What's wrong with selling a house you don't live in?

[Kendodd]

On the back of the NI increase.
If an elderly person living alone moves into a care home, well, why wouldn't they sell their house anyway? They're not going to be going back to live there, the house would be sitting empty and we don't have enough houses for people to live in. The elderly person would then also have a huge amount of money to supplement their income in their last few years. As far as I can see the benefits for everyone far outweigh any reasons for keeping the house.

For what it's worth, I don't think there should have been an NI rise or people paying a fortune for their own care. I think inheritance tax should have been increased instead. I don't get the outrage about selling houses nobody lives in though.

@Kendodd

I've read the average stay in a care home is two years. So that means the house would be sitting empty for two years, being of no use to anyone.

Sometimes it can't be sold though - if the person doesn't has capacity to consent to the sale or sign the legal paperwork and they haven't organised a power of attorney for whatever reason, legally it can't be sold. A family member could apply for a guardianship but they take months (18+ months currently waiting) to come through.

@caringcarer

Sometimes when one spouse has dementia and can no longer live at home the other spouse still wishes to live in their home. They don't want to have to move.

They can stay. A house is only sold to pay for care if there are no older family members living there (spouse, siblings etc)

All assets are taken into consideration. Once all savings are gone, you have to sell your house if there is no other pot of money elsewhere. That has always been the case. Sometimes it can be worth renting out the property if the resident has a big enough private pension to make up the fees, but the average monthly rental income for a 3 bed terrace isn't going to cover even a week in a care home.
Any state pension or benefits goes straight to to the home anyway.

The children of the elderly person benefit from knowing their parent is cared for. Otherwise they would gave to either pay or give up work and do it themselves

Or give up their inheritance

Most LAs will loan people the money and recoup it once the house is sold, which can be after death.

@Comedycook

I'm really quite fed up of having to bend over backwards for the older generation in this country. The younger generation have given up a substantial part of their education and childhood to protect these people. Now their families will be worse off and they'll face even more disadvantage simply so that people can pass on more inheritance. And all because they are more likely to vote Tory.

A lot of the older generation lived through, and in some cases fought, in WW2. Those people were for more disadvantaged at that time than us, and rationing went on until the 1950’s. The NHS didn’t start until 1948 so if you were ill before that you paid to see the doctor, or you didn’t see them. It’s very easy to blame the older generation, but we’ve all had our hardships.

@Comedycook

The children of the elderly person benefit from knowing their parent is cared for. Otherwise they would gave to either pay or give up work and do it themselves

Or give up their inheritance

But that's what people often want - someone else to care for their relatives, someone else to pay for it and to keep the money for themselves.

It's like the old saying: good, fast, cheap. You can have two but not all three.

@Muchmorethan
That’s what my parents did
Now my father has passed away the house belongs to my sister and my son
But had my father needed full time care in a care home they would have only been able to touch his half

We had it legally done were I own 50% of the house and DH owns 50 %, that way if one of us needs care they can only claim on 50% of the house. It’s not perfect, like if we both need care, but it seemed a small way to try and protect some inheritance for the kids.

@Comedycook

The children of the elderly person benefit from knowing their parent is cared for. Otherwise they would gave to either pay or give up work and do it themselves

Or give up their inheritance

It's not your inheritance until the person has died.

Care is needed, unless we decide on compulsory euthanasia which obviously we won't. There are 3 ways it can be provided
1 Family do it
2 We pay more in tax to cover it for everyone to at least some level
3 Those who can pay and those who can't are subsidised.
What you can't have is 2 without the tax however desirable you may think it is. And people who gift or whatever their assets are leeches who are taking just that position and burdening everyone else.

Elderly care is only 40% of the social care costs in U.K., 60% is for disabled working age people. So no matter what, an NI increase would be needed.

A lot of the older generation lived through, and in some cases fought, in WW2.

You would have to be at least 94 to have fought in the 2nd WW (ie 18 in 1945). There are very few people still alive who fought in WW2.

Devils advocate

Why should person 1 sell their house to pay for care and leave no inheritance but person 2 gets care free because they have been fortunate to have a council house all their life. Then there is person 3 who has spent far more on private rent than person 1 has on mortgage.

@EmmaGrundyForPM

A lot of the older generation lived through, and in some cases fought, in WW2.

You would have to be at least 94 to have fought in the 2nd WW (ie 18 in 1945). There are very few people still alive who fought in WW2.

I was born 10 years after WW2 but paid for it through tax for 20+years. One of those things, I wasn't directly involved but benefitted from it so I paid for it. Like care costs for other people.

I would like to leave my house to my daughter but if I have to sell it for my or my husband's care so be it.

I think there needs to be a much clearer and transparent division between housing needs and care needs.

Selling your house to re-house yourself in a care home is fully reasonable.

And if people have no house to sell, the rent they had been paying, or housing benefit, should be re-directed towards the housing part of the care home.

But everyone should be able to get nursing care, and personal care costs where illness makes them incapable - e.g post stroke or dementia.

I agree that later life considerations and death should be included in life planning, but life is complicated.

I don't have any issue with selling a home that is otherwise unoccupied as the value to fund needs is part of the point of an asset, but I don't think as a system we can rely on those who sell up to fund such a big part of everyone else's care and the legion of unpaid carers keeping things afloat as they are.

I'm curious how many homes are left empty for years because someone is in a care home with full awareness they won't return. I'm sure it's a fair amount, but that it's more complicated than the headlines.

Of the several deaths of my loved ones, no one had a home empty for years. One house was empty for the final few months -- but that's because my MIL was in hospital-based care home while the house was being refitted for her return with medical grade bed and similar. No one had expected her to die there, if anything it seemed to brighten her spirits, and it took far longer to sort her house for sale after her death in part because everyone involved was worn to the bone. All the others either died in their homes with carer coming in, was in their home until the final hospital/hospice stay of less than a fortnight, or had a spouse in the home so no one would have expected them to sell.

Sometimes it's holding onto an inheritance, sometimes it's someone holding onto their home after losing a fuckton even when better care options are available (my MIL inherited twice in the year before her death - it was only after the second that she needed to pay for carers to come in), sometimes things are just complicated and our system needs to consider the benefits of caring for the ill if only in the economic sense of enabling the more able to work well.

@EmmaGrundyForPM

A lot of the older generation lived through, and in some cases fought, in WW2.

You would have to be at least 94 to have fought in the 2nd WW (ie 18 in 1945). There are very few people still alive who fought in WW2.

Exactly. My dad is 94, he joined the army as an apprentice at 15 and didn't see any active service until after the end of the war.

@RuthW

Devils advocate

Why should person 1 sell their house to pay for care and leave no inheritance but person 2 gets care free because they have been fortunate to have a council house all their life. Then there is person 3 who has spent far more on private rent than person 1 has on mortgage.

Because it's not about trying to decipher who has worked hard and come to some sort of fair compromise in regards to the work people have put in and the choices they have made. It's a very simple calculation to work out if you have money available to pay for something you need.

My mil had lots of DC and lived in a council house...she bought it under the right to buy scheme and years later sold it for a million quid. Conversely my elderly aunt never had children, bought her own tiny one bed flat and now needs to move. She can barely afford anywhere as she cannot downsize as is in the smallest place possible. Meanwhile mil is sitting on a fortune and owns her new place outright. It's not fair but that's life

There are also lots of elderly people I've noticed who plead poverty whilst sitting on pots of money. My mil lives like a pauper...she has hundreds of thousands in the bank. It's completely bizarre

I think the issue is not no inheritance for the children but the unfairness (READ ON!) - the unfairness of people scrimping and saving to buy property to pass down to their children, only to have it taken from then whilst those who spent all their money planning on leaving nothing to their children get their care paid for. My grandparents were poor and as a result had nothing to leave my parents (both sides). My parents struggled but were determined to not leave THEIR children in the same boat, so scrimped and saved so we could inherit, and we have done the same. The only way my kids will be able to get on the housing ladder is by inheritance. By generations before them doing their best for future generations. My son (in his 20s) won't be able to afford rent on a zero hours minimum wage job so if he doesn't inherit what can he do?

[quote OldScrappyAndHungry]@AlexaShutUp if there is a surviving spouse then the house doesn’t need to be sold.[/quote]
I think if the house is home to someone over 60 if can't be either.

@stillcrazyafterall

I think the issue is not no inheritance for the children but the unfairness (READ ON!) - the unfairness of people scrimping and saving to buy property to pass down to their children, only to have it taken from then whilst those who spent all their money planning on leaving nothing to their children get their care paid for. My grandparents were poor and as a result had nothing to leave my parents (both sides). My parents struggled but were determined to not leave THEIR children in the same boat, so scrimped and saved so we could inherit, and we have done the same. The only way my kids will be able to get on the housing ladder is by inheritance. By generations before them doing their best for future generations. My son (in his 20s) won't be able to afford rent on a zero hours minimum wage job so if he doesn't inherit what can he do?

Yes but life is inherently unfair. The government cannot spend their time making moral judgements on who deserves help or not. It's a financial decision. You have means to pay for something, then do so.

Why should person 1 sell their house to pay for care and leave no inheritance but person 2 gets care free because they have been fortunate to have a council house all their life. Then there is person 3 who has spent far more on private rent than person 1 has on mortgage.

This is how life works, things aren't fair. People's circumstances and costs are different.

I've spent a fortune on glasses and contact lenses in my life time. Others don't need them.

I've paid thousands in fares to get to work (a direct cost of earning the money) but someone who works from home on the same salary pays the same tax.

My sister has a health condition that she's spent ££££ on trying to get help for.

Life is full of inequalities. Inheriting or not, one of the biggest.

Why does it matter so much that some people hold on to their homes and others don't when all the other inequalities don't matter?

@GoodnightGrandma

We had it legally done were I own 50% of the house and DH owns 50 %, that way if one of us needs care they can only claim on 50% of the house. It’s not perfect, like if we both need care, but it seemed a small way to try and protect some inheritance for the kids.

That's not how it works. Your house will not be taken into consideration if your spouse is alive and living there. They don't make you sell 50% of it. It's taken into consideration if your spouse has died, or if they reside somewhere else, ie, in a care home themselves. There will be a financial assessment in the event one or both of you need home care or care home care, whereby you may have to make a contribution (from savings, benefits, pensions) or even pay the bill if you are cash wealthy.