What's the point in buying a house (with £thousands in interest) only to lose it to pay for your social care?

[milleniaaal]

Genuine question.

I'm a Millenial and I've recently learned that if you need some sort of care in old age for things like mobility issues, carers or you need 24 assistance, care home etc. then the government can literally take your home, sell it and use it to pay for all of those things.

It doesn't make sense to me that this can happen after you've paid years and years towards tax, NI and council tax etc.

(Obviously that is just care homes, not people paying privately for care in the person's home).

The thing is if someone has complex medical needs that requires nursing or hospice care then a lot of the “posh”, nice private nursing homes won’t take them. We had this with my Mum. And my Gran. They provide care but only as far as wiping bums and making tea etc. If someone has more complex physical or mental health needs they might well be limited to state funded care homes because often these ones are the only ones with the top tier registered nurses etc and not just care staff. Bit off the point but it’s something a lot of people don’t understand.

It doesn't make sense to me that this can happen after you've paid years and years towards tax, NI and council tax etc.

OK a few points... The vast majority of people are net takers from the system. Unless you earn a LOT you will be one of them. Your tax and NI doesn't touch the sides of full time care.

On that point, full time care can cost thousands a week. Really good dementia care for example, is incredibly expensive.

When you buy a house, you get somewhere to live. Just like renters except at some point you've paid yours off and they are still paying. It's also secure in a way that renting isn't.

It's also often cheaper than renting.

Most people don't need care.

We've got so used to 'someone else' or 'the government' paying for things that we've forgotten that someone else is us. Someone has to pay for care. And we don't want it any cheaper because it's already petty terrible and the workers are treated awfully. If you have a house you can afford better care for longer. Well worth it.

Also our mortgage that we took out 33 years ago costs us just £250 a month, and that is after remortgaging for smaller amounts twice. If we hadn't borrowed again we would be mortgage free.

@Xrays - you're right. My mum's place specialises in dementia, so they do cope with it as people decline, but a lot of places don't.

It’s hard isn’t it. There’s so much about the whole system I just didn’t understand until I was suddenly submerged into it!

We don't have any housing costs any more, and haven't since we were below 55. We pay tax & NI but I'd rather not pay any housing costs than be renting

You have the security of your own home and as people point out most people don’t require nursing care.

One of my colleagues is 56, single and living hand to mouth. She threw in a mortgage 25 years ago on a whim. She lives it what is little more than a bedsit and has no idea how she'll afford to pay rent if and when she retires. She may get housing benefit but it isn't a given.
It shouldn't be this way but it is.

The Government doesn't take your house OP!

If you own a home and need (or want) to go into a care home you sell your property and choose the private care home that you can afford.

If you don't have property to sell you don't get to choose your care home. You get what the council gives you, they take nearly all your pensions to fund it.

Can you not see the advantages?

Because if the person who needs the care and has a large empty house doing nothing doesn't pay for it, someone else has to.

Welcome to reality.

Basically correct.
The tax and NI is paying the country’s bills today. It’s not a saving scheme where you build up a private fund with the government.
This is why the governments are very keen on immigration, because on balance they bring in more taxpayers needed to keep the country afloat.

my uncle has a terminal condition. because they own a largish house, my aunt and uncle have been able move to a downstair bedroom (with space for the hospital bed and a single bed for her). there’s also enough room upstairs for cousins, aunts and uncles to stay over regularly so they are never alone.

Carers visit 4x a day but they barely do anything. His quality of life would be much worse if they solely depended on carers.

None of my grandparents needed a care home, not even the one who lived to 100. She was in hospital or a rehabilitation centre quite often in the last five years, but had only just got to the point of being unable to go home from the rehabilitation centre so needing to move to a care home when she died of pneumonia. My other grandparents died in hospital.

When we were renting we got served notice twice in two years, the stress of having to find somewhere else to live was crazy and that was before we had kids. I insisted on buying a house before we started a family so that that couldn't happen again. Also rent is more expensive than our mortgage now we've paid off enough to have some equity. And how do you pay your rent when you retire?

Is this correct, my mom did end up agreeing to go into the care home. But the social worker had said that if she didn't they would do a best interests evaluation and could deem it necessary?

For me:
So relieved not to be facing the insecurity of rental, eviction, rent rises etc.
Mortgage planned to be paid off by retirement so no ongoing rent costs when I am on minimal income
On average I stand only a 20% chance if needing to go into a home
And there would be greater choice and possibly better care if I can fund it
And then, with pension and various entitlements (Attendance Allowance) counting towards the cost, the chances are that the whole value of my home won’t be swallowed up
And in any case £23k worth if it’s value is protected so is there as for me to leave to Dc.

It is so hard for younger generations, especially in the SE, but if it is possible, I would say go for it.

All of the people saying you get to choose a care home, not necessarily true. My Grandma was in hospital aged 90 following a fall and they wouldn't discharge her to her home as she was assessed as needing FT care. It was clear they would fight any wish she had to return to her own home. There was one place available in a dementia home (she'd didn't have dementia) and the choices were either move her a very long way away making visits very tough or leave her in an understaffed ward where they were pushing us to move her out. We had to take the place available and she sold her bungalow and paid 1k a week for care in a wholly inappropriate setting. We couldn't get her moved.

It upset her so deeply. She had been a carer for her daughter (my aunt) her whole life and she and my Grandad were desperate to leave enough money for my aunt's ongoing care. The money was gone 2yrs after she went into the home and she felt like she'd failed.

On balance, I think good care would have been different but she was in an inappropriate home for her needs with no companionship, no mental challenge or enrichment and residents who were declining and had severe needs. We visited at least once every day for 4 years. She did not get the care she was paying for. The care you could argue she'd worked hard to earn.

You don't have to give up your house to pay for your care. There are ways around it.

You can leave your paid off house in trust to your adult children. Then, once you need to move into a care home - the house is theirs and can't be sold.

If you don't have children - you have an asset that pays for high end care.

Except - as I understand it - your local authority can contest this as deprivation of assets and you're in the same situation. Avoiding paying fees is at best difficult and at worst, illegal.

And like I said earlier, you talk about high end care. When it happened to our family, the only care available was not fit for purpose.

Because most people buy a house/flat to have a secure roof over their head due to the lack of secure tenancies.
The buying a house to make money/leave a legacy etc is neither here nor there.
My dmums money will most likely go in care fees. I'd rather that and have a free choice of care for her tbh. You can't take it with you!

It strikes me as so, so incredibly petulant, childish, and cut-your-nose-off-to-spite-your-face that someone would willingly make their own finances and quality of life worse for decades just to prevent the small minority chance that they might have to pay for their own care through the sale of an asset that they no longer have any use for anyway.

It doesn't make sense to me that this can happen after you've paid years and years towards tax, NI and council tax etc.

Taxes go to fund social care, alongside a lot of other things. But everything is underfunded, so there’s not an unlimited pot of money to allow elderly people to get good care regardless of how much money or assets they have - like most other benefits, care homes are means tested.

Your NI pays towards today’s state pensioners. When you’re retired, younger people in the workforce will be paying for your state pension via their NI contributions.

Council tax will include a contribution towards your local council’s social care bills, alongside a lot of other things, but again not enough that it can pay for every wealthy pensioner to keep their cash.

Think of care homes as a means-tested benefit, and stop thinking of a house as something that’s not part of your means (i.e. wealth).

@ShowOfHands

If less than 7 years has passed from the property being gifted in trust and the parent going into care, then they can force the sale of the house. As long you plan well ahead, a property in trust to someone else - is that person's property's.

Why should family bear the burden of personal care for close relatives though? Who is going to pay their income when they're off work caring for elderly parents?

Having worked in care, many adult children find it distressing having to help wash, change, do all the things for their parents that their parents did for them as young children.

I would rather sell a million pound house and book myself in to some of the care homes round here than be under government care thank you. The newer ones are literally like hotels. Bars, cafes, gym, marble bathrooms, bedroom suites with balconies etc etc

Even if you do need to go into a care home you are not likely to be there for long, a couple of years is a long stay, so likely you would die before much of your equity was used up. I used to work in care and quite often families let our the family home to pay part of the costs, the person's pensions would often cover a significant portion of the remainder and the family members would contribute too, that way the house could be retained.