I wonder if you get a refund if you don't go into a care home

[2shoes]

as lots don't

Oh, yes, private renting all your life is so much fun!

Nearly always been 60 days away from homelessness, always having to make sure you've got a spare £1500 or so (when you're already near skid row) because you are never more than 60 days away from having to find another place to live and all the expenses that go with it, finding someone who takes partial HB (and for those on full HB, yikes!) or will count tax credits in the income minimum.

Never being able to decorate the way you want.

Living with things like damp, non-working essentials and arguing with letting agents and landlords to get it fixed.

It's a great alternative!

Here, here, Laurie!

It's not going to be an option renting v's buying for an awful lot of young people.
Where exactly are they going to find the 25% deposits required to buy their homes at 4 times their salary (assuming they have one) and pay off the £50k student debt ? Unless they inherit that money to get them started.

How many people actually inherit when they're young anyway - unless they're in the tiny percentages who get to access family trusts when they reach a certain age?

My father was in his 50s when his parents died and he was the baby of the family, his brother and sister were over 60.

My mum is very happy that she still hasn't inherited at 61 - my grandma's still going strong at 91.

It's a risky, risky business to base any hopes on someone dying and leaving you money.

If you sign your house over your children (ones that you can trust obv.) when you retire, won't you avoid all this anyway?

There must be a loophole

• to your children

There's definitely a loophole - you can hand it all over and providing you survive 7 years it's perfectly legal.

My cousin recently asked his mother to sell her house, they sell theirs and get a big house together. She's not in great health, but seems to solve the problem of her living far away....

My own mother will come and live with me when she can't cope.

This thread has opened y eyes quite a lot actually.

DH and I are young working poor and I know we have always thought that our house and our pensions will buy us a nice lifestyle when we reach 55ish. We will indeed sell and live it up. We have no intention of passing the money on to our children (hell,no one gave us a penny).

We always thought that we were entitled to being taken care of by the state when we are older. That our taxes buy us that right. But this thread has made me question why I think that is my right. I can see the argument as to why that assumption is foolish.

However I do still question why the people who have worked all their lives should pay for those that are too lazy to work and pay into the state. For example, a relative of mine who has 5 children, never worked a day in her life and nor has has her partner. They claim JSA and take take take from the state, no mortgage and rent on thier privatley rented house paid for them.
Surely it cannot be fair that they and others like them can continue to do this all their lives funded by those who work?

My folks have adapted their home to suit them if their mobility declines.

However, they have the option of selling up, buying a home here that is large enoguh for us to help them because my mother is an EU national.

The problem is if you hand it over any then need care. Social Services are very good at spotting when people have deliberately deprived themselves of assets to avoid paying for care.

'We always thought that we were entitled to being taken care of by the state when we are older. That our taxes buy us that right. But this thread has made me question why I think that is my right. I can see the argument as to why that assumption is foolish.'

Sadly, I think a lot of young (teens and 20s) people have come to have this idea.

We pay taxes for a peaceful society which allows us to work mostly uninterrupted, not an insurance plan to be supported by the state for 20+ years whilst we go on to possibly develop increasingly complex and expensive-to-treat health conditions.

It costs extraordinary amounts of money to run a relatively peaceful society with plentiful food. This is how we're able to go out and earn a living, however.

See, I just don't think people who live on JSA have that plush a life. Imagine living like that your whole life, then existing on the basic state pension (albeit topped up to the minimum level that the state reckon someone can survive on) and then get put in the care home that SS will pay for (so the cheapest) or maybe end up filling a hospital bed for the rest of your days.

I don't think that's something I'm all that envious of.

Money in old age still buys you stuff. Often care homes won't take you unless you've got a minimum amount of capital. My mum's friend was looking for a care home in Edinburgh for his (wealthy) mother - they wouldn't consider her unless she could prove she had at least £1.5million in assets. Was a very nice place though.

Another thing is that it can be quite arbitrary. My family are all in NZ but I think it is similar rules to here and my grandfather had to go into a home for a few years but they didn't sell his house as my grandmother lived there. Then,after he had died she was diagnosed with brain cancer and died about 3 months after diagnosis but was able to stay in her home until death.

So my mother got a nice inheritance but if her mother had died first she wouldn't have, and both did die quite close together!

A thought that has worried me.
We're currently looking at moving. the aim is to move nearer the inlaws but as they live ina more wealthy area and we need a bigger house they were going to buy with us but carry on living where they are.
When they die currently our house was going to be Dhs share of the inheritence. Would we be made to sell up?

if they went into a care home that is

bronze not necessarily but it is something worth getting legal advice on because the government are tightening up on this sort of thing all the time.