Entitled Tory whilst putting down labour voters

[Questionmeantchangingname]

Name changed friend is on here. Recently spent time with friend from years back.

Staunch Tory. Doesn't want Labour in because doesn't want to pay for more 'scroungers on benefits '.

However, completely feels its ok for her mothers care home fees of almost £1000 per week to be paid by the taxpayer. (Property was popped in trust for her around 10 years ago so early inheritance to avoid potential fees later). Mum then lived there with her husband who still lives there.

Loaded and using taxpayer money to suit own ends. Double standards and feels it OK for care fees to be paid but not for families on benefits. Made me think much less of her. The entitled attitude that mum and dad paid in so free care a right (her mother never worked). The attitude that inheritance should be kept and not used for care.

Extremely scathing of low paid workers (should have worked harder at school and gone to University). She didn't, just married a man who was successful.

I'm shocked at her opinions and attitudes to others that are less well off and struggling.

I have a question.
Would all the posters tut-tutting at these awful Tories happily pay £1,000+ a week in care home fees if you could pay nothing?
And to address another topic that comes up regularly, if you could reduce your tax bill in a completely.legal way, would you choose to pay more tax?
Unless you can answer yes to these scenarios, then you are a hypocrite. There seem to be a lot of posters wagging their fingers at others and telling them what to do, but not considering what they would do themselves in the same scenario.

I was happy for my parents’ money to be used to pay their care home fees. They’d saved for a rainy day all their lives and when they needed care it was time to put the umbrella up. It meant they could go into a care home together when they needed it and it meant we could choose the one that suited them best.

We know there are ways we could circumvent care home payments should we need residential care but we won’t be doing it because we want choice too. Our kids will have to be happy with what’s left.

Your home is not affected if one member needs to go into care
joint money and savings taken generally as 50/50 are taken into account when assessing how you pay for care.

Just stop being friends with Tory voters. I’m sure I do…

Why would you do that? Are you only interested in people who have the same opinions as you?

I’m only interested in being friends with people who have the same moral compass as me. And Tory voters don’t.

Oh that old humblebrag that all Labour supporters are morally superior. I can't get involved in such a simplistic and vacuous discussion. Crack on.

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What I have posted above is a representation of a bell curve, or more properlu a normal curve of distribution. I hope it works. I not pursued it to the extremes of Steven Hawking like intelligence at the right or need to be cared for SEND at the left. Most of MN posters are over to the right, well clear of the centre. It is very hard if you are there to know why people on the left of the curve aren't like them. It doesn't depend on how hard they work st school, they can't achieve as much as others. So I get mad when I see people write them off as the authors of theur own failure, scroungers, skivers, the usual range of Tory insults, when they struggle to achieve what they can. It ill behoves we lucky ones to write them off so glibly.
Edited to restore curve

I tried twice to make that look like a bell curve. Please piece out my imperfections with your thoughts!!

This was brilliantly explained in a piece by Sam Freedman last year (link below but may be paywalled about the Thatcher generation.

Basically, Mrs Thatcher's idea was that people should keep more of their money because they could use it to look after themselves more effectively than the state could. Hence lower taxes etc. But what's happened is that those people took the tax cuts but now resent the fact they're expected to pay for their own care, pay inheritance tax etc.

I'd also add that most people simply have no idea how much things cost. Hence the whine of "why can't the council stop spending money on translating leaflets/diversity officers and pay my care home fees for ten years instead?"

https://samf.substack.com/p/boomers-and-the-ultimate-failure

Good point

Deprivation of assets doesn't have a time limit on it, even if they wait for the second DH to die.

There will also be capital gains to pay when the property is sold since the DH doesn't own the property and the DD has her own home already.

Name changed eh?

Life interest trust means that the father's half is totally protected and cannot be touched even years later, I've since checked this out.

Survivors half is only not used currently since remarried and new husband lives there but doesn't own and he needs to live somewhere. Therefore local authority find care. It's correct.

Yes I've made clear I name changed for this question. (Spelling correction)

Furthermore its not deprivation of assets since father left his half to friend in trust. Its all legal. I understand why they did it.

My shock was more about her comments about scroungers taking advantage but ok for others to. Whether rich or poor many take advantage of state.

I really love this view- but there are nurses (went to uni - are qualified professionals) needing to use benefits/ food banks. Also you must know that there are a lot of other essential low income roles which may need support from benefits too? We can't all earn 100k plus in more "important" and "hard working roles" and so that narrative needs to stop!

I agree, I hate the term scroungers on benefits. Lots of hard working people claim top up benefits. Doesn't make them scroungers. It's an awful word to use.

I'm sure it was unintentional OP but your opening post suggests an attitude towards an often vulnerable group (the elderly) not dissimilar to the attitude of the friend you're complaining about. Many older people struggle to pay care home fees, and your post, unintentionally I'm sure, encourages pitting groups against each other. People on benefits and the elderly are both vulnerable groups and there's been 'basher' threads on here about both.

Also they're not always mutually inclusive groups. There's a significant minority of older people in poverty and on benefits (pension credit).

With your friend, I'm surprised her parents are willing to rely on local authority care if they need it. Often the quality of care is much poorer if paid for by the local authority rather than self funded. Unless her rich husband intends to help out his PIL if and when they need care? (Which defeats the purpose of them putting the house in trust, but that's their lookout).

As for 'benefit bashing', unfortunately it's not a Tory specific thing. I've been on several 'benefit bashing' threads here and seen more than a few posts saying something like 'I support Labour but... insert BenefitsBashing' and 'I'm left leaning but... insert BenefitsBashing'. Perhaps because of the legacy of the last Labour governments attitudes towards the vulnerable. (Hopefully the current Labour Party has moved on from that nastiness and false economy).

http://www.labournet.net/other/0409/disability1.html

Your friend seems unusual for the wealthy.

I assume she's wealthy because trusts that allow avoidance of care home fees are expensive (unless for disabled dependents but even then it's often fairly complicated and costs money to set-up).

Care home fees are usually an issue for the Just About Doing Ok groups. People who were on low to average wages before retirement who happen to own a home bought before house prices were allowed to become out of control.

The truly rich, those who have inheritance tax avoidance or reduction schemes, tend to have care home insurance so they're unaffected by care home fees. This insurance is usually too expensive for most people.

They have it because they know local authority care is poorer quality than privately funded care). No truly wealthy person wants to rely on the local authority for their care.

Either your friend is foolish and uninformed or she and her DH (and or her parents) aren't as wealthy as she wants you to think. Perhaps there's massive debt or other money problems she doesn't want you to know about or something else she for some reason isn't sharing with you. Does she have any disabled siblings or DC? (Homes are sometimes put in trust to ensure support for disabled dependents).

What your friend calls “scroungers on benefits” some might call lifestyle choices. It is a choice not to work hard at school and not to get a job

It really isn't a choice. There's loads of jobs that require very hard work but are low paid. Important jobs but low paid, and someone has to do those jobs. And as you point out, illness or disability isn't a choice and it's something that working hard at school can't prevent.

There's also, aside from illness or disability, other unplanned Shit Happens life events. Redundancy, relationship breakdown, DV, one parent disappearing and not paying child support even if they're a high earner. Working hard at school can't protect against these events.

Actually I'm wrong. It is a choice but a political one (and that's been both Labour and Conservative, although we can hope the current Labour party are going to end the false economy approach). False economy of not having good well-funded public services, supportive benefits system, more social housing, improved child support system, and job education and training opportunities. Without these things more people need benefits and for longer periods of time.

The other thing though is there's not enough jobs.
916,000 job vacancies in the UK, but over 1 million people on jobseeker benefits (and that's not including people on sickness benefits).

You're totally right katypp. A long time friend "cancelled" me when I expressed different views to her on politics. Such limited thinking.
My husband and I are poles apart politically which makes fir some stimulating discussions!

I didn't read the thread before posting. Do you mean it's not a trust (*very expensive to setup, and as I said people with that level of wealth don't generally plan to rely on local authority care, as it's usually much poorer quality than privately funded care). It's not a trust but your friend has been left a share (half) of the parents house?

In that case, as she's not living there, wouldn't the house still have to be sold to pay for care? Proceeds of sale would see her half protected but the other half would be used to pay for care?

Or if her parent needs to move to a more accessible home, if they have mobility or other needs that make the current house unsuitable. It would need to be sold, and presumably she'd also be liable for half of the costs of sale (and possibly capital gains tax?).

• Trusts in that scenario are usually very expensive to setup, but there's certain circumstances when it's a bit cheaper. If it's for a DC who's a minor (under 18) or a disabled adult dependent.

Also imo your friend is being selfish by not thinking of or caring about her parents. As I say, Local authority funded care is often much poorer quality than privately funded.

Also she's taking a risk. Shit Happens life events aren't impossible even for someone in in her current financially good position.

If she ever needs benefits (despite her current good financial circumstances, it's not an impossible scenario), won't she struggle to claim because she owns half of her parents house and that could be included as an asset?

She may think it won't happen to her but it could. She and or her husband could become unable to work through illness or disability, or could experience redundancy or some other Shit Happens event.

Does she have DC? If so, what if the marriage breaks down and he walks away and weasels out of paying child support? Also if the marriage breaks down, wouldn't her share of her parents house count as a marital asset?

Nit sure if I read this right, but if your friend’s mum gifted her half the house before the mum’s second marriage, I think it would be more likely to avoid her dd being disinherited than to avoid care home fees.

Your link to the solicitors mentions some of the issues I've raised. The pitfalls are why many people don't do it.

The wealthiest, those who have actual trusts, as opposed to leaving half the house to adult DC, generally also have separate arrangements for privately funded care (often care insurance, which isn't cheap). Like I said before, there are exceptions for minor DC or disabled adult dependents but that doesn't seem to be the case for your friend.

From your link:

If you transfer your home into someone else’s name and the sole intention is to avoid the payment of care home fees, the council will deem the transfer to be a “deliberate deprivation of asset

A transfer of property, in which you are living, to your children can be regarded by HMRC as a “gift with reservation of benefit”.

There can be other unforeseen consequences. For instance, should your child subsequently get into financial difficulty and be made bankrupt, this could result in the trustee in bankruptcy calling for your home to be sold.

In addition, if your home is transferred into a child’s name and then that child divorces, their share of the home may form part of their divorce settlement.

£1000 a week! Jeez. Round here it's minimum 1500- 2200 a week.