U-Turn, Elderly must sell House to pay for Care Home

[poppet2]

Are they still entitled to a pension if living in a care home

 

No, I believe they take away 80% of your pension. The same thing happens if you are on a pension or any other benefits and you are in hospital for more then 4 weeks. It's because the state is providing for you.

[poison_pen]

No, I believe they take away 80% of your pension. The same thing happens if you are on a pension or any other benefits and you are in hospital for more then 4 weeks. It's because the state is providing for you.

 

I thought as much but wasn`t sure

[willman]

i had been thinking about it for a while and when i paid of the house and bought the land it was just an off cuff remark and he told me that if i signed over the house and placed it in there name and all monies to be held in a trust fund the state can`t touch it so bingo bango it s tighter than a ducks bum now and safe guards my childrens future

 

UNLESS "they" divorce in which case the property belongs to them and can form part of the settlement, or they get in debt and the property can form part of their estate.

Regardless of who lives in it.

They may also be questioned as to why no rent is being paid on it if you are living in it and they own it, and when the property is sold they will be liable for Capital Gains tax.

[Anna B]

Are they still entitled to a pension if living in a care home

 

Basically they take every penny you get, and just allow you about £20 a week for toiletries, and other things you might need.

 

Today's headline in Daily Mail 'Councils Spy on parents who sign over house to children.'

'Local authority inspectors are rifling through residents financial records to see if they deliberately tried to conceal their property wealth. If they uncover evidence that parents gave their home away as a ploy to escape care bills, they can use little known powers to force the family to sell the property and pay up.'

 

Also says about Trusts: 'In such a case, a local authority can ultimately use the Insolvency Act 1986 to get the money. In this case, a court may then order an earlier transfer of a home into trust to be set aside, or order the deeds to be returned to parents from children.'

'Families who find themselves caught up in the process and want to challenge it face a costly legal battle - and could end up in court.'

 

And ultimately, no care home has to accept a potential resident if it thinks it is going to have trouble getting the money.

[Peer Gynt]

Whatever happened to the "Cradle to Grave care" that we were promised when the welfare state was set up in the late forties?

Many of todays elderly are those who paid into the system from the 50s onwards, now having paid into the system for 50 years which initially paid for those who'd never contributed I'm told that I, along with my wife, must now sell our assets to pay four our care.

 

---------- Post added 19-10-2013 at 17:09 ----------

 

Well, that is no problem because when people are in care homes, everything is provided anyway. I have a friend in one and she doesn't spend a penny other than her daily newspaper.

They're up to all the tricks, they tried to charge my late mother-in-law for chiropody until I pointed out that she'd been getting it on the NHS before she went into care and bingo it was free again.

 

---------- Post added 19-10-2013 at 17:24 ----------

 

Isn't the real point that care home charges are yet another rip off?

 

£600 a week?

 

£2,400 a month? For one little old lady?

 

How can this be justified? Especially as care is not always good, food is minimal and staff are often paid minimum wage. If nursing care is required then shouldn't it be paid for by the NHS, into which these people have paid for a lifetime.

 

Exactly, they can pay £600 pw for a care home yet all that they would pay my wife to do the same job was £40 pw careers allowance.

We visited the care home that my late mother-in-law had recently been placed in, nobody was on the door, we just walked in and sat in the lounge for over two hours and in that time no member of staff came into the room where there were around 20 elderly sitting.

A resident was going along the corridors going into rooms (this we had heard other residents complain of).

We asked at the usual meeting with the head of staff after my M-In-Law had been there around 6 weeks how often staff visited the lounges and were told "Every 10 to 15 minutes" so we told her what we had found on several occasions, a member from social services was present and was shocked when she heard of our findings which resulted in a shake up in that particular home.

 

---------- Post added 19-10-2013 at 17:26 ----------

 

No, I believe they take away 80% of your pension. The same thing happens if you are on a pension or any other benefits and you are in hospital for more then 4 weeks. It's because the state is providing for you.

Along with attendance allowance.

[ccit]

@willman - yes, you are quite right and there are no more bitter feuds than those within families.

@Peer Gynt - in fairness, way back in the 1940's the politicians could never have envisaged the burdens that would be placed on the welfare state. The population was much, much lower then and people did not live as long as they do now. Families cared for their own. People these days sometimes can't are won't. It's also worth remembering that relatively few people ever require residential or nursing care - you may be one of the lucky ones.

 

The law is the law and as I've tried to live within it, I've resigned myself to the fact that if the occasion arises, they will take the money and that's that. If care is a little better due to self-funding then that's all to the good. I definitely would not hand over my property to anyone to avoid something that may never happen.

[poppet2]

in fairness, way back in the 1940's the politicians could never have envisaged the burdens that would be placed on the welfare state. The population was much, much lower then and people did not live as long as they do now. Families cared for their own. People these days sometimes can't are won't.

 

It was also introduced at a time when there was full employment and thus both the NHS and the benefits system was there as a safety net. The NHS was not there to get breast enlargements done!

[Peer Gynt]

@Peer Gynt - in fairness, way back in the 1940's the politicians could never have envisaged the burdens that would be placed on the welfare state. The population was much, much lower.

 

The population may have grown but we as part of the growing population still paid into the system believing in the promise of 'Cradle to Grave' we only found out that it was a worthless promise when we and our parents became eligible for these benefits, suddenly they (the local authorities) were selling homes to pay for the promised care that had been paid for several times over throughout a 50+ year working life.

[GLASGOWOODS]

I think the tories are getting things in order now because of the amount of people retiring over the next decade.

In Scotland alone there will be around a million people over 65 come 2021.

That's roughly 1 in 5 of the population.

[Peer Gynt]

It was also introduced at a time when there was full employment and thus both both the NHS and the benefits system was there as a safety net. The NHS was not there to get breast enlargements done!

Sorry, the NHS wasn't a safety net it was a guarantee of full and proper medical care.