When should my parents downsize?

[wendyoz]

My parents: Mum 84 with mobility issues plus undiagnosed dementia, probably stage 4 and my Dad also 84 , still ressonably fit and able currently live in the 4 bed family house. It's fairly remote between villages and is unsuitable long term as both bathrooms are upstairs. Mum refuses to see a doctor as she is terrified of being 'taken into care'. They muddle along but it's becoming increasingly apparent the house/garden is too big/remote for them esp if my Dad loses his licence. Mum refuses to move or accept any kind of help ( including gardeners !) Dad does all the shopping, cleaning cooking , house/garden maintenance for a quiet life as she can get really angry/aggressive with him. He is getting overwhelmed/exhausted.
My question is, when should they downsize..before or after she (eventually) goes into care. He is worried that if he downsizes after she goes into care, he will have to start paying for her care fees immediately and will thereby not have enough money from the sale without using some of her proceeds to buy a 2 bed bungalow somewhere. But as she refuses to acknowledge there are problems, he may have little choice. They are tenants in common and have less than 25k in savings between them. The house is worth approx 550k, (275k each) a 2 bed bungalow would cost 350k. Would it be prudent to try and downsize before her inevitable move into care? It's further complicated by the fact they are in the UK, and I am their only child, based in Australia. I have tried researching it on Age Concern but haven't found a clear answer. Any advice, gratefully received. Thank you.

[DustyLee123]

If she won’t agree then I don’t see the point of asking?

[Riva5784]

They probably should have downsized 5 years ago. This sounds like a disagreement between the two of them, your father wants to move house and your mother doesn't.

Why do you say going into a care home is inevitable? Most people don't, even people with dementia.

Typically they stay in the same home and have carers coming in. It's also very common for people to refuse help initially. It may take some kind of crisis before they accept that they need the help.

[PermanentTemporary]

I think I would call the Age UK helpline and get a recommendation of a solicitor for this legal/financial question. I'm not sure of the impact of a tenancy in common on care fees (though I'd better find out, I'm in one!)

I think your dad should move now for his own sake but I get the difficulty of trying to get cooperation from an aggressive demented partner. Maybe others have ideas.
I am seeing more couples in my work where the man in particular leaves moving too long because they are trying to keep their wife in her beloved home. They all wreck their health.

[BartlebyArcher]

a realist might answer ‘when they decide to’. I do hear of parents who have made good and sensible decisions. Sadly
not mine and the reality is you can’t make them. Some parents fall in to the camp of crisis driven management. Mine do. I can’t fight it.

Your Dad may be super fit however it’s also possible that at his age the moment for adapting to change has gone. house chains are complicated enough at any age - add in finding that ideal property and I suspect you might be wise to invest time in looking at making the current property suitable. A stair lift could keep the upper floor accessible for example. If you get to the point where a parent is too unwell or immobile to get out it doesn’t really matter if the house is remote or in a city; either way they still need assistance. with the garden, it might be judicious to think of what a minimal maintenance plan is. I organised turfing of an enormous vegetable patch for example. I also wanted to get rid of the 60 odd planters but a ‘helpful’ relative who parachutes in occasionally and likes to enjoy a spot of gardening on their terms put pay to that 😖

I hear your point re: reluctance to accept help. Help they might also need in a bungalow mind… again some people get there by careful decision making. Others need a crisis. My route in was to apply for attendance allowance for my remaining parent. Told them this was the only non-means tested funding they would ever get and it was to be used for care. This was the lever to push to get a gardener, then a care agency.

I think in your shoes, I’d have a quick look to see how realistic a move to a bungalow is. Are they available, are they accessible? Now my parent has mobility problems I have realised that few bungalows ARE accessible in any meaningful way. Lots have steps to get in, slopes, baths or showers with raised lips… in other words the benefits vs the existing house may not be as big as you think.

[Lifeisgood1]

If she has stage 4 dementia she doesn't have capacity to agree to sell her share of the house to downsize?

[crumblingschools]

Do they have POA in place?

You should downsize before the house gets too much for them, which it obviously is now.

[SilverGlitterBaubles]

I think it may be a little late to make a decision like this. You need to consider how long will it take to sell the property and find another suitable home. How will your elderly parents cope with managing the house sale and moving and the huge stress of all of this? It would be very difficult to help from abroad. We helped PIL downsize from the family home to a smaller property and it was hugely stressful and they were not as old and they were in good health.

[Womblingmerrily]

I think the answer is usually 'sooner rather than later' - however as you have found, this is down to the individuals involved making this choice - and very often they don't.

[notanothernana]

You need LPA now.

[BartlebyArcher]

Re: the tenants in common. I have this situation. This should preserve the portion of the house belonging to one parent in the event of their death. This isn’t deprivation of assets as the asset doesn’t belong to the remaining parent. However, with one parent having died, if the other parent needs residential care, am I really going to sit on my 50% inheritance while they are forced in to a home that the council will fund??! I think not.

[countrygirl99]

If she has dementia moving is likely to make it worse.

[FiveShelties]

As soon as possible, but I fear you may have an uphill battle if they are so against a move. You have my sympathy it is very tough trying to help from overseas (I am in NZ). Hope you have POA which makes things easier.

Could you go over and visit and see what you can do in person to put things in place?

[crumblingschools]

Your DM should go to the GP, could get referred to memory clinic. There can sometimes be medication to slow down the process, although not sure if she is beyond that stage.

Can you come over and see them?

[shellyleppard]

I think you might be better getting in carers, a stairlift and asking social services for an assessment. If they sell the house now it might still be classed as a financial asset regards the care needed for your mum?? She can get financial help for care if they have less than £20, 000 in savings. Anything above that it will be a contribution to care costs. Good luck x

[DaphneduM]

I think your best course of action is to encourage your dad to start buying in a bit of help for cleaning and gardening. This would take some of the burden off him.

Maybe also try and explain to your Mum that she won't be ' taken into care' but if and when the time comes she does need care, then she can have carers at home. I'm sure also at that time your Dad could apply for Attendance Allowance which would help a bit with costs.

Sadly the time for downsizing, in my opinion, has come and gone. I doubt your Dad could cope with the stress of a move. It's challenging buying and selling at any age, to be honest, and it would be an almost unimaginable burden on your Dad. Not wanting to be alarmist here, but also with the stress your Dad is under, he could well end up having unexpected health issues - he must be under a huge strain. So to summarise, I would definitely encourage him to get help with his day to day running of the house.

I totally sympathise with your worries. So hard too, as you're abroad. I hope you manage to help your Dad navigate a solution that works for him and takes the pressure off a bit.

[Ellmau]

Could they get a bathroom put in downstairs?

[zurg123]

I think it's too late. Ideally 10-15 years ago when they were both well.

[Swoopy]

As soon as possible.

It sounds as if your mum’s biggest fear is going into care. That’s not inevitable, even with dementia, and I wonder whether one way to approach it would be to present the move as something to prevent that happening (or at least reduce the chances)- your dad will be better able to support her if he has a less challenging house, carers will be more able to attend if they’re less isolated etc etc. You can also present it to your mum as being for your dad’s sake- he can’t cope with the garden any more - rather than her feeling it’s all because of her (do you think your dad would be happy to play along?)

I’d really encourage your mum to see her GP. There is support available. It must be terribly frightening to think you’re going to be whipped away into a care home against your will but honestly, that’s not how it will be- if she wants to stay living at home people will do what they can to support that. The bigger risk is that they don’t make changes and then the current way of working falls apart completely, at which point it’s much harder to avoid care.

Sorry, I know you know all this- just thinking about ways to talk to your mum about it. Also worth getting some advice from a solicitor on the practicalities.

Do you have lasting power of attorney in place?

[olympicsrock]

Your huge priority here is Lasting Power of Attorney. If she possibly has capacity to do it it needs to be done ASAP

Anything else is of secondary importance.

[catsrus]

Both of my parents ended up in hospital at the same time. One with a fall the other with pneumonia- they couldn't be released home because neither was fit to care for the other in an unsuitable house. This forced the situation.

They ended up renting in a retirement complex and it worked well for them, they both died a few years later, but had been relatively safe with an on site warden and fall alarms etc,

[polkadot24]

I agree with you and the obvious answer is now but if they don't want to then I don't think there is anything you can do. I'd imagine that it's a really hard thing to admit you can't cope after all of the years working to get a lovely house. Every elderly person I've known- family and friends - have refused to move. Older people get set in their ways too which doesn't help in this situation. Can you have an assessment done for anything to be put in place, e.g a stair lift.

Me and my husband don't understand why his parents - mid 60s don't sell and downsize. They have a large house and garden and spend half the year elsewhere. They struggle to keep on top of it now. We suggested it and they were like no, we like our house and when we're dead you can sort the crap out 🤷‍♀️

[BartlebyArcher]

@polkadot24 except, as you are probably well aware, it is best case scenario that you ‘sort the crap out’ when they are dead. More likely, you end up sorting crap out for decades in the period before they die when they become infirm.

[JackSpaniels]

Too late- doing it now may accelerate the end. You need to focus on making their existing house and life liveable.

Are they both claiming attendance allowance? Use the £160-£200 a week to buy cleaners, gardeners etc. us etch line- the government is giving you this money as it knows that you need help and so you need to use it for help.

Make sure that that ground floor has toilet/shower and a room in which a bed can go. The top floor can then be mothballed if needed- must cheaper than selling and buying as fees and stamp duty would be expensive

They need to contact adult social care /gp and ask for an assessment for your mother. What do you mean by stage 4 dementia in practice?

[backinthebox]

It is difficult with parents aging, but without sugar coating this, there is little you can do to support your parents from Australia. It’s an unfortunate side effect of emigrating that when your parents age and become too unwell to help them, you are on the other side of the world and it just isn’t that easy. It is much easier to make a plan for old age before the old age happens but this is often a conversation which happens unexpectedly, not something you can schedule on a FaceTime call, and it is much easier to pick up the pieces of a failure to plan when you are at least an easy travel time away. From personal experience of both my own parents and also in-laws, most of the legwork of dealing with the care of elderly parents, even when you buy help in, must be done in person. You can have cleaners, carers, etc all set up, but when they need someone to come in a hurry, it’s family or friends who dwindle in number as they age too, or they wait,

You’ve made your life a long way from your parents, it can be hard to accept that you have just left them to it (old age) but there’s not much you can do about this now. Having seen the same thing with my own family members (2 have emigrated to Australia) elderly parents were not on their mind when they went, and they have little input or influence on those elderly parents now.

[wendyoz]

Thank you all so much for your replies...there is so much to consider. I have been asking them to downsize for aboit 10yrs but they have buried their head in sand. Thankfully we filed for a LPA 2 yrs ago when I managed to a post covid visit . I will encourage them to go to their GP for an accurate assessment potential help.. thx again.