Carehome taking all the money

[Pugsrus]

At the minute we are using her personal money to pay the care home fees ,yet other residents are getting it for free .
It seems very unfair we now have to sell the house,so we will be paying Well over £250,000 in care home fees ..how is this fair .she saved for years to pass the money on to her grandchildren.
Is there anything we can do

@GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER
I think you're right, the figure I had seen, on checking, was for nursing care only, not residential care for which the average is nearer 30 months.

Even if someone passes away before 7 years, the tax tapers.
I don't think it's unfair to pay for care but if you're sitting on pots of money and have family you like, it makes sense to be pass some on.

The 7 years for IHT has little if any bearing on deprivation of assets for care home fees

Not RTFT but make sure she’s getting things such as attendance allowance and I think there’s another benefit too. If you’re careful you may be able to use rental income from the house, pension, benefits and savings to cover the costs. That what my dad did for his mother.

It does seem.a shame when people scrimp and save to get a house and go without for years thinking it will go to their kids/ grandchildren and it doesnt.
My mum was left the house when she divorced my dad but we had no money as a family. Went hungry, free school dinners at school but nothing at home. My coat got stolen at school and I just had to do without for the next 2 yrs etc.
Now she is retired and has money in the bank and has spoken about leaving us money. I've said go out and enjoy yourself and spend some. The house could end up being sold for care home fees anyway.

Although it does seem unfair you just have to think that the house needs to be sold to pay for her rent/ electricity/ having meals made for her/ entertainment/ care etc if you don't want to care for her yourselves

One way to pay for it would be to increase inheritance tax but nobody seems to want to do that either.

I agree it’s unfair but what alternative is there? The government would have no money left if they paid for everyone’s care. My dad was in a care home for the last 4 years of his life. We worked out it cost him approx 200k. Imagine how much it would cost for the government to pay for every single persons care? There would be no money left to support people on benefits or pensions etc Also is it really fair that a person with say, millions pays nothing for their own care?
Look it sucks. I get it. But I don’t really see any fairer way. However you do it, someone is going to suffer.

It doesn't seem unfair to me. She's got the money so she has to pay. People who don't have the money cannot pay.

Average charge for carers in your own home is £15-24 per hour per carer.the agencies have still to pay other costs like insurance, training, wages blah blah blah. When I retired in 2011 you could only get certain amount of hours per week ( up to 24 I think) before residential was suggested ( all council's would Fund) and average cost of care in ok wn home for maximum amount of time was between 400-800 pounds a week and considering I was earning over £8 an hour in 2011 ( wages for carers have not improved as today minimum wage is £8.74) so today think your looking at at least £1000 if 24 hrs a week care needed.

Half the time the person payng for their care inherited the money themselves, from a spouse most often, or another relative.

I do hate this "worked hard all my life, deserve to have the tax payer fund my expenses and my children's unrearned wealth" line because:

1. it implies that people like the carers who look after the elderly people at the ends of thier lives don't work hard - after all they're unlikely to be paying off a massive mortgage

2. it's very often the case that the person paying thier own care home fees hasn't actually been the one who earned the money which paid for the house - and if they've been a sahm why would anyone think they worked harder than the sahm married to a low earner who couldn't buy a house? If they inherited the house from a parent or other relative themselves they most certainly didn't work for it!

I always think of my late grandmother, who worked for 2 years between leaving school and marrying my grandfather, had one child who she sent to boarding school at 8, and died at 101. She had her own pension for 41 years as well as my grandad's work pension after he died, and owned thier house outright. She absolutely loved telling everyone she'd worked hard all her life. She did live through WW2 (during which my grandad was in a reserved occupation), but I'm not sure she had any claim on having worked harder than average!

"I've worked hard all my life" generally just something innane yet grumpy anyone trots out, it doesn't mean they've worked particularly hard, it is as meaningless as "I've been alive all my life" ...

When I got divorced ( I bought my house when a single parent and paid for it before I remarried) from my second husband after I fell ill and became severely disabled I could no longer use the upstairs if my house even if I had put a stenner chair lift in. So I sold my house divided money between my dds and rented a flat. They had their ' inheritance' when they needed it most...when I was alive...both set up their own homes one bought and one rented. I now live in disabled bungalow because flat became unsuitable as my illness deterioted. I pay for care myself I have a private carer to do personal care 3 times a week, have a cleaner and Gardener and window cleaner. I have full mobility allowance which I use to rent a car. I have pension credit which help pays towards care along with care allowance. I have basic state pension and TBH I manage pretty well. I gained much pleasure in knowing that my dds were safe and secure by giving them their ' inheritance' when they really needed it and having enough to sustain me without being a burden.

Clinging onto homes unsuitable for your needs just to ensure inheritance for your DC when you die is selfish. My house was an asset but it was an unsuitable home for MY needs. It was best to sell keep some back to sustain myself for as long as possible without claiming benefits AND give my DC their ' inheritance'. When I did need to claim DLA and care allowance I felt that as I had indeed worked very hard all my life bringing my dds up on my own from 1 year old and 6 weeks old and buying and paying for my house going without things for myself making sure dds had a roof over their heads, clothes and shoes on their feet, food in their bellies all that time I feel just in what I did. ( I was only married for 2 years to my second husband and dds had grown up). Use your assets for YOUR needs your DC's entitlement to inheritance has to come second to that. Or as I did it is possible to do both BEFORE you die!

I don’t think people immediately go into care homes the minute they get ill or are diagnosed. A lot of the time people carry on in their own home for years, during this time their families gradually pick up the slack on caring for them, unpaid, usually until a major crisis reveals it is impossible for them to carry on as they are. By the time someone goes into a home their relatives are already exhausted. I hate this assumption that people who have parents or grandparents in care homes do it because they are lazy and can’t be arsed to care for them. It’s because their needs become more than the family can meet.
Personally I would much rather my house went to my children and future grandchildren, to pay towards their homes which they can enjoy for many years, rather than pay towards a couple of years in a surviving in care home aggressive, angry and without much dignity or quality of life left (yes this is based on what I have witnessed). I place more value on my family’s future than my last few years on this earth.

As a society we have to get away from this concept of the state exclusively looking after us in retirement. You can't work (or not) and save (or not), for 40 years of your life, and then expect the state (taxpayers), to subsidise you for another potential 40 years of your life. This can't go on. Not many people pay enough tax in their lifetime to cover the costs of their healthcare, childcare, schooling, council services, state pension. Unfortunately, those who have must subsidise those that don't, such is life.

SinisterBumFacedCat of course you'd rather that! Wouldn't we all! It's called having your cake and eating it!

I'd rather keep all of my salary in the bank to leave to my children and have my rent, bills and food paid for by somebody else, but who'd try to defend that as a proposition! As I can afford to pay my way I'm expected to, the safety net is only for those who genuinely can't, not for those who'd like to get everything paid for by the tax payer so that they can give all their money to thier children.

Baaaahhhhh also low earners who may not directly pay enough PAYE and NI to fund all their healthcare etc. prop up high earners and businesses. Without the shop assistants and warehouse workers, call center workers etc. buy coroporations and their highly paid seniour managements wouldn't be making money. Without hospital porters and cleaners and healthcare assistants hospital consultants and highly paid NHS trust managers would be unable to do their jobs.

The little person working away at the bottom might not be paying higher rate tax, but they are propping up those who do and the businesses who theoretically should be paying lots of corporation tax..

And there is the rub of course - corporate tax evasion hurts everyone, and breaks the system of a mutually beneficial social capitalist state.

*big corporations not buy corporations

thatsnotgoingtowork Agreed. Hence my last sentence. As a society we all have to pull our weight. DM is paying £1k a week in her care home. She is 92, has never worked, and has lived off husbands pensions, and various inheritance, and family money. She always refused to hand anything over to DC's as she wanted to ensure she could look after herself, and have her own choices late in life. It pissed me off initially, as there will be nothing left to inherit, however on the other hand, I admire that she is self sufficient, and not relying on the state. We are currently in the process of selling off her house, in order for her to continue in the care home, or buy another smaller house, if she wants to leave and have carers instead. She is currently in a care home, to be with her husband until he dies (when she gets all his money too!!!).