Selling mine and mother's house and pooling the proceeds to buy a big house for all?

[falstaff1980]

My mother is in cognitive decline and is only just about managing by herself, in her three bed detached house. I live with wife and 3 year old daughter in a 3 bed terraced about a mile away (also have older children from my first marriage who are students and live here during holidays). It would probably be better for my mother if she lived with us, but neither house is adequate in size.

What would be the pitfalls in selling our houses and pooling the money to buy a bigger house?

My fear is if my mother eventually needs to go into a home, we'll have to sell the house to pay for it and me, my wife, and daughter will end up homeless. Also, if my mother passes away, to pay inheritance tax and my sister's share we'd also have to sell. Is there any way the sale price of my current house could be registered as my 'share' of the new bigger house, and so be excluded from inheritance and care cost calculations?

You're wife could divorce you after you've purchased the big house and force a sale. Have you thought about that?

Honestly - just focus on getting a good care package in place for your mum and if you DO decide to pool resources, get legal advice, no one here can help you really.

As lovely as the idea sounds - I would recommend against it. My ex's family took in their grandfather as he only had a few months to live. He lived for another 5 years. And made everyone absolutely miserable. He would shout, swear, boss people around, intrude on people, and refused carers. My ex's mum (it was her FIL), had to wipe his arse, give him sponge baths, feed him whatever he wanted, all whilst looking after 4 kids of her own and running a household. She ended up absolutely burnt out and really resented her FIL.

Both sets of my DH's grandparents had dementia and they were the complete opposite. One turned into an absolute melt - he giggles at everything and is so smiley and jolly. The other turned into the most horrible man on the earth. He would swear, spew racist comments, patronise people, make lewd comments about women, shout, stomp, hit, punch, storm off, run away... you name it. You don't know what your mother will turn into - and even if you're lucky to get a nice version of dementia - they will eventually need round the clock care to ensure they don't leave the stove on, run off in the night, attempt to stab you because they mistake you for an intruder...

I'd recommend leaving the situation as it is, and when the time comes, sell her house and pay for her care package at a reputable care home nearby. Set up a lovely spare room for her to come and visit every now and again.

The thing with dementia is, the person may well have their own lovely space, but sooner or later they will forget that they’re supposed to stay in it most of the time, they’ll come knocking on your door 3 or 4 times a night wanting to be driven to Scotland/go out for fish and chips/demanding to know who’s stolen X - X being the thing they’ve hidden and have forgotten not only having done so, but also where they put it.
I could go on, with plenty more real life examples. 🙁

People think about cognitive decline and think they can cope as caring for them. Having seen it, you can't. If already not really managing alone, you wouldn't be able to manage for long. Its not fair on the people caring for her and in the house. She won't like it but its kinder she moves into a care home or assisted living. The later they go in the worse it gets, if they go in earlier they get a chance to settle in before it gets bad.

She will need care. There is a real risk in inheritance tax and selling to pay for care issues. You have your partner and children to think about. Don't do it.

Im afraid I'm another who thinks this is a bad idea. Apart from anything else the upheaval of moving could affect her badly for months.

She's only a mile away and she's got spare rooms. Could you look at options for increasing care? I would be very precise about what the issues are right now - don't try too hard to predict the future because everyone is different. Eg is she ringing you all the time, struggling with shopping, leaving the gas on...? Or are you afraid of things that haven't happened yet?

Obviously with her agreement, look at things like employing a cleaner, priming the neighbours to let you know if they're worried, installing a keysafe so you can get in if you have to, switching to electric heating, agreeing powers of attorney; there is a lot of monitoring tech out there that is quite subtle (eg a smart plug i think, usually put with a kettle, that you can check if they've used it, or a ring doorbell if you think she's vulnerable to door callers, or call screening etc etc). Get advice from Age UK too.

There are schemes where people rent a room for a low rent and agree to spend some time with the person - that's more about loneliness than care as they're not supposed to be carers. Again, it depends what the issues are right now.

Can I suggest that if you are keen on sharing why don't you move in with your mother and rent out your home. If your mother has a large garden it wouldn't cost much to install a chalet style space which could be your famiy space alone.

Don't do it! For the sake of your child. I grew up in this sort of set up - frail grandparent rather than cognitive decline - and it stops you doing so many things.

All family days out had to include her as couldn't leave her alone. We could only go on limited holidays either taking her with us or finding respite care when we'd go a couple of hours away. And invariably get called back to deal with a emergency.

Who is going to do her shopping, cook meals, clean, provide care, deal with incontinence, deal with the night wakings, take her to medical appointments?

No, no, no, no!

Dementia is not just memory loss. It can be a whole raft of weird behaviour you could never imagine and there is no guarantee how she will decline or how quickly.

It could very quickly become all consuming in ways you could never imagine and blending your Mum with a young family under the same roof is very much a disaster waiting to happen.

There is a dedicated dementia board on Mumsnet. Have a look at some of the threads on there to get a better picture.

Thanks all, and wow, this has really put me off the idea (which was actually my wife's suggestion) - if my mother goes the same way as her mother, which was good physical health, but years of dementia all the way to the end, then I don't think we could cope. I'll just focus on the positive of being 5 mins drive away for now.

I guess I've been watching too much Frasier, sounds like living with an elderly parent is not all jokes and minor disagreements about interior design.

Do you have siblings, they might be concerned over their share if dm house.

All the people women I know who have done this have ended up on antidepressants. Whilst the elders rattle on and on.
Your DM surely wouldn't do this to your family indefinitely anyway. Would she?!

Living with/taking care of an elderly relative is not something to be entered into lightly. I would hazard a guess that you have to be a very special type of person to do the caring with no repercussions. I looked after my aunt as it seemed 'the best thing to do' but would never do anything like that again. It left a terrible feeling of disappointment from her, and resentment from me. Disastrous.

Just here to add my own “don’t do it!” to the chorus.

I wouldn't. In fact, it was suggested recently that FIL live with us after MIL passed due to his multiple, degenerative health issues. DH thought it a fabulous idea.

Once I explained the raw truth of how care consumed and your life and took away your choices, possibly until you're too old have a life yourself, he realised it wasn't so lovely & agreed it was a no.

I'd never do th combined house thing. We have similar deprivation of added rules & DH has a greedy sibling who'd happily see us on the street 'not her problem' to get her share. People turn nasty when money is involved.

The wording is a bit strange, yes. Joint tenants means that you jointly own all of it. Tenants in common means that each of you owns a separate share, which doesn’t pass to the other person when you die (unless left in a will). I think of TIC as meaning you have ownership in common but not of all of it.

@falstaff1980 I know your your intentions were good but you said in your OP that this would be better for your mother and I don’t think you fully considered the implications for you, your wife and your kids, who are equally deserving of a decent life. Just to add to the chorus: mild cognitive decline can develop fairly quickly into full blown dementia. My relative, while still in their own home and before diagnosis, started leaving tablets all over the floor, peeing everywhere, not washing, refusing to let carers in and smearing faeces on the walls. Don’t think it’s easy to stop them. You can’t risk that with a young child in the house.

Perhaps sell your own home - try and find something else with a bigger garden you could put a small, safe, log cabin / annexe in.

Rent your Mums house out - use that money to pay rent to yourselves to help with costs.

Yes, but someone with dementia won’t - or is unlikely to - remember to stay in their own space. As for sheltered accommodation, it often doesn’t work long with dementia - sooner or later the person will so often be asked to leave, because they’re bothering other residents, knocking on doors at 2 am, incontinence, etc.

Thanks all, what really keeps me up at night is the uncertainty of all this. My mother is still managing on her own, just about able to use email and arrange lunch meetings with her friends (she’s has many friends), but then she’ll do something like buying another birthday cake for our daughter because she forgot she bought one the day before. She has no idea about her finances (thankfully I have lpa), she’s stopped reading novels (something she always did her whole life), and can’t follow a lot of the jokes on old sitcoms she used to like.

@falstaff1980 Bless her. It must be incredibly hard mentally for you too xx