Help wanted for In laws

Advent_2

Does anyone hav any advice/info links how I can help my in laws sort out there finances. They are both in 70's n hav all sorts of shares (bit cloak n dagger bout it) don't think they are worth alot but my father in law doesn't talk much about such things. If he has to go into a nursing home will they lose there house/shares is there anyway we can put them somewhere safe. We hav heard that u may be forced to sell ur house to pay for nursing costs. Is this true it doesn't seem fair if you've paid in all your life!

Troubleatmill_2

Yep... that's life.

He needs to wake up and smell the coffee.
There are a number of things he can do for "estate planning".
But I would strongly suggest that he sees a specialist.

EdInvestor

Advent wrote:

Does anyone hav any advice/info links how I can help my in laws sort out there finances. They are both in 70's n hav all sorts of shares (bit cloak n dagger bout it) don't think they are worth alot but my father in law doesn't talk much about such things. If he has to go into a nursing home will they lose there house/shares is there anyway we can put them somewhere safe. We hav heard that u may be forced to sell ur house to pay for nursing costs. Is this true it doesn't seem fair if you've paid in all your life!

Why don't you ask them if they are worried about the matter? You may find they have already taken action to sort it out themselves.

Advent_2

No they havn't done anything about it. They are unofficially waiting for us to take the initiative :eek:

EdInvestor

The most important thing to do is to divide the family assets between the two of them, half each.So the house should be owned as "tenants in common", not as joint tenants ( you can fix this via the Land Registry.) Savings and investments should also be split equally.

This means that if one person goes into care, only half of the total assets can be earmarked by the local authority to pay for the care. The other half is not affected.The council cannot take the father's assets to pay for the mother's care.There is no danger of losing the house anyway while the spouse or a child over 60 is living in it.

Most people don't go into care homes.If they do they are normally pretty old ( late 80s/90s) when it happens.Many people worry unnecessarily about this.

Re inheritance tax, note that there is a tax free band of 285k per person which will shortly rise to 300k. If their house, shares and other assets are worth more than this, they should visit their solicitor for some advice on both IHT and care costs.

dunstonh

a discretionary will trust can use property (when in tenants in common as mentioned above) as well as certain investments. The investments usually have to be set up in a certain way to take advantage of it.

Before any investments get changed, they should be checked to see if they are already exempt from local authority care means testing. Changing them could remove that exemption and bring them into their list of assets which would do more damage than good.

margaretclare

How can they be 'a bit cloak-and-dagger' about it (I translate this to mean 'secretive') and yet expect you to 'take the initiative'? Either they want some help and advice from you or they don't!

Who raised the question of their house being sold to pay for their care? Is there a likelihood that one/both of them will need to go into full-time residential care, or is it just one of those vague possibilities that they've heard of and think it may happen?

I would strongly agree with both having savings/investments/income as individuals.

Margaret

Advent_2

Father in laws father & most male relatives have developed alheimers in early - mid 70's he is starting to show early signs, so we need to try & help them now while he is still ok, I have printed a really good booklet off age concern website so they can start writing down everything they have banks accounts, gas, elec so we know exactly where to start (hopefully)