If father goes into care

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cavework

If anything happens to Mum before Dad, then the bungalow will have to be sold and your fathers share released.
If your father is the sole beneficiary then the proceeds will be used for his nursing home fee's.
As tenants in common does this mean that if either parent dies , you and any sibblings inherit 50% of the value of the property sharing this with the surviving partner?
If your father dies first then there would be no claim on your Mum for the care he received if she then chooses to sell the property and move but the proceeds will be taken into account if she needs to move into a Nursing home and she would have to self fund if her savings are then over the threshold.

Trebor16

While your mum remains living in the home then it will not be taken into account to pay any care home costs. The only thing that would be taken into account is any savings above the threshold of £23500. That is assuming that your fathers needs are only social care needs and not health needs. It may be worthwhile looking to see if your father would qualify for the NHS to cover his care home costs in full.

John_Pierpoint

Presumably dad is getting attendance allowance already?

I think we need some clear thinking and posting about dad's wealth and his medical condition to make more sensible suggestions.

For example "she is worried about what will happen to her bungalow" should perhaps read "she is worried about what will happen to their bungalow"?

Don't expect the local authority or the NHS to explain clearly your options, any more than you would expect HMRC to explain how you could reduce your taxes.

Pollycat

Having fairly recently gone through the process of finding a care home for my Dad who had Dementia (he sadly died 3 weeks ago) on behalf of my Mum, I found loads of great info about care homes and funding from this website:

http://www.counselandcare.org.uk/finding-and-paying-for-a-care-home

Maybe start with 'Care home fees - paying them in England' (there are alternatives for Scotland & Wales).

Does your dad need nursing care or just care?

Have you spoken to the Social Services Dept of your local council?
We started with them and they did a budget for day care for Dad that gave Mum some respite.

When it became clear that Dad wasn't safe at home, they visited us and after agreeing that we needed somewhere permanent for him, they mentioned a few places for us to look at.

When we got to the funding part, we had a visit from the Adult Care dept of our County Council.

If your Dad requires nursing care, you should read up about Continuing Healthcare (CHC).
If it's agreed that this is required, it's arranged and paid for solely by the NHS.

But, I believe it's a nightmare to get agreement.

There's a long thread on this board about CHC and fighting to get agreement.
One poster fought for 4 years before finally getting her PCT to agree.

Pollycat

Corona
where are you along the 'finding a suitable home for Dad' route?

Which organisations (if any) have you got involved?

I asked:

Pollycat wrote: »

Does your dad need nursing care or just care?

Do you know the answer?

Have you looked at the link I gave re property which might answer your initial question?

Incidentally, from your recent post, I think you have far more important questions to ask and answer than what happens to the bungalow in the event of your Dad's death.

John_Pierpoint

Has your mother turned the property into "tenants in common"?.
Does your mother have a will? Is it a mirror will of dad's. What do they say about the destination of funds if the other partner has already died or if both die at the same time?

Is your father still sufficiently compos mentis to alter a will and/or give(n) enduring/lasting power of attorney?
What is the bungalow worth?
[From what you have said, I am assuming that your parents live "South of the Border"?]

I know how sad it is to see one's parent reduced to the equivalent of an overgrown toddler, still have the emotional scars.
I have a feeling that the NHS will classify dad as suffering from old age rather than a treatable medical condition?

Pollycat wrote: »

If your Dad requires nursing care, you should read up about Continuing Healthcare (CHC).
If it's agreed that this is required, it's arranged and paid for solely by the NHS.

But, I believe it's a nightmare to get agreement.

There's a long thread on this board about CHC and fighting to get agreement.
One poster fought for 4 years before finally getting her PCT to agree.

If the prognosis is a matter of weeks, then the NHS has a budget for "hospice" type care, but in this case it would appear to be just general further deterioration? My late uncle " Mr Dog " found himself in a lovely country house care of BUPA, though appart from my hauling him into a wheel chair and pushing him round the grounds, the setting was wasted on him as he was at best house bound. This was the case for the vast majority of the other inmates who were "self funding" at a cost of more than £1,000 and that was per week:eek:

Is dad likely "to have a funny turn" and end up in hospital ?

margaretclare

I have a feeling that the NHS will classify dad as suffering from old age rather than a treatable medical condition?

Dad has 2 medical conditions, but whether either of them is treatable now is open to doubt.

He's diabetic. This affects every system in the body, starting with the very smallest blood-vessels. In conjunction with this he gets TIAs (transient ischaemic attacks) or 'mini-strokes'. These can occur at any time, even during sleep. Every one of these destroys a little bit more brain tissue, and once brain tissue is lost you can't get it back.

Anyone who has been diagnosed diabetic needs to be absolutely stringent about their blood-glucose control. If this hasn't happened - and plenty of people are incredibly casual about this extremely dangerous condition - then a whole raft of other nasties follow on.

Savvy_Sue

I think you'll find Yorkshire is South of the Border with Scotland, where they do things differently.

Pollycat

Pollycat wrote: »

Incidentally, from your recent post, I think you have far more important questions to ask and answer than what happens to the bungalow in the event of your Dad's death.

Corona
I hope my quote above didn't come across wrong - I just meant that (having been in the same situation fairly recently), there's a lot to be sorted out (including finding the right care home for your Dad) and possibly a lot of paperwork and maybe meetings/conversations with councils.

Corona wrote: »

Yes, thank you Pollycat, I have looked at that link and I think it will be very useful.

To be honest - I feel very tearful at the moment with it all; seeing my intelligent and independent Dad turn into (basically) a vegetable; seeing my Mum struggle to care for him - her own health going downhill (drinking far too much sherry to cope with the stress). I do what I can - and we also buy in help - but I can see it starting to break down and we're coming to the next stage.

No - we all live in Yorkshire (not South of the Border). They're actually getting quite a bit of help and have a lovely Social Worker (who is, unfortunately, frequently off work - i suspect with stress).

We had a crisis at the weekend - had to go round there in the middle of the night because Dad had fallen and couldn't get up (he wouldn't let Mum call out Warden Call (which has been a godsend); was very abusive with her; so my husband and I went round; got him back into bed - took half an hour - then Mum just sobbed and sobbed that she couldn't cope any more. Of course, 2 days on, and she's had 2 better days, and now she's re-thinking the whole thing about putting Dad into care.

Until the next crisis ...

This all sounds so familiar, I really feel for you - especially as you're on your own in this.
At least i had my sister.

Please don't let your Mum talk herself (and you) into thinking she can cope, her own health will just suffer.

My Dad also had a fall which resulted in him being hospitalised and we were told he wasn't fit to go home so was discharged straight into the care home - which luckily we'd alread chosen and they were keeping a vacancy for him.
He fell on the Friday and we'd planned that he'd go into the care home on the monday so it just delayed things by a few days.

If I were you, I'd be looking at suitable homes and checking with the council what they are prepared to fund and considering whether you need 3rd party top-ups for the home of your choice.
I believe there are guides on the Counsel & Care website about that too.

Good luck, if you have any more questions just ask.
And if you just want to offload, then that's OK too.

It's probably not much consolation, but you're aren't the only one going through this.

John_Pierpoint

I'm interested in the reasoning behind the local authority insisting that the bungalow being transferred from joint-tenants to
tenants-in-common?

Is it their intention to become simple creditors of Dad's estate that is worth at least half a bungalow, on which they could have put a legal charge to make it unsellable and unmortgageable?
or
is it that they don't want the widow becoming de-facto owner of the whole bungalow, possibly borrowing to try to pay off the debt and thus making herself almost penniless and another candidate for financial support anyway?

I may be suffering from total paranoia, which I would not want to dump onto Corona, but we have a similar situation developing in the family at the moment.

Corona wrote: »

Dad occasionally goes into a local nursing home for respite, so that's kind of already chosen and they are aware that things are getting worse, but maybe it's time to actually put his name down for a room.

Very good point, good care/nursing homes are full and have a waiting list, so you might need to have a "plan B" - either way dad is unlikely to be in favour of either plan.

Rather than take dad away for expensive weekends, is it still possible for him to relate to a visiting carer to let your mother have time off away from the home and stress.
Private care in the existing home is not a cheap alternative and the laws about minimum wage, workers' hours, paid holidays etc. etc. usually mean using an agency to maintain the concept of "self employment" or arranging something on the black market. It is not cheap and it won't take all the responsibilities away from you BUT you would be in charge and who pays the piper calls the tune (hopefully).

One final thought, do you have a husband or partner (and children) ? How do they feel about the emotional strain you are having to shoulder and what that might be doing to you?

"What does not kill us makes us stronger?"