously get to grips with the need to deal with the interface/competition between health and social services, and to work out a fair financial system for all?