Avoid care home fees by divorcing!

[champchomp]

I know this sounds extreme but I’m thinking ahead. DH is a bit older than me and is having some health problems. We have no mortgage and he has a good pension and savings. I’ve seen instances where a spouse has entered a care home and the other one has struggled to pay the fees and had to sell up and use all the savings. Hypothetically speaking would divorcing and splitting assets protect some of the money and property. I know anything could happen between now and if my husband needs care but it worries me and we have children we would like to help financially if need be. I’d always be there for DH no matter what and visa versa. But financially does it make sense to financially separate/divorce if care is needed for either of us?

Is the house in joint names? , if so my understanding is that a charge can be put against the house for the fees. They can't force you to sell when it's a joint residence ..... I think!

But I would look into splitting the savings. Again my belief / understanding is they can only assess savings in sole accounts, I'm not sure how a joint account works, would best guess they take half.

My parents changed ownership of the house so they each owned 50%

Of course op, do whatever it takes to protect your assets/ savings so you can leave them to your kids! Don’t worry about your care fees, me and the other taxpayers will pay them for you!

If your husband wants to leave his money to your children then perhaps the children can look after him instead of expecting ‘the state’ to do it. The state is us.

Indeed!
why do you think the state should pay when you have the funds?

Look at changing your house to 50/50 ownership. If nothing else, it means there is a pot for your care if you need it later on

I believe that if a married couple jointly own a home and one requires a nursing home, the value of the home is disregarded in the financial assessment of the person needing the nursing home. Otherwise it could easily render the other spouse homeless

Why should anyone have to pay the crazy prices care homes charge. Average care costs £1700 a week! That’s not even 1 to 1 care. If you want that you are talking £500 a day plus bills. No point having savings or your own home for it all to be eaten away. We want to leave what we’ve earned yo our children. Those who don’t have savings etc have everything paid for by the state after spending a lifetime of living of the state. We have paid taxes for years. DH has paid ALOT of tax on his earnings.

Do you and him jointly own the house?

https://www.ageuk.org.uk/information-advice/care/paying-for-care/paying-for-a-care-home/do-i-have-to-sell-my-home-to-pay-for-care/

"Moving into a care home permanently
If you move into a care home permanently, your home won't be counted in the financial assessment if any of the following people still live there:

your partner, spouse or civil partner
your estranged or divorced partner if they're also a lone parent
a relative who is 60 or over
a relative who is under 60 who has a disability
a child of yours aged under 18.
Local councils can also choose to leave the value of your home out of the financial assessment, even if someone living there doesn’t fit into one of the categories above. They don’t have to – but they should consider any requests"

You won't receive a spouse pension from his private pension or extra on your state pension?

Seems sad that you would sell your home and live apart to avoid care home fees.

If the house is jointly owned then they ignore the value, all savings in his name and 50% of joint savings are used are used for calculating. Remember if you aren’t married and one of you dies with more than £325k in assets you then become liable for inheritance tax whereas if married money can switch to the other tax free

everyone has paid tax he’s not special. The alternative is looking after him yourself.

This is so unnecessary, and will just cost you IHT.

Because you want care.

Someone is paying. And if you have the money and find a way to evade it, I pay it. Or another taxpayer pays it. The fees don't go away unless you care for family members.

The whole point of having savings is it gives you choices regarding the level and quality of care, would you be happy for your DH to be forced into LA care because you had manipulated the situation?
And equally you or anyone could have a terrible accident or a stroke tomorrow and require care facilities so you just can’t plan.

That said you could purchase a care annuity when the time came to protect at least most of your assets.

We paid £135k for Mum’s which when added to her pension covers all her specialist dementia care home fees.

The interest on her savings has now exceeded that spent on the annuity.

So you want public to pick up the tab so you can give your money to your children?

it makes no difference if there is someone over 60 in the house or spouse

you need to pay for your own care - can’t stand people trying to avoid and talk about it openly!

Because of you don’t want to look after your family yourself that’s what happens

it’s about having a society that can care for people who have had a harder time not people “living off the state”

if your family don’t want to care for you - you need to pay

Anyway whatever you do anything dodgy looking is seen as deprivation of assets

And they go back 20 years - thank goodness - to protect us all from people
like you

This!!!

wtf should we pick up tab for your children!

This is the worst kind of selfishness and greed. Opinions like yours OP are why we are fracturing as a decent society. I’m going to assume you think Reform has some “good ideas”. Jesus fucking wept

Why wouldn’t you look after him at home? Mostly people go into care homes as no one to look after them. If he has a good pension it’s likely to cover any costs of extra care at home.

Plus how would even work if you divorced? His pension and savings will still be used on the care home fees.

You are completely right

https://www.ageuk.org.uk/siteassets/documents/factsheets/fs38_property_and_paying_for_residential_care_fcs.pdf

page 7 - mandatory disregards

i think It's really scary how even now, there is so little understanding of how it works. We could really go with a proper information campaign