Selling house to pay for care- what if other relatives live there?

[KateBeckett]

So, my mil had a mixed diagnosis of Alzheimer's and dementia and currently lives alone in a mortgage free home.

She is starting to struggle with day to day life and we are considering moving in with her to help her stay independent as long as possible.

My concern is over what would happen to us if (when?) she needs more care and has to go into a care home- I know that you can be made to sell your home to pay for the care- would we then be made to move out to enable the house to be sold?

We are trying to come up with the best plan for mil so that she can stay in her home as long as possible, but don't want to end up with nowhere to live ourselves, so I'm not sure of moving in with her is the best corse of action or not...

Forgot to add the important information about our house...

The plan would be for us to sell our house and either a) use the 'profit' to do work on mil's house making it a comfortable place for us all (attic conversion type of work) OR b) to sell our house and mil's house and buy somewhere bigger.

Plan a would be more likely as dh is worried about mil getting lost in a new house / when coming home from seeing friends, the shops etc or waking up in the night and wandering off as she is unsure of where she is...

You can find detailed information about funding residential care on the AgeUk website, but the short answer is yes, you would have to sell the house to fund her care. And if you sold both homes, they could make you pay out the money from her home.

Thank you, thats what I thought. We will have to look into some way of doing the necessary work to her home without selling ours, hopefully we will be able to rent it out so we will still have somewhere to go back to.

It's a fairly new diagnosis but she seems to be getting worse quite quickly so we are scrambling for the best solution whilst trying to get our heads around things and I suppose grieving a bit too...

Have you got a lasting power of attorney sorted?

We are a couple of steps in front of you with this sad journey.

Basically my mum is now in a care home as it is no longer possible to care for her, either in her home or ours. In a long standing arrangement between my mum and my daughter, my daughter lives in her home with her baby, while we cared for my mum at our home. As I say this has no longer been possible and obviously my mum is not entitled to any help with care home fees because she has a property. We have used all her savings, and ours, over the past six months care home fees, and with nothing left but her property we are forced to sell it - meaning of course our daughter and grandson are homeless. I am an only child so there is no other family to help. Any rent she could make on the property (either from my daughter or other tenants) would not cover the care home fees. So we have to sell...

I'm a little heartbroken. Coped well with everything up to now, but seeing everything she and my dad ever worked for being sold, and my daughter out of a home has hit me hard. At least my mum is spared the understanding of this, as she would be heartbroken too.

Have to say our local council/adult care have been bastards, never known such rude and unfeeling people. I am selling the property but can't magic up a buyer overnight, and they are chasing me so hard, even suggesting I should sell my own property to fund my mum.

I wish you luck, OP.

btw I found lasting power of attorney to be simple to do yourself, which will obviously save on solicitor's fees.

I don't know a huge amount about this I'm afraid but what I do know is that my partner's mum is in a care home due to dementia and we have managed to avoid selling her home, to start with we had an agreement where the local council paid the fees and we deferred the fees until we decided to sell, and that gave us time to apply for funding, I can check what's it's called if you want and now she gets all her care funded due to her needs and care package.

Here's a bit more information about the deferred payment

www.gov.uk/government/publications/care-and-support-whats-changing/care-and-support-whats-changing#deferred-payment-agreements