DM is homeless and penniless

[Pottlee]

I don’t know where to post this really, so apologies if it’s the wrong place.

My mum has been carer for her mum for maybe 5 years. Grandmother has now sadly passed away. Inheritance wise she has left a small amount behind, which is split between her two 60 ish year old ‘children’ (my mum and my uncle) - around £5-10k each. Mum and her brother have a fractured relationship but showed themselves to get on for the sake of their mum. Not sure it’s going to be as hunkydory now their mother has passed.

Now to the main point - my mum has nothing, like nothing to her name. She has no home (lived with her mum as carer), no money (other than the small inheritance) and no income at all. She has never worked so had made no contributions. She also had never claimed any benefits. The home she lived in with her mother will be sold and that money will go to an equity release company and to pay off a load of other debts.
What on earth happens to her now?
My uncle says she’s my responsibility now, but I would hate for that to be the case in that I don’t have room for her to live at my house, and harsh as it sounds I don’t want to become responsible for her for the rest of her life - hats off to everyone who can do it, but the idea of me having to care for her the way that she cared for her mum is just a no I’m afraid. We are close in a way but don’t get on in another. I couldn’t live with her. It would make my life unbearable and no doubt spell the end of my marriage because my DH couldn’t tolerate her daily either. My 2 DC love her but daily it would be disastrous. She is very lazy, judgemental, negative and nasty. And as I said would be able to make very little/no financial contribution.

So 1. Is she really regarded my responsibility now? 2. What should she do with regards of somewhere to live (she has no money for that) and income for the rest of her life? Is she not entitled to anything as she’s made no contributions or claimed anything at any point?

I’m aware I may come across as heartless because I don’t want to take her on so to speak, but I do want to help her set herself up somehow if she can. I’m just not in a position to be able to offer a place to live or financially.

please if anyone can advise who she can speak to or what she can do. Thank you.

I’ve just seen your further post. The home reversion plan looks fairer but I think those are more modern - I’d be surprised if the OP’s grandmother didn’t have the lifetime mortgage type.

Yes I know they were Nuns it was a joke @RainyDaysSundays
Yes I also come from a family where as far back as the trail goes - about 1890 they all worked - dragging children about with them or leaving them at home with propped up elderly relatives. Yes we were left to our own devices in the 70s and latch key kids in the early 80s mother a single parent. Both my grans chose to work till they were 65 to keep their contributions going while women could still retire at 60. And I started paying NI in 1988 and have a full record

There was nowhere that I said women did not work I said it was more expected to stay at home in the context compared to today. Benefits were paid to single parents until their children were quite old. It's only recently that people on benefits have been more forced to work with children under 5. I was speaking in the context that OPs mother must have a record of national insurance contributions of some form from receiving child benefit in the years she was raising OP.

My questions aren't really odd because I know there wasn't childcare as we have it today.
And I know how hard it was juggling the kids. It was meant to be a discussion not an accusation.

The term spinster was commonly used at least up to the 1980s to describe women who had never married probably judging by the time they had hit menopause. I remember our deputy head at secondary Miss Price always being described as a spinster and still living with her mother. My poor great aunty Edie who never married because it suited her mother for her to stay unmarried and help her with her children she burnt her sweethearts love letters. She lived with her brother till she died in 1974 and was forever referred to as the spinster aunt.
Miss Chambers a vicious spinster teacher at juniors who seemed to dress in bizarre mini dresses still lived with her mum.

I remember going back in the early 90s and the staff dynamics very different.

But I never said women didn't work.

This
Someone somewhere has been helping themselves.

Not necessarily - see my post previously which shows how all the equity could be swallowed up by interest over time on a relatively small initial amount.

Seems like brother wants his sister out of the house pdq foisting her onto op. If she stays in the house till it's sold she has a chance of being rehomed. She could use the inheritance then to get into the real world get a job top up her contributions even move forward, find another man to live off whatever she chooses but she's not OPs responsibility and it all sounds dodgy.

Some of the speculations on this thread are mind boggling! The OP asked if anyone could advise where her mum could get advice and help re her future. Many posters have offered suggestions re CAB, Age UK, her local council. Now its up to the OP/her mum to follow these through.

@Pottlee I hope you return with some updates.

Some equity release schemes offer very little to the home owner. If the grandmother used the equity to subsidise OP's mother, pay off debts and make any 'big' purchases, it would be possible to have spent almost all of it.

Organisations like Age Concern and Citizens Advice will off the specialist help OP's mother needs. The 'advice' from the uncle is a good example of why so called 'advice' from someone without specialist advice should be avoided, especially if they have a vested interest.

@Luddite26 It is a discussion.
It's only that you seemed incredulous that women were able to work in the 1970s and 80s if they had children. You asked what they did for childcare.

Weren't you working around that same time- and with children?

Your mother must be in her late 70s or early 80s now.

It was very much the norm for women to work in the 1970s or 1980s, even with children. Maybe you didn't, and chose not to, but it was very normal. I don't know anyone of my peer group who was a SAHM once their children reached school age (or went to nursery.)

Even my mum's generation (women born in the 1920s and 1930s) were working when they had children.

My mum is the same age as Sir Elton John born in 1947.
I was born in 1971.
I was asking about childcare as a matter of social interest. I didn't feel I was being incredulous. I still think it's widely known that women worked but also many with young children didn't. I was writing in the context of the OP saying her mum 'had pissed about for a couple of years then had a child and that child's father had died before the baby was born.'
I felt the OPs description of her mum at that time seemed a bit harsh as I wondered exactly what a young mother who had experienced the death of the baby's father did about working with a newborn and what childcare was available as I remember childcare being pretty sketchy until about 2000 in my own experience. I was just trying to show some empathy.

Very sensible post.

Good morning and happy new year!

thank so much for even more replies and advice that I have skimmed through but will look at properly when I get chance.

Sorry that I really don’t have much information about the equity release. I wasn’t included in the Will and to be honest have been trying to keep a distance and not involved in all the finances so far in the interest of trying to keep things at arms length and not become too in the thick of all the dramas. I want my mum to start having to deal with her own affairs rather than me getting fully involved in all the ins and outs that quite frankly don’t involve me.
All I can go off is what I’ve been told from DM and uncle, which is that grandmother took out equity release against her property many years but nobody seems to know what it got spent on. I have no reason to think that either of them were involved or have scammed her - maybe they benefitted from the money at some point but I really don’t know. I don’t think it matters now anyway as it’s done.

Probably sensible to stay "arm's length" from that carry on @Pottlee. What possible benefit to you could come from digging into it? Just make sure your mum takes some steps now.

I cannot quite believe she was born in 1963 - she's behaving like it was 1933, which some posters seem prepared to indulge in a bizarre way.

As a sensible poster upthread said: she took early retirement. That's going to be a problem for her now but one for her to pit her back into solving.

Your wish is my command! I have come back but as already mentioned, I really am not in a position to comment on the equity release as I don’t know any of the answers. It was just apparently taken out many years ago not when she was elderly and I definitely don’t know what happened to the money, and nobody else seems sure either, it’s just speculation. But that’s none of my concern anyway really as it doesn’t matter for the situation now as in nothing can be done about it. I don’t think anyone has ripped her off for it - I realise that would be a good twist to a story some people might have built up in their mind, but in reality I think more likely it was taken out by my grandparents and spent on who knows what. But I will probably never know.
house is worth around £220k and grandmother did have state pension.

Your uncle sounds terrified of having to deal with her tbh. Is there more context that he may have around why she has behaved like this? It's pretty extreme. None of this is to say you should take her in but could there be issues that the GP could consider?

Equity deals used to be an absolute racket, they are more regulated now but before regulation in 2003 when a debt cap was introduced, there was often nothing left when the owner died.

@OVienna I think my uncle maybe (like me!) just doesn’t want to have to deal with her poor life choices, she really isn’t either of our responsibility to deal with. We have watched her be jobless all her life even when we’ve tried to set her up with things or help her and she’s refused. We’ve watched her make bad decisions with relationships that she has come out of with nothing. She’s not taken anyone’s advice over the years to make sure she’s set up for her own future. There’s only so much someone else can do for a person who doesn’t do anything for themselves.
I don’t think she’s ever been to a GP with any kind of MH problem, although it’s not normal for someone to carry on through life the way she has so I suppose there could be some underlying issue.

@Pottlee Thanks for coming back. I don't think she is your problem to deal with. As others have said, she won't be homeless until the equity company takes possession of the house so in the meantime she can make steps to find a job and accommodation, by speaking to the CAB and the DWP and the Job Centre (or whatever they call them now.)

May we’ll be something like that then

Sorry that ^ was in response to @DeeLusional

OP I really sympathise with this plight. It sounds like a complete nightmare and you're doing the right thing trying to keep a distance. I should keep doing this for as long as you can.
Your DM needs to grow up quickly and begin to sort out her life and you shouldn't be doing it for her. 🌺

@Luddite26 You are younger than I am by quite a bit.
You mentioned there was support for single parents, way back when, but the fact is it was very much frowned upon to be a single parent. Very few people lived together without being married in the 1960s and 1970s. Single mums were very much 'shamed' as any episode of Call the Midwife will show!

@AshleyBlue The company who they used to get an advance of equity on the house may already own it and they will force the mum out.
There are two types of equity release and one is where you sell the house (more or less) to the equity company , in order to release some of its value while you are alive. Some elderly people do this to save their family the hassle of the sale, and also to access its equity as an income while they are alive.

@RainyDaysSundays even into the mid/late 80s! I remember a few girls "disappeared" from school in Y11 (5th year back then). I remember one giving up a child for adoption and also a cousin whose wedding was "brought forward" a few months at short notice. Thankfully things are different now.

OP - I'm sure someone has said, but you can use her NI number to look at how many contributing years she has for state pension (years for child benefit etc), how much she will get and when. Then she can look at what she can do in terms of claiming back carer status etc. Google the government web page for state pension forecast.

I apologise if this has already been said, but isn’t an adult child legally entitled to remain in the parental home after their death? I don’t think the house sale can be forced. I know two people who have both been in this situation and used this right to remain in residence for the remainder of their lives. In one case, there was a large debt against the house for her late mother’s care home costs. If there’s nothing for you and your brother to gain from the sale of the house, then I’d get in touch with Social Services to check this out. Age Concern are also really helpful with this sort of issue.

Of course not. The house needs to be sold to pay back the money to the equity release scheme !