Protecting Inheritance from care home ...help me!!!

[lincolnpaul1]

Hi there,
Thanks for reading this first of all....
Summary:
My mother is ill and now in care (home) with Alzheimers. She is self-funding her care home fees but the money owed is being run up on her property (about 14K currently). I have Power of Attorney over her finances and she is not in the position to make any decisions now, so I make all these. She has her house which I am currently selling for her (120K). Some of the proceeds will go to pay off the debt. We will be left with about 100K capital in mum's account. Mum will continue to self fund her care (about 700£ per week) until her saving are down to about 20K. Mum wanted to protect her savings (as much as the 100K) and obviously didn't want it all to go to her care. Does anybody know how I can/what I can do to protect this to ensure it is passed onto family?

The majority of the cost of dementia is paid by people with dementia and their families, either in unpaid care or in private social care. This is in contrast to other conditions, such as heart disease and cancer, where the NHS provides care that is free at the point of use.

I was actually not even thinking of prescriptions, although yes of course you're right that certain age groups automatically get them free and others don't.

But regardless of any age discrimination that may or may not exist, it still isn't the case that the British state provides free medical care for everyone but the elderly. Not even the person who originally made that claim is sticking by it. The elderly get more medical care on average, and the rules for people needing dementia care are the same whatever the age of the person with dementia. None of this is a matter of opinion. If you want to argue that the treatment of dementia is unfair compared to eg cancer, you can do so whilst not disputing the undoubted fact that the British state doesn't provide medical care except to the elderly.

2 points-

-privately paid for care homes are nicer than ones who provide care at the lower state funded rate, by paying privately your mum is getting a 'better product' in most cases (a bit like paying for private school).

-unfortunately if your mum has been assessed as requiring residential care rather than home care her condition is likely to be so progressed that she is unlikely to spend more than 2 years in residential care, sorry. Paying for 2 years of care will still leave most homeowners with a decent sum to leave to family.

I thought the free medical care unless you are old comment was a bit tongue in cheek Bronte. Not ment to be taken literally, but an indication of the direct and indirect discriminations that certainly do exist for the elderly. Dementia is generally a disease of the elderly, cancer has a lower mean and a wider spread. Making free care easier to access for cancer patients but not dementia ones is a form of indirect age discrimination.

I do actually agree that people who can afford to pay should, but the criteria for who doesn't have to pay and when needs to be more equitable and also something should be done to address the issue that today's old folk were sold a false promise of cradle to grave NHS care that is now not delivering for them (and which they didn't pay enough into to be able to afford).

I don't understand how anyone can think that a person should be able to live rent and council tax free, all utilities free, all food free, in fact all living expenses entirely free, in order that potential heirs can inherit assets.

NHS care surely covers medical care, not day to day living costs.

"Mum's not too good at managing the house any more so she's going to live in a hotel; can someone else pay for it please 'cos I want to inherit her property when the time comes".

I read it as just wrong sable, and your analysis relates to something quite different. And the idea that dementia care is discriminatory doesn't really address the fact that the people to whom the rules make most difference are the potential beneficiaries, not the ill person themself.

We agree on the need to do something to tackle the funding gap though. Buggered if I know what it is. I certainly don't expect to receive the same level of nursing and medical care from the state in my dotage as today's elderly get. You can only kick the can so far down the road. Which is also relevant to any claims of discrimination: a fortysomething being treated for cancer today is rather less likely to be able to 'protect' their assets in the event of dementia care in the future than someone receiving it now.

The difference between e.g. cancer and dementia is, that with dementia, although it is a physical, degenerative disease, most of the care needed is not medical, but what they call social - help with washing, dressing, cleaning, providing meals, looking after finances, and general or constant supervision to prevent wandering at night in pyjamas/leaving unlit gas on/hoarding rotten food, you name it.
None of this care require medical training, just some understanding of dementia.

Given so many people living so much longer and eventually needing care, I don't see how on earth it could all be state-provided without a massive rise in everyone's taxes.

What I do often wonder is how on earth it will be managed in a few decades' time. At present a lot of self funded care is paid for by the sale of the person's home. What about the priced-out generation, who will have no house to sell? People who are still forced to pay rent after they retire ( instead of living in a mortgage-paid-off house, which is often the case with people needing care now) will have had even less money to save.
I can't see how the number of self funders will not plummet in future.

I work beside someone who has been asking her mother to give away her money in the form of inheritance for years. She told me recently her mum has now done this and has given her grandchildren "their inheritance money", even though she's alive and well.

I dont know if the gran owns or rents a home, but surely this is wrong, giving away all your money when you could still be enjoying it? And I dont know how this would matter if the gran ever needed to go into a home.

It just strikes me as elderly abuse but I may be wrong.

Lightbulbon - many self funders are in the same care home as residents who are funded by the state. There has to be a mix in order to meet the cost of running and staffing the home.
Say, for example, the actual cost of a place in the home is £700 per week.
The LA will pay the home £500 per person that they fund.
The self funding resident will pay £900.

I am using the London fees that both my PIL paid for their care home places.
We looked after them both for 10 years until we could no longer cope with the dementia and incontinence.

Ditto for my own parents. We managed to look after them for 15 years before they needed residential care.

IME the LA were far more interested in their savings and the value of their flat than their care needs.

It doesn't take long for care home fees to wipe out assets.

Every care home we visited needed an appropriate ratio of state and self funded residents in order to be financially viable. The level of care is the same for all the residents in the home.

sablepoot and I've said, and others have said, there's a difference between needing medical/nursing care and needing social care.

Don't assume that you will have a choice about whether to go into a nursing home or be cared for at home though. When my Dad was ill, it got to the point where it really wasn't feasible for him to stay at home, even with a live in carer and my Mum at home. It was an awful situation. He died before we had to make the decision to put him in a nursing home, but it had got to the point where we would have had to have done that or paid for two live in carers (they can't work 24/7) as the strain on my Mum was getting too much. As a person becomes immobile, there are so many things to think about, like if a hoist will fit in your bedroom/bathroom etc. It really isn't straightforward.

a family friend of mine was in a similar position re paying for care do Alzheimer's. What they have done is to rent the parent's house out rather than selling it, thereby creating income and keeping hold of the asset. I don't know if this is something you can think about doing.
It's such a shame the first thing people think to do is sell the house rather than create income from it, but that's always been the case.

My mum had Alzheimer's and I agree with those who criticise people having to self fund. Alzheimer's is an illness-if a person wasn't ill they wouldn't need nursing care

The line between the two is blurred, and applies at different points in different places though greys. The eligibility criteria for continuing care are somewhat subjective and people who are clued up can successfully challenge. The rules are not applied fairly and consistently across the country. The point littlefrogs makes about self funders is also true and scandalous.

Unfortunately it would be very difficult to get enough rent for a small bungalow or retirement flat to cover £900 per week fees.

We did rent out my parents' house, but with fees of £800 per week each (£6,400 per month) the rental income was a drop in the ocean. If there is no other source of income there is no choice but to sell and then hope and pray the LA will step in when there is no money left.

Obviously, the care home does also get all pension income and attendance allowance (as it was then) and any other assets have to be sold as well.

The eligibility criteria for continuing care are somewhat subjective

Have you ever attended a CHC assessment meeting?

The care home can also claim a nursing care allowance which can't be claimed if you are being cared for at home.

The nursing care allowance is a claim for the individual, it's their allowance not the care homes.

One of the ways to delay the reduction in capital will be to rent out the property. I suspect that this will be insufficient to cover the care home fees and you will still need to continue to borrow against the property's capital value until it is up to the£20,000 point.

Gray's it goes straight to the care home in my experience www.nhs.uk/chq/Pages/what-is-nhs-funded-nursing-care.aspx

I'm fortunate that I wasn't under the illusion of free health care in my old age when I bought a house. I don't see it as an inheritance for my kids. I bought a house because it gave me more options of where I could live and in reality it's only costing me £100 more than rent on a similar property. It also allows me to access money lending at a very reasonable rate. If my kids get any inheritance they'll be lucky, it's not a right.

Yes sable it does, but it's not the care homes claim it is the individuals claim. That's what I'm saying.

But the individual can only claim it if they are in a care home. If they have nursing needs that are being met by self funded care at home they have to pay for it themselves.

Yes but it;s still the individuals claim thats what I was saying.

And since we were earlier comparing elderly care to other people's care, I wouldn't get funding to be cared for by a nurse at home would I? I'd have to go to hospital, a home or a hospice if I needed it.

Quite often the kind of care we are talking about is being done at home by social carers, they are in many cases meeting patients medical needs but are not being funded.