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.

If you have assets, from the sale of your house or anywhere else, you can pay for a decent care home - and yes, there are good ones that do proper nursing, at a price (approaching £2k per week in some cases).

Otherwise you end up in one that the council will pay for. Believe me, there's a huge difference.

There’s not a legit way to do this.

Also amongst my older relatives only one who rented would have had to sell their home.
The rest died at home or in hospital and never went to a care home. If you rent you still have to pay for home carers.

This argument sucks tbh, are you suggesting op there shouldn't be a safety net for those who need care but can't afford it? Or are you suggesting that people who need care and can afford it shouldn't have to pay but instead everyone else should pay?

I thought that's the whole point - turning earnings into assets in working age and than turning assets into money/services when old.

The care must be paid for, be it directly or as some form of inheritance tax.

It’s a minority who require 24 hour care , it’s not the case that the vast majority of elderly people end up in nursing/ residential care. Not all care is funded by the individual either , complex needs are funded by the nhs. I’m surprised that posters here are talking about private vs council/ state funded homes . In my locality, the vast majority are private now anyway. It’s not a case of being able to pick and choose either, you go where there is a place. Whether you’re self funding or not.

I agree it's so you have somewhere secure to live and that it's difficult. Life is short and it takes longer and longer to make it now....

The years when mortgage is paid off - so you aren't worried about paying ever increasing rent out of pension income and then having house to sell to give care options if and when they are needed.

Hey all thanks for your posts and sharing your thinking. Life feels bleak at times esp as I imagine many people from my generation will not pay their mortgage fully until their 70s. It doesn’t feel like what Boomers are getting now (part funded by my generation) will be available to us

Well, I guess it's not if you only consider your home an investment?

I don't. I consider my home a place I want to be, a place I want to build some lovely memories and actually enjoy living in. I don't actually ever give a second thought to what money I might leave to my children after my death, like I don't give a second thought to what my parents might leave me. I think every penny should be spent enjoying life, and if that means paying for a brilliant care home, then so be it.

Many people query this. But rent is throw away money. At least with a mortgage you end up owning it. Can downsize later. Plus, Most end up in care homes for a short time, before passing, so the exorbitant fees are only for a short time. Money left goes to your kids.

How you gonna pay the rent, when you are 65+ (it'll probably be 70 by then) when you are retired with no job.

Why buy a house - well gosh - so you have somewhere to live. That is generally what houses are for, they aren't savings plans.

"Boomers get now - Part funded by you"

Rolls on floor laughing. Part funded by you? How long have you been part funding it? Months?

I'm 50. Dh had mortgage rate increase many years ago, that most people struggled to pay. he took a second job at nighttime, recovering broken down vehicles to pay mortgage. We are now near the end of our mortgage and we are actually on a 10 year fixed rate until it finishes so that we know it's not going to increase which was a very good decision that my husband made! We've both worked for 30+ years. My mum and dad are war babies. Both born in 45. Retired. He was a very senior social worker for 45 years. They deserve everything they have.

How have you been funding it?

Hi, for balance just to point out, it’s not very helpful to use figures like x% of over 65s or 85s are in care. It’s a bit irrelevant, since a care home isn’t somewhere to spend your old age, just the most frail part of it.
If someone has figures for how many people end up in care for a proportion of their old age and of those, the average number of years - then it’s helpful.
Otherwise the impression is that going into a care home at 70 or 88 doesn’t count even though it could be for a decade or more.
Its a shame that the care cap keeps being delayed ( twice already ) and that as it stands, it is more favourable for the richest people. I really think there should be some proportionality against the the assets a person has. A low paid worker with a small home shouldn’t have to pay the same set amount as a millionaire before the cap comes into effect.

If I’m the last one left, I’m more than happy to use my house for good quality care, be it in home or in a care home.
I’ll use the house rather than pensions as long as they keep pensions outside your estate and therefore out of IHT.

The house / equity would do for 4 or 5 years of care home fees, I’d buy an immediate care needs annuity, or DD would if I didn’t have capacity - as she has POA for me if DH went first.
Having seen the LA ‘care package’ for my 95 year old blind Female neighbour, I’d rather use my assets for proper care, not 2 male carers who barely speak English and spend less than 10 minutes 4x daily and spend another 15 pratting about on their phones sat in the car outside, blicking off half the road 😡

*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.*

I've just looked up the definition of millenial and it's people born 1981-1996 - so at the oldest you're 42 or youngest 27. I guess there's some excuse if you're in your late 20s but how on earth do you get to your 30s or 40s without being aware of this? and that the govt doesn't 'literally take your home and sell it'? or being aware of what NI and taxation fund?

why the fuck do people think tax is some sort of savings scheme?

Ha ha - there is that.

Housing stability

a mortgage plus maintenance costs can be cheaper than renting

once the house is paid off, you may live very low cost for many years which is useful for retirement. Paying rent in retirement is problematic.

Haven't RTFT but IMO you aren't losing anything.

If you do need to go into a home, then if you've money/assets you can pick a really nice posh one, not one of those stinky Local Authority ones.

My FIL died recently. He’d been in a care home for 8.5 years with dementia, self-funded. His house was sold to pay the fees. There isn’t much money left. We’re ok with that-we were glad that he had enough money to pay for a decent place.

I don’t understand why you think you’re part funding ’Boomers’ when you acknowledge yourself that they fund their own care if they have assets 🤷‍♀️

Even the not fully paid mortgage means you have an asset with a significant value, so it works as a kind of savings pot compared with renting for the same price.

However yes, the conditions are heavily uneven, many boomers privatised rental housing, benefited from the rising property value (without doing anything for that) and many don't even acknowledge how lucky they were

It's a roll of the dice but hopefully you won't need much care later in life. Unfortunately the reality is some people do and it can come as a huge shock to them and their families. I'd also like to refute the idea that local authority or NHS funded care is always in local authority homes and you can somehow buy your way out of this. There are none in my local area and people from all income groups end up in the same private nursing homes.