What steps do we 50 somethings need to take to avoid the situation many of us find ourselves with our elderly relatives?

[Mxflamingnoravera]

Many of on here vow that we will never put our children through what we are going through with our oldies. I'm one of them, but, unsure what I need to do (apart from set up LPA and a will). What are your suggestions for steps we can take?

It might be good to set up a checklist for different stages of our adult lives, depending on how old our children are. My son is 27 and has agreed to do LPA.

@Honeyroar that frightens me because it is no0t realistic. Most people spend on healthcare is either as babies or elderly. If you are very young you could take out insurance to cover your whole life. If you are elderly you are fucked. Healthcare is very expensive when you are elderly and need to stay in hospital. If I had to pay for my own healthcare I would have to resign myself to dying young from a treatable disease I already have.

@PortMerrionCentre

Problem with downsizing: DH & I can leave a £million house to our children tax free. If we downsize we lose the benefit of that exemption for leaving your home to your children, and IHT is payable on anything over £650000.

This isn't the case. There is a specific downsizing exemption to prevent people from staying in unsuitable accommodation just to save IHT written into the residence nil rate band rules.

There is a specific downsizing exemption to prevent people from staying in unsuitable accommodation just to save IHT written into the residence nil rate band rules.

Do you have any more detail on this please because we have this potentially with my mum, my brother doesn't want her to downsize for this reason and she listens to him far too much (though not exclusively, she has me as LPA and executor of her will because she knows he won't do things properly).

[quote esterwin]@MereDintofPandiculation I thought it was clear that I was talking about deprivation of assets. If you try and give away a house you are still living in and not paying a market rent, it is seen as deprivation of assets. Councils tend to pursue this quite vigorously.[/quote]
@esterwin As far as I am aware deprivation of assets is not illegal, in the sense that the elderly person won't be taken to court on a charge of deprivation of assets and fined or given a prison sentence. But you are absolutely right that Councils are getting ever more vigorous in pursuing deprivation of assets and looking back quite a few years. If they believe there has been deprivation of assets, they can do the financial assessment as if the assets were still in the possession of the elderly person - annoying when the house has been transferred in name only to the children -it can still be sold - very difficult if the house has been sold and used to fund a series of expensive holidays so there literally is no money left.

My dad is so stubborn, he has an empty house that he refuses to sell but he's not able to manage to live in it or look after it either, so we have to sort all that out as well as looking after him here
If you stopped enabling him he would be forced to sell, I appreciate it's easier said than done but even so....

It frightens me too esterwin. I’m in my 50s. I think my parents will be the last generation with good pensions and healthcare. My generation might hopefully scrape through with most forms of care available, but future generations will struggle. But most people don’t seem to care, they just think about themselves and what they personally get now, today.

I'm anticipating dealing with my parents being a nightmare. Total head in the sand re their living arrangements and health
Same here but I have my own health issues and problems so I'm just going to say 'sorry, I'm not in a position to do anything' and leave them to it

FIL had always run new cars, but won't pay for a taxi from hospital after eye surgery 3 miles away, family member has to take time off full-time job to get him
Why is the family member letting him get away with this ruse?

Having cleared out my parents house last year and now dealing with MIL who's 90 and refusing to even talk about her death I will do the following:

1. Have a funeral plan in place, with each of my children aware of my plans (Not so D SiL will no doubt decide she's in charge of that as well and not involve DH in any of the planning)
2. Have an up to date will in place with a solicitor as executor.
3. Clear out as much stuff from my house as possible well in advance so the DC don't have that job
4. Move to suitable accommodation sooner rather than later - whether that's nearer them if they're happy with that, or sheltered accommdation or whatever
5. Make sure that all my DC have an equal say in my affairs - I will absolutely not give control to one of them and leave the others out. It creates potential for ongoing family fall outs and a lot of upset. I'm looking at you, evil SIL.
6. Ensure I have a good pension in place
7. Look after my health - keep as fit and as slim as I can.
8. Recognise I'm ageing and that I will need to have my affairs in order. Speak to my lawyer and accountant and take their advice.

@CovoidOfAllHumanity

Also as the child do not agree to take LPA unless you understand what your responsibilities will be and are happy to discharge them.

We are now getting more people with H&W LPA and some of them don't actually want it. They don't want to be the decision maker and would prefer hospital staff to be the ones to decide to eg put someone in a care home. However if you have LPA it is legally your decision and not the staff so if you can't face being the one to decide stuff like that then please do not sign up for it.
If you do and later regret it then you can resign it too.

Thanks, that's good to know! I was railroaded into this when the parent was in their 50s, I just agreed to it without even thinking about what it meant

But life isn’t fair.. There simply isn’t a bottomless pit of money and the state shouldn’t be funding everyone’s care while people inherit assets. My MIL has just died. She was in a care home for six years. It’s eaten up 90% of her estate. While Is have loved a few hundred thousand in inheritance at this point (having lost a long term job and good salary to Covid), I see that that money funded a safe, happy, caring care home for her, and that was priceless. My friend’s mum ended up in a state funded care home and it was nowhere nesr as nice as where my mil was. I know which I’d choose...

This ignores the time spent caring for a parent with dementia BEFORE they go into a care home, a time when relatives sacrifice their own lives to manage everything for their parents with no thanks or compensation, when they actually save the NHS millions of pounds managing symptoms from a medical illness. These are the families that don’t inherit anything and have given everything. Life’s not fair, what a shame we refuse to do anything to change this?

Honestly? My view is unpopular but I intend to get medical help until I am 70 and then let nature take its course and just go for palliative care. That's because I have seen the painfully slow deterioration into dementia and bedbound years of family members in their 80s who had illnesses that should have taken them naturally in their 70s but were hauled back to life by medical interventions only to have this imo crueller demise.

Our generation has witnessed this. It is up to us to ask for DNR if we get a heart attack in our 70s or to ask just for palliative care for cancer. I think the human body has a reasonably efficient way to cease life and if that is overruled and constantly tampered with, its secondary methods are horrific for everyone concerned.

I have told my DC that I want to be DNR after age 70 and they have asked me to put it in writing.

70? You really think 70?
Is there not a good argument for saying that 80 is the new 3 score and 10

Fuck me! I’ll be 70 the year after next and I’m far from ready to leave the party. Life is wasted on some people.

Some people do seem ready to give up the ghost as soon as they can't do something like go running. Very depressing attitude to life.
I do understand people wanting a lift rather than getting a taxi. It is scary having surgery, so getting a lift is about reassurance as much as anything. I have always got a lift from family when I have been in hospital.
My FIl refused to have anyone in to help, even a cleaner. We ended up saying that is your choice, but we will not do it anymore. If you want help to find someone we can help, but we are not cleaning anymore. Within a month he had a cleaner. Sometimes you do have to force the issue.
Another issue can be that as people's sight gets worse, they no longer realise how bad their house is. We had this issue with my grandmother. She was still perfectly mobile and capable of cleaning, but her sight was poor and although she thought her house was clean, it was not.

@Blossomtoes

Fuck me! I’ll be 70 the year after next and I’m far from ready to leave the party. Life is wasted on some people.

They are not suggesting that people over seventy should be euthanased just due to age. They are simply saying that should they suffer an illness etc that diminishes their quality of life, considering their age and the potential outcomes at that age, they don't want to have harsh medical interventions.

I already have an advance decision which is similar and I'm only 53.

It's really unfair to diss people's decisions on this and say things like *life is wasted on some people", so rude.

I want harsh interventions at 70. My father who is older than 70 has had a successful heart operation. A neighbour has leukemia and has chemotherapy every few years to keep it at bay. My FIL had a stroke in his seventies and almost completely recovered.
Some harsh interventions are fairly common. And these people walk about amongst you living their life.

Me and DH are currently looking for a 2nd property here in the UK. We are only looking at accessible ones with no steps

Our deepest instinct is to survive at all and every cost, as we become cognitively weaker we have less and less insight and so instincts prevail... I think this is how it works

@HermioneWeasley

Have you saved enough to meet your care needs in later life.

Also, move to suitable accommodation when you’re able to, and not when it becomes a crisis

Where is this suitable accommodation?

I'd dearly love to downsize, but having spent a lifetime aiming to move to a nicer area and attached neighbours, I'm not.going back to a terraced house in a grotty part of town for my old age.

Where is all the small, easy maintenance property, close to amenities and bus routes in a reasonabkey nice area? There's nothing here at all. The few remaining bungalows are on large plots (so not that suitable) and in any case get snapped up.by developers and made into 5 bed houses.

Agreed. Where I live bungalows are in very short supply and expensive. And here most are bought by developers and conveted into flats. Downsizing for most people means moving into a smaller property, not a bungalow.

I have a friend who's 84 and still running marathons. She should have refused treatment for every minor infection she's had for the last 14 years?

My parents are late 70s and generally well, still managing their large house and garden independently (although they have started to think about downsizing, again, where to?). I'm very greatful Dad was able to have a very swollen infected ankle treated and that mum's high blood pressure is kept under control.

I guarantee you feel differently by the time you're 69.

I know all of that @VanGoghsDog. So sorry you think it rude to say what I think. Giving up on life when you could easily have another 20 (dementia free) years with the right health care seems bonkers to me. If she’d said palliative care only following a diagnosis of dementia I’d completely get it - but after 70? My dad had another 26 years of foreign holidays after his 70th birthday!

It is easier to plan if you have a slow gradual decline. Some people do. But some people have a sudden decline that means they can go from hill walking one weekend, to struggling to walk the next weekend. That is much harder to plan for, especially as it can happen at 50 or 90 years of age.
And people do recover. The neighbour I used to know who was doing everything without any help in her mid-80s, also had cancer in her early 60's and it was fully cured. She seemed very frail and ill in her 60's, but fully recovered.
Life is full of risks, you can't avoid them all.

@Egeegogxmv

Our deepest instinct is to survive at all and every cost, as we become cognitively weaker we have less and less insight and so instincts prevail... I think this is how it works

Yes, can't stress this enough.