Combining property with (adult) child and care home costs

[tooldforicy]

Just wondering if anyone has any experience of how things work if an elderly parent sells their home to buy a larger home with an (adult) child who will care for them, then later needs to move to a care home?
I currently look after finances for DM. She has mental capacity but has dementia plus some mobility problems and does not want to continue living in her own home (mainly due to delusions). I think we should be looking at a care home as she now needs a lot of help but DB is totally against that and has started to talk to her about potentially selling both their houses to buy a larger home where she can live with his family and they can look after her. The suggestion seems to be that mum will put the funds from her house towards this but the house will not be in her name- the money she puts in will effectively be in return for them caring for her/paying the bills etc. I don't have a particular problem with that as such- I'm not prepared to have her living with me and in any event don't expect there to be anything to inherit after the cost of care if she goes in to a home. Ultimately it's her home/money and her decision. My concern is what would happen if/when at a later date she needs more care than they are willing or able to provide and she needs external carers or to move in to a home. Would this be treated as deliberate deprivation of assets (DB seems sure it's not but thinks this is irrelevant anyway as the purpose is to keep her out of a care home)? My worry is that if it happened concerns about their home would mean they don't seek help when it's needed and/or the whole thing will be a mess that I am then expected to sort out.
I'm not sure I can do much about it, but would like to understand so that I can try to explain it to her and make sure it's flagged at the time. It's not possible to have a sensible discussion with DB as he is very annoyed with me for making it clear that I won't move DM in with me or move in with her full time or part time and is very aggressive every time I have tried to speak to him about alternatives. Unfortunately, DB seems to be in denial about how DM's condition is likely to deteriorate so I suspect he is really not prepared for her to need any more care than she currently does.

Does your brother have a resident partner?

Oh does, sorry, re read.

I think you might need to speak to a Social Worker - Age Concern to clarify the position re deprivation of assets, and then again if you felt that your mother’s needs were not being met and your brother and family would not discuss it.
Coyld you speak to your brother’s partner at all about the current concerns?

Your brother has got his eyes firmly fixed on the prize, i.e he is focusing on financial gain for himself.

I know you said you look after mum’s finances, but do you have POA? Do you think your brother wants to avoid care costs to maximise any inheritance?

That’s what I thought, but I’m a suspicious old crow. That’s why I wondered if he had a partner who might be expected to shoulder the caring.

Leave them to it he doesn't want your input. But I would think if all the money from her house sale is gifted to DB (in the form of a house) it won't look good. I'm sure if she has to go into a home it will be looked at carefully and they may have to make restoration. Has he asked a solicitor for a proper opinion? Of course he may be right and it will never happen.

What might happen is that his partner will put a stop to his plans anyway and mum will have to pay for care, either in her own home or in a residential home.

“she can live with his family and they can look after her”

So how much “caring” will DB be doing, or will it fall on his DW? Does he have any experience of caring? You say, “DB seems to be in denial about how DM's condition is likely to deteriorate so I suspect he is really not prepared for her to need any more care than she currently does” - sadly, she is likely to need a great deal more care, including bathing and toiletting, and help with feeding, too. Is his family prepared for this? Will his marriage stand it? It sounds like a disaster waiting to happen - your DB sees an opportunity of getting a larger house courtesy of your DM, and is being totally unrealistic about the ramifications. You are totally right to be thinking of looking at a care home - don’t let your brother’s hare-brained scheme prevail.

It sounds like your DB isn’t looking at things realistically, and has no idea how difficult it is to care for a relative with dementia. Your stance is the wiser one.
I’m not by any means an expert, but it can now be reasonably expected that your mum will need care, and therefore her assets will be used to fund that care. If the value of her house was ploughed into the cost of a bigger house for family to be resident, not long before she needed care, Im sure the local authority would be putting a charge on the house to the value of her current house, which would mean DB and family would have to downsize earlier than they might want to.
Social work advice would be very useful here! Your concern that their desire to avoid care costs might lead to her staying there longer than is in her best interests, is a worry, and having a social worker involved could protect from this.

I am sure this could be seen as deprivation of capital and I have seen families not getting any contribution towards care home fees as they are still treated as having the money. You need proper advice but looks like mum already has care needs.

A colleague I work closely with did this. Unfortunately the health of the parent deteriorated more rapidly than they were expecting, and they had to move into a care home around 18 months after buying their shared home.

The council did indeed come after the parent's share of the house, and, as my colleague couldn't afford to buy them out, they were forced to sell and downsize. So all in all it was very stressful and expensive.

So your mum gifts him all her assets and he provides 100% of her care needs.

Quite a risk he’s taking on there. He is prepared to deal with her incontinence, her sundowning, the endless medical needs, the inevitable falls, and the daily toll of a loved one with dementia?

And he agrees to pay 100% external care costs that do arise, be they visiting carers or care home costs.

As you say he’s in denial about how things might progress I suspect this is a recipe for disaster. Has he spent a week with her 24/7 recently?

If your mum already has dementia then I would be ensuring that your mums capacity unsaid the sale of her home and and the implications , is formally evidenced …. It’s not a matter of saying …..do you want to move mum and her agreeing….that’s not informed consent

Quite so.

I would expect anyone working in your DM's best interests to ensure that a chunk (if not all) of her assets were kept aside to fund in-home carers if she doesnt want to go into residential care.

This is exactly what happened to my cousin. They got a letter from the LEA before the funeral had taken place and two weeks later the house was on the market. The whole thing was a disaster and my cousin had to quickly get rid of her mother’s possessions because their house was for sale so quickly. She had the death of her ,other and moving house in the space of weeks.

How old is your mum and do either of you hold LPA? Your brother has no idea how dreadful it can be caring for a person with dementia. The wandering, the delusions of being treated with violence, double incontenance are just a few.

As someone who had to move their MIL in with their family to provide care it is a hard slog. In our case her family home wasn't sold and has only been sold after her death and split between her sons as inheritance.

She lived with us for a bit more than 6 months (cancer not dementia). It was a very hard time even with external carers coming in towards the end of her life.

He really does need to consider the impact on his on life / family including suitability of proposed house (stairs etc), emotional impact on any children being much higher when they die, are they happy to have her die at home? Medication administration and storage, disruption of nurses / carers coming in and out. Is your mother understanding/ accepting her diagnosis and forecast? My MIL never did so we were always playing catch up as she wouldn't accept any help until past the point where she absolutely needed it and no matter how hard you try it often takes weeks for things to get set up.

Where does your mum want to move to, as you say she has capacity and she no longer wants to live alone at home?

I'm not sure your brother necessarily has formed a nefarious plan to get his hands on more property equity; you say he is angry that you won't live with your DM, so maybe this is just a petulant reaction to what he thinks should be happening.

Selling two properties and buying one could easily take 9-12 months in the current climate. Especially finding one to buy that has facilities for your DM with reduced mobility, and is big enough for all the family to have their own space.

I think in your shoes I'd mildly and calmly let your DB know that you've done a bit of reading online and you think that deprivation of assets would be an issue in future (by text as well, so he can't pretend you didn't say it). Arrange for carers to pop in for now, and visit a couple of homes with your DM to see what she thinks and open lines of communication with them. This can be 'just for now' and 'just as a backup plan'.

If you don't make it an issue to fight over with your DB, and the months go by, and his DW sets her boundaries about what care she is prepared to provide, I would expect sense to prevail.

Does he realise how much work it will be?

What happens when she can’t be left on her own, needs personal care, can’t manage the toilet etc?

This gives a broad outline of some of the pitfalls and complexities of a proposition like this

https://www.thegoodcaregroup.com/care-advice/can-i-gift-my-assets-to-avoid-care-fees/

Db is delusional unless he has experience of geriatric care
As pp said is he up for dealing with her incontinence, her sundowning, the endless medical needs, the inevitable falls, and the daily toll of a loved one with dementia?

As she already has a known condition that reasonably will require increasing levels of care they certainly would consider it a deprivation of assets if full time or domiciliary care was sought via the council in the short to medium term, in fact unlike inheritance tax there is no set number of years they can back track officially but 7 years is a good starting point - is she likely to need professional care within 7 years?

a compromise is only using half her house money to fund a larger home (or less) to keep money in reserve, or better still no money changes hand at the move but you dm pays monthly rent for her room and board for the food etc. they can then buy in domiciliary care if and when required which keeps her at home longer, if residential care is required having some money means you can act quickly and sort the council funding later

Thanks all. Seems I'm right to be concerned. DM has been staying with DB over Xmas and as far as they are concerned the only problem they've had is lack of space, hence the suggestion of combining homes. I think this is unrealistic since for this time DB and his DP have both been at home with no particular plans. During this time she's not had any delusions/hallucinations (she was always worse when she'd been alone) and of course she's not had to try to make her own food/drinks etc. I'm hoping she stays with them a little longer and they see that it's not workable once they have to go to work etc. I have tried myself to have DM staying with me for a short time. I work from home and hoped she'd be able to just be left watching TV etc happy that there was someone else in the house. In reality it was impossible as she constantly wanted help with something that she considered urgent, or to ask me the same question over and over. If I went out for more than a few minutes she phoned repeatedly asking when I'd be back, saying she wasn't well, asking whether she'd taken her medicine etc. At that time her confusion was nowhere near as bad as it is now. I have told DB about this but his view is that this is just down to me not planning or explaining things to her properly.

It is possible that DB is planning to leave work and care for DM if necessary (he has made comments along the lines of how much he'd like to not have to work and be able to just sit at home looking after DM- mainly aimed at me because he doesn't really accept that I work). If he is considering this he clearly hasn't thought it through- he constantly complains that he and his partner have no spare money and mum only has a very small pension income.

At the moment, DB thinks I am a selfish, unkind daughter and neither he nor his partner are willing to enter any dialogue about practicalities. DM of course loves the idea of her wonderful son taking care of her (and given her dementia she's unlikely to think about it further than that).

Is there a POA in place?