Old People Selling Homes to Pay for Care

Shamelessly lifted from another website....

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Do you SEE how the language changes? Just a moment ago, it was all PROPERTY prices and hurray for speculation and profit and the FREE market. Isn’t it all marvellous? I'm buying to let y'know!

But when it comes to cases like these old people who have been abandoned by their families (who are too selfish and lazy to look after them themselves like they should), or people who can’t even get anywhere to live at all, the magic wand is waved and the PROPERTY suddenly becomes HOMES again in the news reports. And the poor people are being FORCED rather than being FREE in their housing.

Well fancy that. It’s almost as though the market isn’t working isn’t it?



HOUSING FOR NEED – NOT FOR PROFIT!
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i thought i'd post it and see where the debate goes....thoughts?

[northwind]

If old people are having to sell their homes to pay for care, it's nothing to do with the market or house prices at all... It is about the cost of care, pensions provisions, family support, and whether they've saved.

Are they talking about paying for full-time nursing care, ie in a care home? My grandma's in occupational care now, she's registered blind and has mild dementia (well, she's 97, fair play...) Lots of people have remarked how terrible it is that she had to sell her house to pay for it (not from lack of family support either, full time nursing costs). The point is, though, she doesn't live there any more, and never will again. A home stops being a home when it's empty.

If we're talking about people getting home care and not being able to afford it, that's a different kettle of fish. But then the question is, where do you draw the line? In theory my grandma could have got home care, but she'd need 3 full time nursing staff in her home. Now, with the best will in the world you can't expect taxpayers or family to pay £60,000 per year to support one person, when it would cost a fraction of that if they were in occupational care.

And not to be unsympathetic, but people don't have an unlimited right to a home just because they're old. If someone makes it to 100 but can't afford to upkeep a house, that isn't any different IMO from a 25 year old who owns a house and can't afford it. It's very sad, but again, who should pay for it if they don't? Where does that line get drawn?

I think it's sad when someone has to sell their home to pay for care, but at the end of the day you start with nothing and if you end with nothing as long as you're cared for that's the main thing.

Yes, people want to be able to pass something onto their kids, but I'd like an island in the carribean and my own personal racetrack but I don't have them! My Dad has Parkinsons - relatively early stages, but in the longer term likely to need a lot of support. Personally I don't care if I don't see a penny from my parents as long as they are taken care of in the best possible way.

The biggest dilemma that I see is if the other partner is still living in the house - not sure what they currently do then, as that wouldn't be right to take the house away and doom them to paying rent out of a pretty meagre pension.

And what is particularly unfair is that the system is different in different parts of the UK. Saw on the news the other day a nursing home nr England/Scotland border - Scottish pensioners had free care while the English ones had to sell their homes. The Scottish ones were really gloating about it as well - that would really pee you off!!

I certainly agree with what's been said - can't expect an infinite amount of money to pay for care from the government.

On the other hand, if the government wants to take peoples property when they need care, they should keep their mitts off when they dont, as in inheritance tax.

yeah, they really do sting you at every turn, don't they?!!

[timwilky]

I think the real issue is one of unfairness. for some reason most benifits are means tested not a right. Therefore if you have been prudent and made provison for your old age you get stung for everything. However you could have ****ed your salary away, never worked etc and lo and behold the tax payer will fund your rent/ council tax etc.

Once you go into a home, where you have made the provisions for yourself, you pay, pay, pay. But again the taxpayer bails out those with no provision. Hardly an incentive to todays youth to invest in pensions/ mortgages etc.

I noticed an add on TV yesterday and commented to my kids that they are now funding post 16 studies EMA I think they call it, but only for family incomes of < £30,000 again shouldn't it be a right for all kids to get the money. or is "new labour" being predjudice against "middle england" God forbid.

Originally Posted by timwilky

I noticed an add on TV yesterday and commented to my kids that they are now funding post 16 studies EMA I think they call it, but only for family incomes of < £30,000 again shouldn't it be a right for all kids to get the money. or is "new labour" being predjudice against "middle england" God forbid.

Or in the old day if you wanted cash when you hit 16 you got a Saturday job. All the EMA does is encourage the next generation of spongers!

Originally Posted by northwind

more agreeable stuff...

Damn you Northwind. Always have to have the right opinion, dont you.

Here keith, why dont you just post up something funny, and then we can all be done here.

Originally Posted by sharriso74

Or in the old day if you wanted cash when you hit 16 you got a Saturday job. All the EMA does is encourage the next generation of labour voters

Fixed.

[northwind]

Kids that need paid to stay at school past 16 aren't going to be any sort of voters...

I think the problem is, you can't withdraw care from a feckless granny. "You didn't save enough, to the workhouse you go till you die of malnutrition." You've got to have some sort of basic provision.

The clincher is that an absolute minimum of supported care is in place for everyone. Old folks with money don't get cut off from benefits- my grandma, with her 1/4 mil in the bank, gets the same as someone who'd not saved a penny. It's really not very much, but she gets it.

But the people with money can afford a better level of care. Been in a low-rent care home recently? Pretty rotten... Sit in the corner and watch TV til you die. The staff can't help you, they don't speak english (not because they're "stealing our jobs", but because nobody with a choice works at the bottom end of the care industry) So, anyone with money chooses not to take the minimum level of care, because it's so bad.

The number of people that genuinely do need to sell their homes to pay for care is, I suspect, very small. But selling your home to pay for any sort of decent care... A lot more common.