Selling dad's home to pay for nursing care

[nevalina]

Hello, I was wondering if anyone has been in a similar situation to me? I have three kids under 5 so time is short but my dad has recently moved into a nursing home nearby as he has dementia. We have to clear and sell his house to fund the care and I'm not sure where to start.
My siblings live in America and I have no family nearby to help. He has a few nice things which in time I'd like to share around the family so I guess I can store them. But how to approach the rest? The house is over an hour's drive away so I can only get there at weekends and it feels as if it's all going to take forever.
Does anyone have any ideas or advice? Many thanks!

My parents had to do this recently for my Dad's mum. As i understand it was easier as my Dad had Power of attorney- I would suggest getting this if you haven't already.

Regards the practicalities, they had to clear out and clean the house, which my Mum and I did over a couple of weekends and then rang and estate agent to get it on the market. They left the keys with the EA so they handled all viewings and were only informed when there was an offer.

If its a bungalow you may find it goes really quickly as there is such a shortage of them. They were under offer within a week and accepted 2k under the asking price after 3 weeks.

This sounds like an emotional and logistical headache for you. A good place to start might be to call your local AgeUK (Age concern/Help the Aged's recent amalgamation). They will probably know of some local charity based clearance people who are experienced in this. You need their help or you will get overwhelmed. They can take any stuff they can sell on. You can cherry pick the things for storing plus maybe find/pay for someone to come with a van and take all the junk away.

Get help organised.
Broad strokes
Be prepared to pay a little for help. Ask for contribution from relatives if need be.

The key here is for you to avoid anxiety/getting bogged down with this so it takes the least emotional toll on you.

In a similar situation, my Mum found it so hard emotionally to get rid of her parents' stuff and in retrospect it would have helped to sit down and talk through some memories and decide what were the more important ones and what objects were relevant to them IYSWIM. As it was she just started and each new area was a new emotional hurdle. I was too far away to help much but I should have talked her through it more. Could you spend time talking to your siblings to help with that side of things?

Thankyou for all your replies. Yes we have power of attorney and the siblings are very supportive emotionally, they're just too far away to be of any practical help. I guess I will pull out the nice things for storage then look for a clearance company to deal with the rest before getting it on the market. You know perhaps the thing that's wierdest is that dad is still alive but we're about to dispose of a lot of his things and that doesn't feel right; even though he has no inkling that he ever had a house or belongings. Thanks again!

Good luck with it all nevalina. Sad old business.

Get some financial advice from Age Concern/help the aged - you need to consider whether buying an annuity is better value than just selling to pay the fees from the cash - it doesn't last that long TBH.

They will also give good advice about the whole situation.