I don't understand the point in buying a home when all the fees go to care

[whatwhatinthebutt]

I hear 'you need to leave something to your children' but then what if it all goes on care?

You had a home that you had to maintain and repair, but you can't leave it to your children because you have to go into a care home.

It seems wrong or strange, because why are we told to do this if it's so likely it will all go before the children benefit from the hard work of the parent?

Care home fees seem to be something around 2 grand a week, so 10 grand a year. How long to people usually last in care homes? Is it oftentimes they die in there?

And how does it work? Say my dad goes into a home, they force me to sell the house to pay, I get a lump of cash, then just give that to the care home and I get what's left when he dies?

I agree, there’s no incentive to work full stop. Why bother? So you can be locked into an enormous mortgage for 35 years, have to maintain the property yourself then deal with the pure stress of selling? Only for it to be sold to pay for care. When somebody who has never worked gets the whole lot for free. Makes no sense.

Social housing isn't subsidised!

My mum is a lifelong renter and has been booted from her home 3 times because the landlord has wanted to sell. Owning would've prevented that stress.

You can ring fence 50% of a property you own so that they can only take 50% of its value to pay for care should you need it. A financial adviser has sorted that for my family.

What happens if everyone does this though? social care is in crisis as is the NHS with huge staff shortages. I'm not sure why we should expect people to get a crap wage so others can inherit more.

I work in a care home nursing and residential. We have many residents that have lived with us for 5 years plus so no it's
Not usually a 6 month stay. In fact unless someone is there for pallative care only,it's very rarely only 6 months.
Secondly it is a huge myth that if you sign your house over to your children 7 years earlier that you will not be expected to pay for your care from the house value. It comes under the deprivation of assets law.
It used to be that you paid for residential care but not nursing care however that has changed recently.
It breaks my heart seeing residents having to sell up to pay for their fees but not for the children's inheritance,for them and what that signifies .(loss of the life they were used to)

You pay, your family pay, the council pay, the state pay - whoever it is it comes from you or taxes, so again you. Very definition of cutting off you nose to spite your face to choose not to earn any money as you will only end up spending it on your self, and thinking a better idea is to live in poverty and others can pay for your bare essentials.

Unless they're Scottish, or French, or German, or Italian....

You pay, your family pay, the council pay, the state pay - whoever it is it comes from you or taxes, so again you. Very definition of cutting off you nose to spite your face to choose not to earn any money as you will only end up spending it on your self, and thinking a better idea is to live in poverty and others can pay for your bare essentials.

Buying our house had nothing to do with inheritance or care home fees. It was simply to have a nice roof over our head that we own and have full control over, we decide what it looks like, what work is done and when we move out.

We have paid our mortgage off now so it's great to live rent free.

If we have to use some of the value to pay care fees, ok. If we don't and the value gets left to DC, great. If we need the money and downsize or equity release, great. We have lots of options as a result of home ownership.

But you still have to pay rent, which is often much more expensive, and never ends. Plus there’s the insecurity of knowing you can be kicked out at any time, imagine being in icy ex by your landlord at 80. And don’t even get me started on the terrible state of some of the rented housing stock.

My grandma never bought. She ended up in a council adapted bungalow that was dirt cheap. She lived happily and independently into her late eighties then had a stroke and a week later died in hospital .

Had she have owned a house the kids would have got everything.

My grandad never bought . He had significant health issues and ended up in a supported living flat from his sixties . When he got into his late seventies and his health deteriorated the council moved him to a care home . It for great for the first five years but then he needed a nursing home. Council kept denying it and as they were paying we didn't get a choice. He spent years laid in a bed with only radio on. I visited a few times a week and carers visited his room 3 times a day but he was completely alone. Couldn't get up, go toilet, drink etc. couldn't go downstairs to communal rooms, just laid getting bed sores listening to music. If carers remembered to switch it on. He lived like that for nearly ten years before being moved to a nursing home a few weeks before he died.

The issue is if you don't have the money to pay for your old age you are reliant on the local authority to do it for you and they will decide based on cost rather than best interest. My grandfather spent about 30 years of his life reliant on the council to make the right decisions and unfortunately had years of suffering as a result.

@autienotnaughti the average care home stay in 14 months.

The point is if you don't pay for your care home you get no autonomy in what your care looks like and yes 30 years of care is probably the extreme but it's still a possibility.

Which is why those caught with fees of £200,000 and more feel the system is so unfair

Care home fees seem to be something around 2 grand a week, so 10 grand a year. How long to people usually last in care homes? Is it oftentimes they die in there?

Your maths is off a bit here @whatwhatinthebutt - £2k/week is not £10k/year is it? But yes, I do get your point, which is care fees are effing expensive!

I don't understand the resentment about this children do not have a right to inheritance - until someone is actually dead, the money belongs to the person is belongs to and needs to be used to fund that person. It's not your money, it belongs to your parents.

It is my money. I want it to be spent helping my children and grandchildren, not keeping my physical body alive long after my brain has rotted.

if you read the threads on this, the overall message coming over is “I would far rather my parents are cared for than to receive an inheritance”. It’s the parents who feel the unfairness, not the children.

It would be fairer if all homeowners had the choice, at the age of 67, to opt to either take their chances and either keep their estate in full if they need no long term care, but pay for it in full if they need it or opt to pool their resources with other homeowners of the same retirement year, agreeing to corporately pay a share of all the care costs of everyone in that year group so that everyone pays a bit rather than yhe unfortunately long-lived few shouldering their whole burden. There was a suggestion of spreading the cost over those reaching retirement age, but the opposing political party derided it as a “dementia tax” and it got no further. If only 1 in 5 go into a care home, and most survive less than 3 years, subsidising those paying say more than £200,000 would not be a large burden. Yes, it’s subsidising someone’s inheritance, but if it were your children being left with nothing you might feel differently. You would have to make sure it was targeted - it’s not fair for those with no money anyway to leave their children to have to contribute.

Why shouldn't you pay for your own care? I think it's good. Why should only those paying for their own care be required to contribute to someone else’s care?

While that may seem unfair, it's no different than other aspects of the benefit system. If you have something, you pay for it yourself, if you have nothing, the state will step in. You don’t usually pay for yourself, and then another 40% on top (and on top of what you’re already paying through tax) for someone else’s care.

You mean have a system where you’re allowed to keep the amount you paid for your house, corrected for inflation, rather then lose the whole lot? And you don’t have your contribution upped by 40% to contribute to other people’s care?

It's still worth it, only around 4% of adults go into care homes, so technically more people benefit from the work of their parents and family assets.

We are conditioned to think that everyone's end of life is in a care home, is that was the case there would be a care home in every village and thousands of them in towns and city's.

So the work and building of assets is a benefit to the large majority of families.

While that may seem unfair, it's no different than other aspects of the benefit system. If you have something, you pay for it yourself, if you have nothing, the state will step in. You don’t usually pay for yourself, and then another 40% on top (and on top of what you’re already paying through tax) for someone else’s care.

i think in this situation it really grates because the costs involved are so high and the money is going directly to private enterprises / big private care chains. A nursing home bed at £3/4K a week can rip through savings at an incredible rate. While the person in the room next door isn’t paying a penny, for exactly the same care.

My parents did not go into care. I believe most people don’t

Care home fees seem to be something around 2 grand a week, so 10 grand a year.

I hope you're not an accountant.

Why should only those paying for their own care be required to contribute to someone else’s care

So no money comes from general taxation?

I feel really unhappy about subsidising someone else’s inheritance (especially when many will get nothing anyway as their parents have nothing to leave) when people can’t subsidise the education of young people.

It seems time and again the older generations get a better deal at the expense of the young.

I thought that was nursing home? Average care home stay a little under 3 years.