How on earth can you afford care?

[Strawberriesandpuppies]

We are currently looking at care homes for DM who needs 24/7 care. Fees range from £1200 to £1700 per week. DM has more than £24k savings and a house we can sell but at those rates we will run out of money in 2-3 years. How do people afford it? What happens when the money runs out, would she be evicted?

Find out how much your local authority will pay out. When my mum went into care , the LA would only pay 450 a week, my father funded the rest via a " top up" charge. When he too went into care, I was funding mum's top up and his ( they had little by way of savings and rented their house) although the LA did pay slightly more for Dad's care home as both were in care.

We had this conversation with a financial adviser recently looking ahead over the next five years - his suggestion was that we rent out the house if my father has to go into a home. That way we will get some income to pay for the care costs and assuming housing continues to increase in value we will have an appreciating asset rather than selling it and putting the proceeds into investments. I'm not so sure as I can see only see hassle in terms of becoming a landlord. Hopefully it wont come to this

@Twillow , we looked at live in carers for an aunt of dh, but it was going to work out more expensive than a reasonable care home. If someone needs care/help both day and night (she did, help going to the loo etc.) that means at least 2 on shifts, because obv. they need their sleep, breaks and time off.

I don't think you should sell the house. Better yet, rent it out. So you sell the house, and the money is only enough for 2-3 years. If you rent out a house, you will receive money every month for many years. With the help of this money, you can pay for your parents' caregiver every month. I do exactly the same. I rent out my house and receive rent every month. With this money, I pay for live-in caregiver services every month. For me, this is an ideal option since this money covers the services of a nurse, and I do not go into a loss. I also think that you can google more possible options.

Reasons not to rent:

1. a lot of work - even if you get a managing agent, you’ll still have to sort out the tax on the income

2. up-front costs in getting it to rental standard

3. it may not bring in enough. Where I am (a “nice” area but not in the SE), rent on a 3 bed semi would be about £1200 per month, whereas a low cost nursing home is about £3800.

Live in care is great. But as ppl have pointed out don't kid yourself that you'll just need one carer. My parents' needs were complex so we needed two, to enable breaks and the occasional overnight. And their needs escalated so they quickly needed two cares to move and handle. It was also an almost full time job managing the carers.
Sounds like your mum only needs residential right now. But the home would assess before taking her on.
With MiL we were lucky bc my sister in law is a GP and knew the finding ins abs outs. It might be worth chatting with your mum's GP.
Good luck. Having done this for 2 sets of parents it's quite a ride x

Care home now (sell the house) will at least give her and you some choice -I specifically looked for one that was nice that didnt talk about "top ups" and definately took local authority funded people when private funds ran out. Most others wanted two years guaranteed funding in place and then talked about top ups or moving when the money ran out. We live in an expensive area.

if you spend all of her and your money on live in care fees now , or sell / remortgage the house to do so, you may still find yourself needing either to sell the house to pay for care home fees, or at a point where its just up to local authority where they send them. It might be out of area, not v nice (the ones that I looked at which take mainly local authority were not much cheaper tbh and were pretty bad).

meant also to say the care home option was brilliant. My mother is riddled with arthritis and v grumpy and confused. Being away from home has helped massively - it gives her distraction, company and takes it off me! (We arent close). She is eating, and much better. Dont assume they are all horrible places they arent.

OO also dont get caught by signing anything that says you will pay top up fees. You dont have to or guarantee fees.
I think also its up to your mum - if she wants to stay home and will cooporate wtih carers that is great .
Renting out my mothers flat was not going to touch the care home fees in terms of £

I’m not so elderly but am ill and am looking at a care home for me. I’m worried that my young adult daughters who live with me will be made homeless if the house has to be sold to pay for care for me.

My grandfather has to go into a home due to advancing dementia. We had to sell his home to pay for it, but managed to negotiate with the council and they partially paid for the care home. Was a tough battle but got there in the end. We had to look around a couple of council run disgusting places first and pointed out council would pay for nursing at home if he didn't go in. Best of luck OP it's a horrible situation to deal with.

@Bettethebuilder that would be so wrong if that that happened x

As someone else said defiantly be carful signing anything from the council about top up fees, my grandmother is in a very nice home (only one with availability at the time) that she fully funded for two years, money dwindled and social services stepped in to help with her paying them part of her pension each month, she was only entitled to a very small shared room, but as it had a bathroom I ended up with a bill each month for the “top up” this was £400-£450 a month and it crippled me, until they finally put her in an even smaller room with no bathroom, now no top up fee is required. I should have read the small print, I was very naive and trusted the council and the care home!

Whoever assessed her I'll tell you if she has nursing home level needs or residential care. So for eg someone requiring nursing home may be someone hoisted with 2 carers requiring hospital profile bed and pressure sore prevention care; wounds to dress, someone with a peg feed or several times a day diabetic injections or other nursing complexities - a nursing need that standard community nursing team are unable to provide so needs to be onsite nurses in the care home. . Just living in a NH doesn't entitle someone to FNC (funded nursing care) element from local CCG they assess themselves.

Always discuss it she is residential care home level first not nursing home unless she has identified nursing home level needs as they are different environments and providers of care homes won't always tell you if she could be funded in appropriate care home somewhere else at a residential rate. Some will but some won't if they know she is self funding as they'll expect you'll have asked around.

I don't know where you live but those are high rates for either residential or even nursing homes per week. Ask one of the homes what the local authority fees are ...

I would get a good assessment of needs by social services and go from there. I hope it's better than ours was - I'm still mildly angry with the complete uselessness of the hospital social worker but the end result has been better so however poor the journey, it would be a bit bad to complain about the good outcome.

That's awful experience @PermanentTemporary as the hospital SW is there precisely to do a good assessment of her current needs

Do your adult DDs have children also living with you (a disregard of property may ensue)?
Did they move into care for you (discretionary disregard may ensue) or are any of them disabled in receipt of PIP (disregard may ensue)?

It's worth looking up your Local authority paying for care in a care home financial charging policy that can explain how it works and when value of assets tied in in her property she was living in prior to admission to care home can be disregarded.

Ah I'm not your social worker so I can't advise what will apply only what might be considered. If you are considering residential care and think it is right for you, then get a care act assessment- there's much the LA may be able to do to keep you at home longer and they appreciate the chance to do that before they explore residential care.

I can see you said younger adult daughters so they probably have stayed living in your home (without their own properties) to care for you, which might be considered. Do an internet research for information available for your Local authority.

The last two were to @Bettethebuilder

@Bettethebuilder
Also you can apply for assessment and ask to be considered for deferred payments and not sell your home but have a charge against it so no one is made homeless ... if that's what LA decide is appropriate. It's a grey area when someone (an adult) lives with you who is caring for you whether LA will disregard or not depending on your circumstances.

I hope you are doing ok, as you must be severely impacted in disability to consider entering residential care so young.

Apologies I had a bold fail

I would get a good assessment of needs by social services and go from there. I hope it's better than ours was - I'm still mildly angry with the complete uselessness of the hospital social worker but the end result has been better so however poor the journey, it would be a bit bad to complain about the good outcome.

That's awful experience @PermanentTemporary as the hospital SW is there precisely to do a good assessment of her current needs