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.

@DancesWithTortoises

(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.

Isn't that what inheritance tax does? Tax unearned income?

My MIL house has been in DH's family for 270 years. It is having to be sold at the moment to pay for Dementia care. We can't afford to buy it... so that will be the end of it.

It is sad, it is a pain that we have taken care of her as well we could up to recently, but now her needs are greater than we (and her team of carers and friends) can provide...

but still the continuity of generations will be lost... it is not a big house, it is not "expensive", it is a simple 2 up, 2 down family town cottage where FIL was born, and his father before him and....

They make no allowance at all for the thousands already spent on care, for the time and effort made making her home into a space she found both comfortable and comforting, it is just "an asset" to be sold to the highest bidder. I know it is daft feeling emotion about a building, but hey ho... it's a part of the family.

The thing is with NI / state pensions etc is you don't pay for yourself ( i.e it goes into a pot ) you pay for those currently needing. So those receiving now , paid for those in the past , and those of you that will need it in the future , your children's generation will be paying for you. Yes the ' us ' now will be working longer as there is no state pension for woman at aged 60 / men , 65 now as in the past. But what else would we like ?
Bring back the workhouses for the poor and elderly perhaps ?

Isn't that what inheritance tax does? Tax unearned income?

It's taxing something that tax has already been paid on.

No answer to what should happen to those who refuse to make provision? Too late for the lazy buggers already getting free care but I hope everyone will be made to contribute in future.

Or do you think it's ok to scrounge off others?

@RuthTopp

The thing is with NI / state pensions etc is you don't pay for yourself ( i.e it goes into a pot ) you pay for those currently needing. So those receiving now , paid for those in the past , and those of you that will need it in the future , your children's generation will be paying for you. Yes the ' us ' now will be working longer as there is no state pension for woman at aged 60 / men , 65 now as in the past. But what else would we like ? Bring back the workhouses for the poor and elderly perhaps ?

That reminded me. My dad would be 107 now, and I remember as a child, hearing him say things that showed he was scared of 'the workhouse'. It was a genuine fear for him, and I'm sure it was what made him really careful with money.

@DancesWithTortoises

Isn't that what inheritance tax does? Tax unearned income?

It's taxing something that tax has already been paid on.

No answer to what should happen to those who refuse to make provision? Too late for the lazy buggers already getting free care but I hope everyone will be made to contribute in future.

Or do you think it's ok to scrounge off others?

The vast majoroty of what most people leave isn't already taxed though. It's unearned property gains.

I paid £240k for this house, now worth approx £550k. My parents paid £1500 for their house now worth c.£500k. That's £808k of untaxed income or an unpaid basic rate tax bill of £160k

I don't have a problem with that going to pay for my parents' or my care via inheritance tax.

Yes but £1,500 back then was worth a lot more than it was now! People usually pay off their mortgage over a minimum of 25 years with all the interest too. House prices have beaten inflation but then people don’t get any interest these days on money in the bank. Why shouldn’t people be able to pass on a lifetime of saving and financial responsibility to their children?

If I was able to (the tax system would stop me) I would pass on every penny to my kids so they each had a decent financial start in life. I have been trapped in horrible workplaces in the past and unable to just leave because I needed the income and had to suck it up. I have fretted about bills, I have juggled work and childcare while others have not. The least I could do is try to make it easier for the next generation. Why not? So if they wanted they could take a gap year or quit a job on principle and not worry about next month’s bills. Or would that stop them being producing workers? We are more than just cogs in a machine.

The one thing I would say is that free care for parents / elderly people is not going to be as nice as that you pay for. ( I believe - have investigated ) so it is not quite apples for apples .

The care in an average care home costing self funders around £1k a week is the same as the care for people funded at around £500 a week by the LA. The care home is often mixed.
If you want a superior standard of care you need to be looking at a private, self funded only establishment costing at least double, sometimes triple the self funding amount per week. This is only available to the very rich.
The self funding resident in an average home is just someone who probably had a professional job and an occupational pension. My parents and PIL only had a small bungalow and a retirement flat respectively, so not a big expensive property by any means. Self funding doesn't equal wealthy.

@TorringtonDean

Yes but £1,500 back then was worth a lot more than it was now! People usually pay off their mortgage over a minimum of 25 years with all the interest too. House prices have beaten inflation but then people don’t get any interest these days on money in the bank. Why shouldn’t people be able to pass on a lifetime of saving and financial responsibility to their children?

If I was able to (the tax system would stop me) I would pass on every penny to my kids so they each had a decent financial start in life. I have been trapped in horrible workplaces in the past and unable to just leave because I needed the income and had to suck it up. I have fretted about bills, I have juggled work and childcare while others have not. The least I could do is try to make it easier for the next generation. Why not? So if they wanted they could take a gap year or quit a job on principle and not worry about next month’s bills. Or would that stop them being producing workers? We are more than just cogs in a machine.

I understand that but it still means the bulk of the estate has had no tax all paid on it at any point.

Arguably those who frittered it all will have paid a lot more tax. Lots of tax on beer and fags.

There was income tax paid on the money that went to mortgage payments! And regardless of price the house is still the same house! Seems to be a lot of resentment here about people doing the responsible thing and saving all their lives. I actually hope I die before I need a care home. Maybe I should do more pissing it all up the wall!

If I was able to (the tax system would stop me) I would pass on every penny to my kids so they each had a decent financial start in life. I have been trapped in horrible workplaces in the past and unable to just leave because I needed the income and had to suck it up. I have fretted about bills, I have juggled work and childcare while others have not. The least I could do is try to make it easier for the next generation.

But don't you realise, you are not making it easier for the next generation, you are making it harder for them if they have to pick up the bill for your care through higher NI became you don't want to pay for yourself. I'll point out (again) that the average age to receive an inheritance in the UK is 61, it's not kids getting a start in life.

And can we please drop the lie that people who don't own houses don't/didn't work just as hard as those who do own. Its so far from the truth its actually offensive and ignorant. I would bet people who have rented all their lives have ended up paying a lot more to put a roof over their heads than homeowners so consequently have had less money to spend on themselves.

@TorringtonDean

There was income tax paid on the money that went to mortgage payments! And regardless of price the house is still the same house! Seems to be a lot of resentment here about people doing the responsible thing and saving all their lives. I actually hope I die before I need a care home. Maybe I should do more pissing it all up the wall!

All £1500 of it? No resentment here. I am one of those people and I stand to benefit from my parents being those people. I just see the ridiculousness of claiming tax has been paid on property gains and don't see why "the taxpayer" should pay for my care if I can pay for it myself.

Tax (a lot more of it) was also paid on all the money others paid in rent.

And what's this nonsense about double taxation anyway? Loads of things are so called 'double taxed' road tax, council tax, vat there's loads of it. Do you object to all that as well?

Nobody wants to spend their final years locked in a home prison, being spoon fed or having diapers changed and isolated from the outside world, staring at a Tv or walls all day, sat waiting to die, or unaware that they are waiting to die and wondering where their family are or even who they are because they can't remember.

Nobody wants that. Nobody.

Whether you are rich or poor, whether you owned a house or not, whether you paid national insurance or claimed benefits your whole life, you don't want to be rotting away in a care home chair.

Yes there are lovely care homes that don't look like that and there are people in them whose lives are not a write off.

But there are people sat waiting to die who long forgotten how each day is paid for. They are just forced to exist because no government wants to address the taboo topic that people can make their own decisions about when they want to go.

Yes it will be difficult. We would need to develop laws and regulations on how we can choose our own fate. People will need to be protected from abuse of such a system. It will take years.

But I do hope they at least start talking about it soon. So that maybe if/when the time comes for me or my dh we can choose to escape such a fate.

Honestly im not worried about taxes and im not worried about inheritance. The financial focus is grabbing headlines. But what about the ethical focus?

Maybe if we admit yes it needs paying for. Yes it means higher taxes. And yes it means inheritance tax or selling your home. But yes, you will have a choice, and you can choose to leave this life not with money in the bank but with dignity, then maybe the whole financial aspect would be an easier pill to swallow.

Right now for many it's a lottery. If you lose you will be leaving this life with no money and no dignity to go with it.

I think in a surprising number of cases, if people were given the choice, they'd choose a dignified death over a rich one. But maybe I'm wrong.

It depends on whether the elderly person is self funding or not. It may be that they don't need the proceeds from the home to fund their care . You can only sell a home on someone's behalf if you have POA.

Well if you choose to rent you don’t own that property so don’t have an asset!

I wouldn’t mind paying for my care when I am old. I just don’t want everything I earned wiped out by care bills or taxes. Who would?

Hopefully I can give it all away and then seven years later die with as little fuss as possible.

@Unfashionable

I work in this field and just today had a family member quite aggressive saying why should my father have to sell his home, so he shouldn’t have worked all his life then and saved should he, he should’ve been a council tenant and then you’d pay.

My parents make the same argument. They stared with nothing, worked very hard, scrimped, saved & went without to buy their own home, paid off their mortgage and now own it outright. They know plenty of people who lived in council houses but drove better cars & had better holidays than they did. If those people needed care, the state would pay. If my parents needed it, they would have to pay themselves. The profligate & irresponsible who ‘pissed their money up the wall’ would be rewarded. The thrifty & prudent who did the right thing would be punished. How is that fair?

You have a point

@Comedycook

It's outrageous to expect the government to foot the care bill whilst the person has potentially hundreds of thousands pounds worth of assets sitting there...why should the taxpayer have to pay to protect someone's inheritance?

Why should one person get for free what another person has to pay for? And those people aren’t just paying for themselves, they’re paying for those who can’t afford their own care too.

@Pongo101 an easier pill to swallow? You are apparently advocating euthanasia. No thanks.

I think in a surprising number of cases, if people were given the choice, they'd choose a dignified death over a rich one. But maybe I'm wrong.

I'm not so sure. These threads and others like it so many people seem to care about clinging on to money more than anything else in the world.

I don't think people do want to die in the event. Some very unfortunate people trapped far to young in a body that's failing them? perhaps but the will to live is strong in most people, despite what you might think you'll want while you're young and fit.

It is wrong that self funders pay to fund the others. That is true. Why hasn't there been more about that in this reform?