Some very appreciated needed advice

Nafta

Hello everybody,
I am in need of some good advice. I firstly apologise if this is not the correct thread forum for this...

My mother in law who is 78 years of age has an interest only mortgage on a loan on £25000.
The situation is as follows, my brother in law wants to pay off the 25 grant for the following reason; he says that if (fingers cross it does not happen) my mother in law has to go to a home, the Local Authority will take the house (his and his brothers inheritance) to pay for the care.
My husband does not thinks it is all that straight forward and cannot help but to think that he has a hidden intention.

Ideally we would like for my mother in law to have the deeds to the house, (which i what she thought was going to happen sooner or later unfortunatly she did not totally understand that all this time she was not paying the loan off) and for the house not to be taken away should she in the future need care.
Can anybody give me some advice on how to deal with this matter. should we let him go ahead and pay off the mortgage giving him a proportion of the house. I have read something about joint tenancy and tenants in common. If he was to go ahead and pay it off and have a tenants in common ownership, what percentage of the property would be his and how would he benefit financially in the future? Would it mean the house is safe? what rights would he have on the property. I went to zoopla following one of Martin's links and the estimated the house to be worth around £115000, but Land registry estimates it to be £125000 so that at the moment is not clear. We also thought that if he was to share ownership of the property then my mother in law would loose on benefits like council tax etc?

Sorry for the "book" but I wanted to cover or give as much details as possible.

Thanks so much!!

nafta

getmore4less

I you want to stop the care side of things you will need proffesional advice.

Transactions can be undone so just paying off the mortgage will not work.

sammyjammy

I don't mean to offend but you say the reasons for paying off the loan are to stop the need to pay for care in the future?

Do you have any idea what basic council paid for care consists of? Its not pleasant (I'm generalising here) I can assure you and I wouldn't leave a mother of mine in it. Why if she owns 90K equity in her house would you not want to use this money to provide a pleasant comfortable home where you can rely on the level of care she gets?

Its not acceptable (IMO) for people to cheat the system by hiding money (legally or illegally) so as not to pay for your care in your old age should you need it, the free care is there for those who cannot get this care any other way.

I appreciate that the view I am expressing is "idealistic" but I think its sad, if you as a family want to avoid the costs perhaps someone could care for her in their home if it were possible.

Sam

Conrad

I well understand why people want to retain thier parents hard earned money within the family and pass it down. I sure as heck will make damn sure my children get the benefit of my hard work and it not be spirited away by the state - have you seen how many Government workers claim for bullying and gawd knows what and walk away with masses of compensation of other peoples hard earned money.

All my life I've played fair yet many I come accross claim benefits for a limp or bad back (my grandad worked even when he lost most of his stomatch) and my best freinds wife has severe cerebral paulsey and works.

If the OP's mum inlaws son buys the house it is a reasonable safeguard against state theft, but these arrangements aren't water tight always.
ALL her children need to buy it together and she remain as a tenant for life.

benjo

or you could look after her yourself/within the family when/if she needs care.

Newbird

Agree with Conrad, what a shame its only come to light now that the loan is IO - but even if all children bought the house this could will be seen by the council as a constructive way towards care fee avoidance, (whats your argument against this? and if you have one can you prove it? as you'll need to!) they are well clued up on these kind of possibilities and as said above, this sort of deal can be undone. They would still put a charge on the property in your ownership for care fees unless you can prove that was not the reason you bought it from MIL.

You need good legal advice, (CAB free) we've been through similar with my parents.