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?

See a solicitor. There's differences in joint home ownership in English law, one is joint tenants, the other is tenants in common. Why they call it 'tenants' I don't know, but they do. One offers greater protection against this than the other.

And I don't think they can force the spouse living in their jointly-owned home to sell it in order to pay for care fees for the other.

Remember that whatever you do will be a gamble. I wrote a whole bunch of stuff about how my ILs' plans to save their very modest estate ended up costing more than they ended up spending in care fees, but nobody wants to read that waffle. Short version is: there are no guarantees or easy answers.

No they haven't.

All the people on benefits don't pay tax.

And some of those others will have been care assistants working in care homes when they were younger so unable to save for their own care on too low a wage

While that may be true, if you're a self funder you have the choice not to use one of those homes and go to one of the nice private ones

Yes they do ! My workplace runs a helpline for older people and we constantly get asked questions on how they can' legally' deprive themselves of assets !!

So to start with if the fees are £1700 a week that ain’t £500 a day. £500 x 7 days a week would be £3500.

Too bad. You can’t just decide you are finished paying for yourself because you want to leave your money to your children. If everyone did this then what?

You are right the fees are very high but as the highest taxpayer maybe I don’t want to pay taxes anymore either and then what. Everyone pays taxes their whole lives for more than just came homes.

So who do you expect to pay? Other people who also pay a lot of tax? I also pay a lot of tax. I inherited nothing from my parents but I'm okay with that- they needed their money during their lifetimes. I'm not that keen on funding your kid's inheritance though.

Oh okay now it’s gone from £1700 a week to £2000.

And shame on any child that expects money to be left to them.

Just because people have no savings and have care paid for by the state (but not I very nice care homes usually) doesn’t mean they have had a lifetime of living off the state. They may have worked hard all their lives, just were not able to save much

I cannot believe the pile on OP is getting.. the real scandal is the absolutely disgusting cost of our UK Care Homes! Yes £2k per week ! It’s £8k per month which is £96k a year! It is a CRIME.
The corporate owners are profiteering of us!

We should not accept these greedy companies taking all of our hard-earned money for their profits.
You could spend decades paying off a £500k home, and suddenly it’s all gone in 5 years.

We pay more than any country in Europe.

You heard wrong @champchomp . You will not have to sell the house or impoverish yourself if your DH has to go into a home but you still live in the jointly owned property. The financial assessment must disregard the value of the house if you live there so they will only look at his other assets

Putting the house into 50:50 ownership might also be a mistake. Take professional financial advice here as IANAL but if the house is jointly owned then it does not form part of his estate when he dies, it just instantly becomes 100% yours, whereas if it is 50:50 owned then his half is part of his estate.

What a sad approach. Why is it framed as "I want to stop the government stealing all my relative's money", rather than "I love my relative and want them to have the best quality care we can get with their money".

I've visited a variety of care homes, some of the lower cost homes that the local authority will fund I wouldn't let my dog stay in let alone a relative I cared about. I think you get what you pay for with care.

I'd want to be using your DH's hard earned money (I note you say HE paid a lot of tax, so is it fair to assume the assets you refer to were mostly paid for by him?) to buy him good quality care in a decent home if he was ill or infirm, and not bargain basement care so your DC can inherit as much as possible.

If one of the joint owners is still living in the house it cannot be brought into the financial assessment carried out by the LA for determining the assets available to pay towards care. Therefore no charge can be placed on the property. The partner/ spouse cannot be forced to pay their own money towards care and only half of the funds in a joint account can be factored in. Once the funds of the person requiring care fall below the lower savings limit the LA must step in to pay fees - assuming the care home accepts the fee levels the LA is prepared to pay.

How much do you think it would be reasonable for it to cost considering that this includes accommodation, all food and drinks including snacks, laundry, all overheads such as heating, lighting etc and the the cost of 24-7 care on top of that?

It costs at least £1000 a week to stay full board in a U.K. hotel for a week with no care at all whereas the average self funded residential placement is around 1,200 and nursing 1,500

2k a week is only for very specialist places and these would be nursing places with a qualified nurse on site at all times or maybe somewhere in central London or something.

Honestly how much do people think they would or should be willing to pay for all that they are getting in a care home. This bollocks about care home owners profiteering is a ridiculous narrative. There’s a lot easier ways to make money (I don’t own one I just have to visit a lot)

Depending on what your DH’s needs may be, other possibilities are having a carer popping in to your home 3-4 times a day, or having a live-in carer if you have a spare room. Both options are cheaper than a full charge for residential or nursing care. However they wouldn’t be appropriate for someone who was immobile as two carers would be needed.

However, both my parents needed full time care at the end. I had POA and used that to make sure that they both had the best care possible. It was their money that they had worked for and saved and far more important to me that it was able to be used taking care of them than any expectations of an inheritance.

Uk care home costs are less than the USA, about the same as Aus and yes significantly higher than some (not all) EU countries but that is largely because of state subsidies in places like Germany where they have Insurance like Andrew Dillnott very sensibly suggested in his report and got shot down. In Spain and Italy there is no culture of putting elders in care so not much demand hence it is cheap.

Yes, it’s scandalous.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/jul/24/uk-private-care-providers-profit-rise-covid-report#:~:text=The%20research%20%E2%80%93%20by%20the%20Centre,generate%20significant%20future%20growth%20opportunities%E2%80%9D.

I agree @ThePureand one of the reasons that there is a gap in care places is due to private care home owners selling up as they are not raking in the profits many people seem to think.

These are really dodgy. There's a scandal brewing over this because they don't actually achieve the purpose they're meant to and are a nightmare to unwind.

The people actually making a profit on care homes are often the people who build/ own the buildings but then lease them to other people to actually do the difficult work. Cf Southern Cross being asset stripped by Blackstone private equity (who are in my view the real bad guys) then going bust and leaving lots of vulnerable people homeless. I well remember that fiasco

I am sure care home profits did go up in the pandemic. If you recall there was an unholy scramble to empty hospitals and social care were allowed to pay whatever it took. Care homes could name their price. Great news for some of my hard to place patients languishing in hospital for years but not for the public purse.

It’s now gone back to business as usual.

Are you totally thick? Many of us have paid thousands plus in taxes each year. I knew I had a good job, so paid into pension, paid off mortgage and saved. But understood as well that much of my taxes /nI would be going to support those less well off than me. I'm not so well off now but still totally understand that as I have financial assets the state won't and quite rightly shouldn't pay to support me. You and your DH sound like total users. Ghastly.

My parents did this too. No need for divorce, speak to a financial advisor or a solicitor.

I think you’re mistaking this for the sell your home early to some company who then allows you to rent off them until you die. Actually putting money into trust in one parents death is a good thing and isn’t a scam.

I knew a couple who divorced over the care home fee issue.

Upshot was: one had a major issue and was on life support. The other was no longer NOK and had to leave decisions in the hands of others who wanted the spouse to remain on support against their best interests. It was traumatic for all involved and set everyone at loggerheads.