AIBU to wonder why a pensioner struggling financially would not use housing equity?

[Powerbungalow]

I'm not being unsympathetic

Theres a lady on the news at the moment, saying how times are tough and shes only cooking one meal a week - imagine she's eating cold food.

One thing that stood out though "I own my own house and it costs in maintenance" Depending on where she is, would you not get a life time mortgage or sell and rent? She has a big asset, why not use it to have a better life? I know I would.

She may be holding on to it for inheritance, but she didn't say - if so, then can her family help. It just seems totally crazy

Cost of equity release is exorbitant. It’s why more people opt to downsize, but that can be distressing if you have lived in a property most of your life or very stressful and overwhelming in terms of selling/conveyancing/packing/moving if you are alone and have no family.

It’s no wonder so many struggle - they’d rather struggle in familiar surroundings, than leap into the unknown. And most probably started by just cutting the heating down, skipping one meal. It’s a gradual process until they come to realise they are living on one or two meals a week, no heating, and making do with toast and water the rest of the time.

But clearly in your case you’ve come up with a viable solution which means you don’t have to move home. If the alternative, however, was that you either move house or starve, would you genuinely stay put? We all have to make difficult decisions in life. I’ve moved quite a few times and each time have had to develop a new community for myself. It’s not easy but if it’s a necessity then it needs to be done.

The article also says she sits outside a clothes shop instead of just going in, even if you aren’t buying you could have a look. Which to me seems like “oh look at poor church house me” martyr behaviour.

I mean her state pension is £1k a month and she can only use an air fryer once every 3 weeks?

Either she lives in a palace (hence high council tax with 25% discount so even more reason to sell surely?) or is driving around in a top of the range brand new Audi!

This I am a cold hungry pensioner in my unsuitable home just doesn’t wash.
If she has children they need to look at her bills, and help her make savings or throw her £50 a month to pay for electric, if she doesn’t so doesn’t need to leave something for the children then equity release. No point being the richest corpse in the graveyard.

But this “I will sit outside the clothes shop and try and gain a calorie or two from the smell of a passerby’s takeaway” nonsense does make you think “suit yourself”

£1k a month is enough to heat up a tin of soup. It is.

it was an interview with a woman on BBC news today - thats all.

I'm not focused on a single person - its a general question

Why would you starve to hold on to an asset to give to your children? Even if you dont have any?

What do you expect anyone to do or say? The woman has the same money as all people on the state pension get at least. She’s spending £50 a week running pals to the shops but moaning she can’t afford to heat up a tin of beans. Seems like a lot of her problems are caused by her own decision making. She has to take the consequences of that, not look for more handouts.

That's a good point - £1,000 a month no rent to pay

Google tells me.... I have never claimed UC (I know I am lucky not to have needed to)
The standard allowance for a single person over 25 is £368.74 per month.

This woman is a serial moaner. She’s always on something moaning she can’t afford x, y or z. She was forever on morning telly moaning about the winter fuel payment being removed, but then miraculously got a phone call from the DWP to say she was entitled to pension credit.

Nothing about her adds up. She reckons she can’t afford to eat properly but she’s spending £50 a week driving her friends about so they can go shopping? She parks up and sits outside so they can buy clothes but she doesn’t? I’m sorry but I don’t believe her, however if it is true her son, the one who paid for her husband’s funeral allegedly, needs to have a word with her and her so called friends.

My MIL is rattling around in a very large bungalow since FIL passed away. She can afford to stay there but she doesn’t want to so it’s on the market. The costs of moving are astronomical. Something needs to be done about them imo because there will be people stuck in houses they can’t afford but unable to afford the moving costs either.

I’m 38 and have already had to deal with selling a property after a death. Why are you assuming that trauma only happens to pensioners?

If she’s running a car she isn’t hard up.

Apart from pension, there should be no benefits if you have equity above the threshold (£23k?) in property.
Equity Release can be stepped at say 5k or 10k per year, preserving equity for inheritance.

What a measured and caring post. Focusing on the actual needs of your MIL and not worrying about inheritance. If only more posters thought like this.

And I find the service charge thing quite strange because all homes need ongoing maintenance. Isn’t it recommended that you should expect to spend around 1% of your home’s worth on standard maintenance each year? So on a house worth £300k that’s £3k before any upgrades, so spending even double or triple that in service charges on a place you have to do absolutely nothing to is a pretty good deal in my book. No calling tradespeople, no gardening, no worrying about structural issues etc.

£12000 a year plus free buses. Rolling in it 🙄

It’s a reasonable question. If the house desperately needs work then it makes sense. But there are a lot of dodgy deals out there, so extreme caution is needed.

@StealMySunshining

Its much easier to find a new community when you are young 'ish' and in good health.

Imagine you are 82 and effectively housebound like my mum.
Or 62 and housebound after multiple strokes like the man in my community who I visit a few times a week. As Ive been visiting for nearly 4 years we have developed a friendship but initially it was an hour a week organised by a charity.

I do think the lady in the article is being a bit daft about the driving- she should at least ask her friends to contribute to the petrol so she can go shopping

The under 25 person has the possibility of getting a job with their whole life in front of them.

A pensioner has worked their whole life paying tax and NI and won’t work again.

Was it the home you bought, paid for and lived in for most of your life?

I guess some people dont move because they become physically and mentally unable to do so, so being cold and eating less is the only option

Or

Support networks mean they really cant move areas so its better to be cold but someone gets your medicine and someone else provides your emotional needs

Or

Its not really an asset, as it the asset thing only works if there are cheaper options that then leave you with more money so it was worth the upheaval. Upheaval to remain cost neutral Is pointless.

That’s a small minority of pensioners who never paid into a pension their whole working life

But isn’t that the whole point? Disability is one thing but we all know that ageing is an inevitability. So why wouldn’t you be proactive and make changes when you are still in reasonable health rather than burying your head in the sand and pretending you’re never going to age?

What do you propose doing with them?

What difference does that make? Is empathy only possible for pensioners?

They need to cut their cloth accordingly, just like the rest of us are told to do on a daily basis.

People leave it late to downsize. They should try and do it in their sixties.

what a revolting post.

We must be incredibly lucky because everyone who I know under similar circumstances has been fully helped to be rehoused into social/supported living or shared ownership. We decided to sell and go into shared ownership apartments at nearly 60, recognising that much older, or in worse health, we might find the thought of moving overwhelming. Our old neighbour who has been rehoused under, extra care housing, in a close by block, now can leave his flat, with a walking frame, see people, walk out into the communal garden. If he's struggling that day, there are carers to push him out in his wheelchair.

Another neighbour, who has no-one to leave her property to, won't buy a much wanted shared ownership bungalow, because she doesn't want the housing involved in selling it, when she is dead. I've lived in areas of genuine high unemployment and never understood the poverty cry from pensioners, who were given double what families were.