Buying a house with parent and paying for care

[Marestail]

We are going to buy a house with my elderly mother, she will pay the lion's share and we will top up with a small mortgage.

Although by doing this I am hoping she will not need to go in to a care home in the future, should the need arise would we be forced to sell the house to pay for her care?

Also is there an advantage in her having a smaller share in the house to avoid this happening?

Will she be living with you? If her share of the house it smaller it will be easier to free up her equity without needing to sell the home. Or maybe you could pay up the small mortgage as fast as possible and start saving with the possibilityof lowering payments to pay for the nursing home if the need arises? I would suggest seeing a pro about this.

In this situation I think you need to plan with worst case scenario if she does need to go to a nursing home, it can happen quite fast IME.

How much will the house cost?
Do you already own somewhere?
If so, you'll be liable for the higher level of stamp duty

If she puts up most of the money but takes a smaller share then that is intentional deprivation of assets.

Thanks for you replies.

Oh dear I didn't explain this at all well. We will all be living together, we do not have a house to sell and have been renting for several years due to an unfortunate series of events.

I am an only child so would inherit the house anyway, Mum was struggling on her own so it seemed the best option all round as it helped her out and got us away from paying dead money in rent.

So it has risks, but paying rent for ever was risky too. I just want to make the best of the situation.

Yes we will obviously have to take professional advice.

Best thing to do would be for your dm to gift you the money for her 'share' and you buy the house yourself. That way she effectively doesn't own it, and if she needs care you can decide exactly how that will work

You need to think about inheritance tax I think your DM can give you a certain amount of money per year but if she dies within 7 years you are liable for inhertance tax. Best to speak to a solicitor first

Also, does your DM already have a condition which makes future care likely? If she gives money away after this, then it is almost certain to be viewed as intentional deprivation of assets. If there is no reason to expect her to need care at the present time, it might be viewed differently.

If you are living in house and part own it, I don't think they can force sale but can put a charge on it, so estate would be liable on death - which may then require you to sell, not sure how it works.

As others have said, ask an expert as individual circumstances vary and make a big difference.

Sounds like deprivation of assets to me in order to avoid care costs.

Does you DM realise that she would have a much better standard of care if she is able to fund if herself rather than rely on the state?

Marmitelover55 I hope you meant to say "it could be construed as" rather than "Sounds like deprivation of assets to me in order to avoid care costs."

I am not planning on putting my mother in care, I would avoid it as far as I am physically capable, but it is possible that I may at some stage not be physically capable to care for her needs, worse case scenario rather than likely outcome.

It looks like if that did happen we would just have to sell up, as I said it is a risk but we were in a risky situation anyway.

We are just trying to do the best for all parties concerned.

Sorry yes construed. I am in a very tricky situation myself with elderly parents at the moment. We are trying to avoid a nursing home for my mum who has Alzheimer's and is currently in hospital with a broken hip - v difficult times/decisions.

Oh that sounds bad, I wish you and your mother well, hope you can reach a happy outcome.

Thanks marestail.