Vacant house owner in care - moving in

[Sworkmum]

Hi,

hoping someone here may be able to advise. A sort of relative is more than likely going to have to go into a care home. Their only surviving relative (child) does not have power of attorney and the relative does not have capacity. It looks like social services will have to pay care home fees. Then upon their death house will be sold and repay from the asset. obviously no idea how long that’ll be.

2 issues, there is a cat (could be reluctantly rehomed - other family have their own pets so can’t take him)

the other is the house sat vacant for goodness knows how long. It’s not in great condition anyway, so this isn’t ideal.

I was thinking if a young adult sort of relative was to move in how would this work. They would have to cover bills, council tax, insurance etc. but not pay rent. The main aim is to have someone there who can look after the house (prevent burglary, pipes bursting, deterioration etc) rather than get money as will get no money if it’s vacant anyway and potentially keep the cat there who is oldish, so would be happier to not have to be rehomed. It can’t really be properly rented out, as no one has the legal right/capacity to.

how would this work, and would it be ok? There would be no tenancy agreement, they would just be living there as a family member to look after the house. Once it has to be sold they would move out and onto somewhere else. Seems like it could be good all round and helpful but not sure how this works legally.

This is exactly the scenario I am talking about. Young adult loves cats so would be happy to pet sit the cat, and have their own space in the house. Keep utilities etc running and house occupied. Until it needs to be sold. As realistically this could be 2 months 2 years or 10 years! Who knows!

Just saw your update. If young adult is already full time carer [did I get that right?] then SS may prefer to put additional care in place to supplement rather than a care home in which case the problem of the cat goes away in the short term. Very hard work being a carer full time to someone bed bound though.
eg: Carers several times a day, a hospital bed, a hoist and continence pads.

I think they should do this. But it’s that 6-9 months and what happens with the house then. This would be the time to have the relative stay to keep things going. Just don’t want to do anything legally dodgy.

No sorry, the child of the elderly relative is a carer (35 hours per week) but realistically to bring this relative home they would need 24/7 which they can’t offer. It was already being supplemented by 3x carers visits per day, and unfortunately they are back in hospital again. We are pretty sure that SS are going to say care home at this stage.

the young adult is not providing any care, they are just at an age old enough to live in a house alone, but don’t have their own home yet. So available somewhat. But they don’t drive so can’t offer to just go and visit to help, so would need to stay there.

Nothing suspicious at all. We want nothing from the house or relative. Just don’t want their house to go to ruin.

no one can rehome the cat as we all have our own pets and this cat can’t live with other pets.

It was already being supplemented by 3x carers visits per day, and unfortunately they are back in hospital again. We are pretty sure that SS are going to say care home at this stage.

You’d be surprised how high the bar is, I’d think it quite likely they will simply be sent home again with a care package.

There is no savings. So I think the LA will have to fund for the time being. My worry is the house is already not in great condition. If relative moved in this could also be improved by them to a point. However if the to remain empty relatively child will have to visit to check intermittently and won’t do any improvements. It will likely fail to sell (or sell for a decent price) when it comes to it.

Hopefully we will know more this week. But I think in talks the relatives already had. It seemed a care home was what they were going towards. But we shall see I guess!

you could ring the insurance company and see what the implications are for having someone live there as a non rent paying housekeeper. Alternatively there are some insurance companies that do cover empty houses. You either have to close down the house (drain water etc) or commit to weekly visits with the heating being on to a certain level.

All bills and charges would have to be covered by the relative living there and a fair rent paid.

Many families try and do this but it's essentially theft/financial abuse or deptivation of capital if financially it detriments the person in care. Even if they can consent to it if they continue to pay any of the running costs for someone living there when they aren't then they are running down their finances more than they should be.

They would have to become a landlord otherwise - which doesn't sound like they would be able to manage and would require the property to be a certain standard to rent out.

You also start running into issues of 'squatters rights' and the house being difficult to sell with someone living in it.

Local authorities really don't like it - with good reason.

It really feels to me like this is being made way too complicated.

Who on earth would be policing all of this to know if the person is sleeping there or just feeding the cat and leaving? Or in fact coming in to do housework/maintenance etc and leaving.

Literally no one.

I get the paying for utilities bit but it does seem like there must be a common sense solution here that is not as complex as what people are proposing.

It’s not possible to get LPA once capacity is gone.

It doesn’t solve the issue though as when the house gets sold the cat would need to be rehomed any way. So you might as well rehome the cat now

The local adults safeguarding team if someone reports it.

You can't just live in someone else's house because it's going spare unless that person has full capacity and is able to understand the risks of such an arrangement (squatters rights, landlord responsibilities, insurance etc) or someone acting with legal authority on their behalf can put those arrangements in place and demonstrate it is in the person's best interests.

People do report this stuff, a few years ago I had to got out with the local police and have stern words with a young person and their partner who were living in 'nan's' house because 'mam' said it was OK. Neighbours had reported seeing lights on and people going in and out and were concerned as they knew nan was in a care home. They weren't paying any of the bills (nan was still paying them direct debit oblivious that anyone was in her house) and it was an absolute tip.

'Mam' had no authority to let them live there and unsurprisingly was being VERY slow at sorting out the deputyship to sell the property to pay for nan's care.

If the neighbours hadn't grassed them up we would have found out anyway when we financially assessed nan and queried why her electricity bill was so high and why she was still paying for a broadband subscription.

The council tax dept weren't too happy either.

I think you should maybe get some proper legal advice on this and not just ask Mumsnet as it’s quite complex between capacity, POA/deputyship, LA funding, and tenancy rights.

However you say “The person is aware and happy to agree to this, they have enough capacity to agree this.”

Capacity is not fixed and someone can absolutely have capacity to agree to some things but not others. So it may be relevant that the home owner has capacity currently to consent to a house sitter but not eg the capacity to act as a landlord.

I would think a house sitter type arrangement is what you want here. There are steps you need to take to make sure the relative who moves on doesn’t get squatters or tenancy rights by default, which could complicate a later sale. OR you need to go down the proper tenancy route. I’m not sure the LA can really claim deprivation of assets if the alternative is the house sits empty but I haven’t dealt with this situation myself.

We had a family friend house sit for 9 months after my Mum went into a care home. Much better than having a house sat empty. We had an informal contract and made sure we visited regularly to avoid a tenancy being formed. But we had POA and were self funding care so a bit different.

An insurance company will probably be happier to have someone live there than it be unoccupied, but will want to know who.

A charity like Age UK, Alzheimer’s Society or Dementia UK may be able to give you more detailed advice. I also always found the Alzheimer’s Society forum really helpful.