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.

@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?

But some people might work really hard, scrimp and save all their lives and still have nothing to hand down to their kids, so what can they do?

An inheritance is never a right, and we need our society to function in such a way that people are able to support themselves without an expectation of inheriting from their parents because there will always be people who don't.

Personally, I would tax all inheritance really highly in order to remove the lottery of who has to sell their houses for social care and who doesn't, but also to even out the unfair advantage that some people get as a result of inheritance in the first place.

People don't need money when they're dead. We need to get away from this idea that their children are somehow entitled to everything while expecting the state to pay for the care that is required.

To answer you original question from my experience

It can take months of being in a care home (eg after hip fracture) on ‘rehab’ ‘reenablement’
whatever, for it to be clear if person will be able to go home then months of them accepting that they can’t go home, then months to get POA inplace /activated and then there is house clearance and prep for sale by a friend or relative/POA all difficult tasks and no ones priority since everyone’s priority is getting the person home/or settled/visiting/dealing with acute needs such as lost hearing aids for example.

It’s not just the greed scenario.

Are we really going down the whiny "life is unfair" route? I learnt as a child that life was unfair.

I have autism and dyspraxia while other people don't. Those conditions have a huge negative impact on my life. That's not fair. But that's how it is.

Yes, we are talking about people’s family homes, not just abstract living units. There is one hell of a lot of emotion involved in breaking up a home of 50plus years’ standing.

Life is a lottery and those with kind, decent, loving parents are the lucky ones. On the whole family is a huge determinant in your success in life - financial and more importantly emotional. It’s entirely natural for a family to want to pass on wealth and not make the next generation start from scratch again.

Like most people, my ancestors left nothing for generation after generation. They were servants and labourers and had hardly anything. In the 20th century my lower middle class grandparents were able to pass on modest amounts to their children. Then my parents made a small amount more. We are not talking about the Rothschilds or the Murdochs here. A normal middle class family with a house in the South East. They passed on money to me. I want to do the same to help my children if I can. Isn’t that a normal instinct? I hope if I go into a care home I won’t live too much longer. A miserable thought, I’m not saying it applies to others but I think that might be how I felt. Or I might love it there and want to go on for years. I won’t know until I get there but I hope it won’t take every penny!

I agree , 'mum is having to sell her home to pay for care' really means 'l can see my inheritance going down.'

IMO there is a difference between Heath and social care needs. One the state has an obligation to meet, the other it does not.

In the UK we say if you can afford to pay for your social care services you should and I agree that's appropriate. If you have assets you want to protect there are insurances you can purchase to pay for care costs instead of using those assets. If you don't have the assets there is a safety net which meets, frankly, very basic needs. If you don't have insurance but you do have assets you should absolutely be made to leverage them to pay for your care. This can be by realising rental income or selling a property that would otherwise be empty - it makes so much sense.

@Sheerheight

I agree , 'mum is having to sell her home to pay for care' really means 'l can see my inheritance going down.'

Yes. And if you're that worried about your inheritance, care for your mum in your own home.

I do wonder if, sometimes, the people who say that they don't want the house sold because 'it was a family home for some many years' or 'because they spent years making a lovely garden' are really saying "don't put me in an assisted living facility".

Money brings you choices

My dad has a top notch nursing home - he had to prove he could afford three peats payments before they have him a place

We’re find with that! We’re happily selling his house so he has what he deserves!

But the other nursing homes we saw were just depressing... like the worlds worst student halls and I left each one feeling devastated for the inmates

People who try to find workarounds to dodge selling their homes are actually short changing their relatives.

Not all nursing homes are equal

Why should someone with brain cancer be cared for for free by the NHS but someone with alzheimer's have to pay for their care in a private care home? That is where the inequality is that is driving this.

I do think care needs to be paid for as part of social care. However, increasing NI is regressive and affects the working poor the most. It should either have been through income tax or they need to find an effective way to tax wealth, but having just increased the limits for inheritance tax they were never going to decrease them.

@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.

My FIL is still alive, as is his brother. That’s not the point, the point is that a lot of the elderly had it hard in the war years and the years after.

@JaninaDuszejko

Why should someone with brain cancer be cared for for free by the NHS but someone with alzheimer's have to pay for their care in a private care home? That is where the inequality is that is driving this.

I do think care needs to be paid for as part of social care. However, increasing NI is regressive and affects the working poor the most. It should either have been through income tax or they need to find an effective way to tax wealth, but having just increased the limits for inheritance tax they were never going to decrease them.

But it isn't that simple. Not everyone with brain cancer is cared for for free, not every with dementia has to pay. The CHC funding criteria is much more nuanced than that.

@GoodnightGrandma what has the war got to do with this?

I find the constant war fiction of baby boomers aged people to be really, really tedious. Most people of pension age today (not all!) were either born after the war ended, or were too young to have any memories of it.

I saw a comment on a news item recently saying we should be ‘grateful to the pensioners as they gave us our freedom’ and that I should ‘stop complaining about the NI rise because people in the war had it harder’. It makes me want to scream!

@janinaduszejko my mum has dementia. The care she needs - help with shopping and jobs around the house, reminding to go to appointments/social events, reminding where my dad is ( just gone from hospital to temp care home bed) etc wouldn't be given free to someone with brain cancer either. She has no requirement for nursing care, her medication has been stopped as it wasn't having any effect for her and other than forgetting everything and very easily confused there is nothing else wrong with her. And for many with dementia that goes on for years.

I find the constant war fiction of baby boomers aged people to be really, really tedious. Most people of pension age today (not all!) were either born after the war ended, or were too young to have any memories

I agree but it's a hangover from when a lot of us were young and we knew that all elderly people had lived through the war

My FIL is still alive, as is his brother.
That’s not the point, the point is that a lot of the elderly had it hard in the war years and the years after.

Lots of people did really well out of the war too. Lots of people had it really hard in the Thatcher years, lots of other people did very nicely. And various other periods in history.

But that's not relevant anyway. These changes aim to provide a suitable care system for the future. That's not going to affect many WW2 veterans.

And I find the whole 'baby boomers are selfish and deliberately did future generations a disservice' trope, really tedious.

I'm 65. My husband and I lived our lives in the 70s and 80s just as any young couple/young parents are now. Within what was financially available to us. We didn't think when we took out our mortgage or opened savings accounts, 'how will this affect future generations 30 years from now?' any more than a couple taking out a mortgage or starting a pension scheme does today.

Our house was much cheaper in sales price, but our mortgage was much more expensive in monthly terms, due to interest rates, than they are today. When we bought our first home, the mortgage and insurance on it took 90% of my teacher's salary. The same home costs far more now, but the monthly payment on a mortgage for it is less of a proportion of the salary of a teacher on an equivalent wage today. It wasnt all hunky-dory for us back then

Having said that, I do feel that my adult children are in a far worse position these days, and their financial future is bleaker. Consequently, I am, and will be helping them far more than previous generations helped their children. Boomers are now funding their offspring in ways that their own parents wouldn't have considered for a minute.

Most of the money for social care actually goes to disabled working age people, so the media portrayal of it being for elderly is deliberately to divide the generations.

@PlanDeRaccordement

Most of the money for social care actually goes to disabled working age people, so the media portrayal of it being for elderly is deliberately to divide the generations.

Have you got figures for this? It isn't my working experience so I'd like to know more. I do work in a older age heavy population though, so could be it's tipped the other way in other areas.

I'm approaching retirement and I can't see the issue either unless you leave a spouse or partner who lives in that house and wants to carry on living there.
There was a sad case in Wiltshire a few years ago where two sisters had lived together all their lives, were in their 80s, co-owned their (inherited) house and when the elder sister needed care, the council tried to force out the other sister who was also in her 80s. Vile behaviour.

I expect to downsize when I retire, use that money for care and hope there will be some left for ds. But if there isn't, he'll cope.

If social care is paid for from taxes, rather than stealing property from the financially careful, then everyone contributes to the system.

I'm still enraged that my father paid such a high rate to subsidise the council paid for tenants who bragged about not having to pay and of how they had spent every penny they earned.

If the elderly have to pay for their own care, that's one thing. But to subsidise the feckless? No.

Everyone pays tax - that's where it should come from.

We have a house next door to us yhst has been empty 4 years. The old guy went into a care home then after a fall. He actually died about 18months ago and the house is still empty. From what I understand the family are arguing about having to sell it to pay for the care home fees.
In the mean time it was getting in a worse and worse state and becoming a home for rats as it was left just as he was carried out of it as none of the family live any where near us.

It wasn't until I had to call in environmental health to deal with the rats ( which were coming know my home through the walls) that they finally emptied the house last month.

The garden is totally overgrown and the place is damp, which again is coming through the party wall to our house!

We have asked who now owns it, but all we get is a solicitors name, so I email them who then have to get hold of the family, which takes bloody ages.

Just sell the bloody place, pay the bill and if there is anything left divide it up already!

@DancesWithTortoises

If social care is paid for from taxes, rather than stealing property from the financially careful, then everyone contributes to the system.

I'm still enraged that my father paid such a high rate to subsidise the council paid for tenants who bragged about not having to pay and of how they had spent every penny they earned.

If the elderly have to pay for their own care, that's one thing. But to subsidise the feckless? No.

Everyone pays tax - that's where it should come from.

(Almost) everyone does pay tax (presumably you mean income tax) but not enough to fund this. What level of income tax would you like to pay to protect these homes?

[quote Realyorkshiretea]@GoodnightGrandma what has the war got to do with this?[/quote]
If you read my original post you will know.

(Almost) everyone does pay tax (presumably you mean income tax) but not enough to fund this. What level of income tax would you like to pay to protect these homes?

I think the income tax on unearned income needs to be much higher. The ultra rich should pay much higher taxes, not pay accountants to ensure they don't.