To think it's unfair to sell your home to fund care when older while others pay nothing.

[SonnyHoney]

I provide healthcare services to older people, which means I regularly visit care homes. It’s something I find quite upsetting at times. I see individuals who have worked hard all their lives, paid off their mortgages, and are now facing care home fees of around £2,000 a week.

Meanwhile, others are living in the same care homes with their costs largely covered, aside from a contribution from their pension.

I say this as someone from a working-class background and daughter of an immigrant (El salvador) who has had to work incredibly hard to get to where I am financially. I’m also very aware that one day my own parents may have to sell their home to fund their care.
My mum, for example, has run a cleaning business for years, she’s up early every morning and has worked long, physically demanding hours. She hopes to pass something on, but realistically, I feel it will likely be used to cover care costs .

Before anyone says “Why don’t you just care for her yourself and keep the house?” And of course, if I’m in a position to do that, I will. But the reality is that with older age, there can come a point where needs become too complex, and care at home is no longer possible.

Obviously, those who don't have houses to sell need care and have to go to a care home, but my point is it just feels unfair, really.

This

SOMEBODY has to pay.

We have got very good at keeping people alive in this country, but not necessarily in good health.

So now we have an aging population with increasingly complex care needs.

The current older generation have generally not looked after their health very well. But the NHS keeps them alive with their lung disease from smoking, their type 2 diabetes from over indulging, and various issues relating to alcohol.

So now they need care. And lots of it.

SOMEBODY has to pay for it all.

If we say they don't have to sell their houses etc then who does that leave?

People like me, working aged people in employment who are already taxed to the hilt. Struggling to keep on top of the cost of living in a housing that is unlikely to ever match the value of that of my parents who benefited from much cheaper house prices.

Yeah, no thanks. I'm not paying even more tax so that Val and Derek can keep their four bed detached house worth several thousand that they are not even living in anymore.

75% of your council tax demand pays for adult and child social care. The government used to fund social care, now it’s councils who outsource to private companies and pay private equity firms more and more money than it ever cost in house. These companies have councils over a barrel and for those that can pay for their own adult social care

unfo successive governments failed to plan for the boomers, they only had 70 years to do so, it was pretty apparent it was going to happen

old age care has become literal extortion ( children’s care is just as expensive)

If people want that they'll have to pay more tax then.

That is fair. £23000 seems a lot for that though

There needs to be a choice for humane care for those who want to live, too!

You shouldn't stertotype illnesses as resulting from bad lifestyle necessarily though. Dementia, for one, often does not.

Asian mafia? Who do you mean? Pakistani people? Some other?

What about people who take responsibility and work hard but get dementia and can't afford to fund decent care?

Being in a care home is a fate worse than death. UK care homes are not like those US residential villages where you see them all doing Pilates and socialising. You are only in them if you need a high level of supervision and intervention. We would not put an animal through it. Unfortunately, to access Dignitas you need to travel while you’re still in relatively good nick. So people choosing this are having to end their lives earlier than they might wish.

My mother has been in a care home for the past four years. I had to sell her house to fund her care home fees, the costs altogether for those four years have been £320 000. Yes, I may of been able to find a slightly cheaper one but my father was in a council run home and it wasn't great.
Now the money has been used up so the local authority is now funding my mother's care. I had to keep sending bank statements till I had got down to the threshold of 23 250. They take all her state and private pension and you are allowed 30.65 per week for sundries.
I had people saying oh use the money to buy a car and all that sort of rubbish but all the finances get looked into.
I hear of people putting their property into a trust or whatever so they don't have to sell their property for care fees, which I think is so wrong. Who the hell is going to pay for your care home fees? Oh the government! Really!
I actually think the government needs to put a stop to this as people are living longer with more needs, care homes will be needed more.

£30.65 isn't a lot, is it?

Your child’s inheritance is taken out from under you, reduced to prison slop meals and only allowed £30 to spend a week. Of course the spongers who have never worked get it for free. This country is fucked.

Don’t you get embarrassed being so ignorant.

someone born severely disabled, or the parent of someone who is who’s had to dedicate their lives to providing care, absolutely ‘has it worse’ than someone whos been lucky enough in life to have the health and knowledge to earn enough, or the sheer luck to be gifted enough, to buy a house.

I can assure you that unpaid carer is working like a dog 24/7. I would wager a bet that most of them, if not all, would swap the opportunity to have “someone else paying their rent”, for the ability to live a normal, healthy life and work 37.5 hours a week instead of 168.

Then of course you’ve got the people that work hard and earn their own money, with with state top ups or without, that STILL haven’t had the fortune to get on the property ladder.

why are they less worthy than anyone else.

Absolutely it’s the actual reverse of the cautionary tale of the “grasshopper who sang all summer” now the grasshopper would be seen as the sensible one, while the hardworking, sensible ant is the idiot as the grasshopper gets looked after better, without having to drudge and save!

Another totally ignorant one who can’t comprehend that owning assets isn’t exclusively the privilege of hard workers.

and that having to rely on the state isn’t exclusively the privilege of spongers.

how embarrassing

Because honestly, it’s not difficult to get on the Housing ladder.
Whether it’s what you want to do or not is a completely different scenario and I can understand why young people wouldn’t want to do that now
But building assets for anybody over the last 30 years has not been difficult.
My relatives are scattered all over the globe but the ones that are having a good life at the moment are in Europe renting. They’ve sold everything.
So they are going to have let’s say 10 years of living a nice life abroad and then I guarantee the first thing that goes wrong with them they will return to UK and the UK won’t say no to care
that’s what pisses people off

It is if you’re a single person on NMW. Even if someone gifted you the deposit, that salary wouldn’t multiply enough for lenders to give you enough for a house where I live.

Regardless that doesn’t negate the argument that thse spongers and freeloaders people keep wanging on about are largely made up of disabled people and their carers, for whom getting on the property ladder is going to be nigh on impossible.

Yes, that's true 30.65 is not a lot, but to be honest it covers toiletries, hairdresser and some clothing. My mother stopped saying take 75 out for birthday or Christmas 3 years ago! When it comes to her own birthday or Christmas I will get her clothes.
My mother is in the care home because of her lack of mobility.

isn’t it unfair though that many on low incomes face a rent trap so can’t have the luxury of getting in the property ladder.

why is it ok that somebody is forced to rent for £1,750 a month because they are refused a £1,000 a month mortgage?

they end up paying someone else’s mortgage for them.

i agree with you, but feel many are excluded from home ownership because of the system. Although I fully expect some whataboutery replies about them working harder and I managed it blah blah blah.

Then you would pick a home that suited you. My Grandma self funded, where she was there were three places to eat, a hairdresser, shop, cinema etc.

Exactly this, I have to work incredibly hard to keep a roof over our head, the only difference is I’m paying off someone else’s asset not my own. Had things fallen differently in life for me, I’d have the same job, the same money but would be building a safety net for the future.

You can still have a choice but yes, it's a choice of the ones that have local authority beds.

I think there are 3 key problems

1. deposit - I get that there needs to be a mechanism to ensure debts are paid back but the deposit is an institutional mechanism to stop people getting on the ladder
2. paying £1500 month should show ability to pay £1500/month mortgage
3. private landlords - they add no value to the process. It all stems from the duke of Westminster down. They should not exist.

Nobody chooses to rent, they look at a rigged system and have no choice but to rent.

These figures are way off. Over the past decade in the UK the figures have been fairly static, with 2.7% of pensioners in care homes at any given time. Some of these will be in there short-term (eg. after surgery). Others will go in and out for ad hoc respite care, with the majority of care given by their families.

8% will use domicillary care in their own homes at some point. Again, this is often short-term.

The figures will be much higher for people being cared for by families at home.