Care for the ellederly and cost...

gbrael

Our quandary is as follows…
We have taken my wifes mother in to live with us (we have power of attorney) and have rented here house out. We currently receive £ 420 for this after estate agency fees. We receive about £230 attendance allowance and she receives a very small pension. Since we have taken her in, I have had to give up my weekend job a loss of £560 per month and my wife no longer works in the week as we share the caring. So we are roughly £1500 down per month.
We are considering selling her house but we must claw some of the money back from her for us caring for her, Her house is only really worth £88,000. And we understand the gvernment wil take as much of her monay as possble in the event of here going into a home..?
In order for us to be able to continue to look after we need to replace some of our financial loss from her money - we understand that we can be gifted £3000 a year but that still leaves us short....
1) Would we be able to charge here "Rent" for staying in our house and perhaps a "cost of keep" ??
2) We understand that we will have to change the way we pay our carer to "direct pay" and that is a necessary deduction from her estate
Are there any ways we can use her money to help us to help her ???
Any advice/guidance appreciated .
We have rented the house out for one year but we feel that the limited protection given to land lands coupled with inept letting agents leaves us reluctant to do this again and we are struggling on the rental income - if she were to home we obviously lose everything bar £16,000 id that’s the threshold the state allows.
So please if anyone can give us some idea really would be helpful….
May thanks

Oldernotwiser

Does your MIL claim Pension Credit?

L0RRY

Is your wife claiming Carer's Allowance?

McKneff

Is the rental money going into Mothers bank account, its just you say 'we are receiving'

If there is a chance mil is going to go into care you have to be meticulous about where money is and has gone.

gbrael

Yes she get pensions credit
the ony carere allowance is attendance allowance...
The rent for her house was going to her bank account ...

she has no HB and owns the house outright - what we are trying to do is recoup our cost for looking after her - she can gift us GBP 3000 and we could charge an amount of say GBP 400 rent etc - we are not trying to rob anyone just recoup some of t
he GBP 1500 we have lost having to give up work to care for her and for her living in our house.
Surely a formal or even informal agreement payment of rent from her would be ok ?

McKneff

£400 seems to be an awful lot of money to be charging for board money, especially when we are talking about your OHs mother,
remember how much you paid your mother when you were living at home.

[Deleted User]

gbrael wrote: »

Yes she get pensions credit
the ony carere allowance is attendance allowance...
The rent for her house was going to her bank account ...

she has no HB and owns the house outright - what we are trying to do is recoup our cost for looking after her - she can gift us GBP 3000 and we could charge an amount of say GBP 400 rent etc - we are not trying to rob anyone just recoup some of t
he GBP 1500 we have lost having to give up work to care for her and for her living in our house.
Surely a formal or even informal agreement payment of rent from her would be ok ?

if you wife isnt working then she should be able to claim carers allowance around £55 a week

Whiteknight

Hate to suggest this but if you cannot afford to look after your mother in law maybe she should go and live in a care home so that you and your wife can go out and work.

It has already been suggested that your wife if not working could claim Carers Allowance and increase your weekly income.

2) We understand that we will have to change the way we pay our carer to "direct pay" and that is a necessary deduction from her estate

I also don't understand who you are paying - are you paying someone else to come in and care for your MIL?

We have rented the house out for one year but we feel that the limited protection given to land lands coupled with inept letting agents leaves us reluctant to do this again and we are struggling on the rental income - if she were to home we obviously lose everything bar £16,000 id that’s the threshold the state allows.

I notice that you mention that you would lose everything bar £16,000, I assume this is if she goes to a care home and reading this does look like you are trying to use her money to cover your costs of looking after her - so what happens when her money runs out and you find yourself with a short fall in your income?

Also what does your wife do on the weekends - does she work?

Oldernotwiser

If your MIL is claiming PC of £137 pw then you would seem to have an income from her of nearly £1400 pcm already, so you only seem to be "down" by £100. If your wife claims £55 pw CA, you would then be "up" by £120; is this enough?

meg72

gbrael wrote: »

Our quandary is as follows…
We have taken my wifes mother in to live with us (we have power of attorney) and have rented here house out. We currently receive £ 420 for this after estate agency fees. We receive about £230 attendance allowance.

I make that £650

We are considering selling her house but we must claw some of the money back from her for us caring for her,

Her house is only really worth £88,000. And we understand the gvernment wil take as much of her monay as possble in the event of here going into a home..?

So you are not considering this a permanet arrangement

In order for us to be able to continue to look after we need to replace some of our financial loss from her money - we understand that we can be gifted £3000 a year but that still leaves us short....
1) Would we be able to charge here "Rent" for staying in our house and perhaps a "cost of keep" ??
2) We understand that we will have to change the way we pay our carer to "direct pay" and that is a necessary deduction from her estate
Are there any ways we can use her money to help us to help her ???
Any advice/guidance appreciated .
We have rented the house out for one year but we feel that the limited protection given to land lands coupled with inept letting agents leaves us reluctant to do this again and we are struggling on the rental income - if she were to home we obviously lose everything bar £16,000 id that’s the threshold the state allows.
So please if anyone can give us some idea really would be helpful….
May thanks

is this not your wifes Mother? What price love and caring,poor poor Lady

blossomhill_2

You need to see a financial adviser
The emotional as well as financial strain will mean that you can't see the situation clearly and getting indepenent advice may throw up some solutions you hadn't been aware existed - once the finance is less of a worry you will be better placed to ensure she gets the best care
There may be existing advice on the Over 50s thread