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Parents may lose home to pay for care fees - help!
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pirieg01
Posts: 5 Forumite
Sorry if this is in the wrong place.
In short my parents have no money, neither work as father has had strokes, had to give up work instantly and is now needing full time care by my mum. Their pension crashed some years ago. They have 4 more years left on their mortgage and it is killing them having to pay it.
My mum won't accept financial help from us kids (3 of us) as she is hell bent on having a house one day to leave to us that she paid for herself. (A very proud but stubborn woman she is!)
I would like to take over the mortgage and pay it for her as my priority is that they decrease the amount of stress in their lives and don't lose their beloved home.
It is very likely my father will need residential care sometime soon. Oh, also my other is disabled and also getting older and one day will also need residential care. I worry she is killing herself trying to pay for this house yet one day the government will get their hands on it as a means to paying for their residential care.
Here's my confusion - is there a way that I can pay their mortgage, have the house in my name (tho they will still have say over who lives in it etc) yet they won't lose their house to the government for care fees? I don't believe I am trying to fiddle things as they are the 2 most honest people ever, have never had much money but been hard grafters all their lives.
Can anyone help?
Many thanks
In short my parents have no money, neither work as father has had strokes, had to give up work instantly and is now needing full time care by my mum. Their pension crashed some years ago. They have 4 more years left on their mortgage and it is killing them having to pay it.
My mum won't accept financial help from us kids (3 of us) as she is hell bent on having a house one day to leave to us that she paid for herself. (A very proud but stubborn woman she is!)
I would like to take over the mortgage and pay it for her as my priority is that they decrease the amount of stress in their lives and don't lose their beloved home.
It is very likely my father will need residential care sometime soon. Oh, also my other is disabled and also getting older and one day will also need residential care. I worry she is killing herself trying to pay for this house yet one day the government will get their hands on it as a means to paying for their residential care.
Here's my confusion - is there a way that I can pay their mortgage, have the house in my name (tho they will still have say over who lives in it etc) yet they won't lose their house to the government for care fees? I don't believe I am trying to fiddle things as they are the 2 most honest people ever, have never had much money but been hard grafters all their lives.
Can anyone help?
Many thanks
0
Comments
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How are you going to do this if your mother won't accept help from you?
You don't say what your parents' ages are, but your Dad, who is incapacitated through strokes, should be eligible for either invalidity benefit, DLA, or some of the means-tested benefits, and that means that the interest on the mortgage should be getting paid for them through the DWP.
If your Dad were to go into residential care because of strokes then, if your Mum is over 60, the house couldn't be touched. Also is that a brother or sister who's disabled? Same thing applies - the house cannot be touched as long as a spouse over 60 and/or a disabled sibling or child lives there.
Have a look at https://www.entitledto.co.uk to check their entitlement to benefits, and make sure they're getting all that they're entitled to.
An awful lotta water will have to flow under the bridge before Mum and Dad get to the point of 'the government getting their hands on' their house. They're nowhere near that point yet. However, it may not be worthwhile Mum 'killing herself' just so that she can leave a house to 3 of you, who are probably then going to squabble about which of you can live in it! I agree with you, the important thing is reducing stress and maximising the time that Mum and Dad have together and that they can enjoy while they still can.
My heart goes out to you - my first husband started having strokes in his mid-50s and died aged 58 in 1992. My second husband and I would have had a mortgage until we were 83 - we decided to do equity release because we saw no point at all in paying a mortgage just in time to die and leave it to someone else! A bit different from what your Mum is thinking of.
HTH
Margaret[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Æ[/FONT]r ic wisdom funde, [FONT=Times New Roman, serif]æ[/FONT]r wear[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]ð[/FONT] ic eald.
Before I found wisdom, I became old.0 -
I think its fairly sewn up the laws on taking the house to pay for the care.
But they can't take the house till your mother needs care (or father, whoever is last in the house).
When you say you can't stand to see her killing herself to pay for a house the government will take anyway, what option has she got? They can't just stop paying the mortgage?
Thats not meant to sound flippant or nasty, what I'm getting at is can they?, can they downsize & be mortgage free?
Take proper advice, I don't know what the rules are but I think if the deed was done now (they sold the house to you cheap?) then its only for so many years they can hold them accountable for that, is it 7?
Anyway, get proper advice on this one.
Good luck, shame your mum having all that worry at her time of life.0 -
You would do best to take proper legal advice, from a solicitor who is a specialist in the finances of older people.
Your parents may be able to set up a Protective Trust, for example, which allows each of them to separately own half the value of their property. This means that on the death of the first, the value of their half can be left to someone/s other than the surviving partner and would not have to be taken into consideration if that parent then needed long term care. The trust would incorporate a life interest that would permit them to remain in the house for as long as they needed.
As has been said, the local authority would not have an interest in the house whilst one parent still needs to live in it.0 -
I think that treliac has made a very important point, your parents should own the house as "tenants in common", and it is very important that they both have wills and that they do not automatically leave their half of the house to each other but instead to their children.
I urge you to discuss this with a solicitor as others have said already.0 -
Thank you all so much for your very useful replies. All of them have made me think about where and what to do next. You're all helping make this situation a little better.0
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