Putting home into family trust to avoid nursing home fees

McKneff

My brother in laws parents, born and bred in Newcastle were staunch labour, grafted all their lives, lived in a council house, and were one of the generation who expected to be cared for in there old age, I suppose, they didnt expect it, they never even thought about it, they just plodded on. At the same time, private pensions were never thought of either

When my brother in law had the audacity to take out a mortgage and buy a house, he was branded an 'upstart and a tory'

Like someone says, each generation is different and face different scenarios.

clemmatis

cavework wrote: »

Let me just explain one thing .. no one .. absolutely no one gets free Nursing home care.
They may be subsidised by Adult Social Services if they have savings under a certain amount or their spouse still lives in the owned marital home. But all their income except 50% of an occupational pension (if the spouse is living) less pocket money of approx £22 a week is used to pay for fees.
Couples where one resides in a Nursing home are treated by the benefits office as single claimants.
There are options for top ups to be paid in many different ways. The British Legeon, Unions are two.
Also people subsidised by Adult Social Services do find places in private Nursing homes and many are fantastic but the quality of the rooms are often not as 'shall we say as 'special' as those being paid for by the self funded residents there. The quality of care is exactly the same and is monitored by visits to establish the clients subsidised by Adult Social services are being well looked after.
I have just attended one of these meetings and I was amazed at how thorough the person from Social services was to ensure all our needs were being met.
People who are self funding can still claim attendance allowance .. those funded do not get this.

Equally, nobody has to pay for it all themselves out of capital their children might be hoping to inherit. My mother was self-funding but/so got Attendance Allowance and, because the matron insisted she needed nursing care, £100 a week from the Welsh Assembly.

And of course people part-funded by Social Services sometimes go to private care/nursing homes; there aren't enough places in local council homes, some of which are really very good, to care for them.

But not all nursing homes accept such patients. And anyway; my point's about choice, as well. After reading all the reports -- which were more detailed then -- and asking around, and visiting, I chose. There were patients on my mother's hospital ward who weren't self-funding. They and their relatives lacked that choice. None would have been able to go to my mother's nursing home, though a few patients there -- in shared rooms, yes -- were supported by charities. It's a choice I'd like to have for myself too.

And "special" rooms, well, again, I chose -- I turned down the first room they offered me. I chose a light and airy room. That helped my mother a lot, later; she really liked the room. I admit it helped me too.

I'd prefer equality of provision, and equality of choice. But that's not how it is.

laurel7172

My parents, should they need care in old age, deserve the best care possible.

If I inherit nothing but a bill for the funeral as a result, so be it.

midnight_express

laurel7172 wrote: »

My parents, should they need care in old age, deserve the best care possible.

If I inherit nothing but a bill for the funeral as a result, so be it.

I'm glad someone has some self respect and respect for their parents.

pollypenny

Most of us have. My father was self-funded. We were unable to bring him to live with us, he'd have been lonely with us out at work anyway.

His house, his money to spend as he liked - but not to pass on to us on the basis of someone else paying for him.

Errata

My stepdad had a backbone and plenty of self respect. He fully understood that the very many tens of thousands he had from the sale of his house was simply the result of paying a few hundreds for his first house and moving up the housing ladder, paying a monthly mortgage that was far less than rent would have been.
He was happy to use the cash to self fund because as he put it "It's free money, I did nothing to earn it", and it was.

John_Pierpoint

My late uncle, partly because nobody had power of attorney to get at his savings and partly because he was diagnosed with a cancer that would swiftly kill him, was paid for in a nursing home, by the NHS.

He probably had the smallest room, with an en-suite about a third of the size of the bedroom: Bed, chair, TV on wall, small hanging cupboard, small chest of drawers - room dominated by a hoist. Two small casement windows with a view over the car park. The NHS had earmarked two such rooms for its terminal patients. There were about 50 other self funding rooms.

I would guess that the room my uncle occupied would have been about £800 a week and the self funding ones probably went all the way up to £1200, with a nice view over the landscaped sloping gardens. The price was directly related to the West of London location, similar facilities would have been available "in the provinces" for half to 2/3rds the price.

It was late summer time and the building offered all the facilities of a small country hotel.

HOWEVER I was asking myself, how much these expensive facilities were appreciated by the inmates?

The luxurious lounge had its wide screen flat TV playing to one somnambulist.
Less than half of them made it down to lunch and a mere handful signed up for reappearing for supper.
Nobody (except the three of us) made use of the gardens.

I just wonder if the wealthy inmates felt this expenditure was value for money - perhaps it is a case of "Money cannot make you happy , but it can make the miseries of life easier to bare."

cavework

Dads room in a private Nursing Home is a shared room .He has a bed , a wardrobe . a chest of drawers with the TV I have bought him,, a chair, a sink . Because he is doubly incontinent there is no point in having an en suite bathroom.
He is subsidised by Adult Social Services and top ups. He shares a room with his new BF .. ( Dad has huge problems with speech after a stroke) and SS and the Stroke ward actually advised that due to his problems with his conversational skills ,,and lots more problems he would actually be better sharing a room.

lissadenton

and i thought shared rooms were illegal.

Savvy_Sue

lissadenton wrote: »

and i thought shared rooms were illegal.

I'm pretty sure they couldn't be made 'illegal': telling two consenting adults of ANY age that they can't share a room in a care home has its own legal implications.

Not that I'm suggesting that cavework's dad is in that kind of relationship, although I did read BF as 'boyfriend' initially rather than 'best friend' ...

The Care Quality Commission will have guidelines and standards and regulations and so on and so forth, and there will be fewer and fewer shared rooms, just as there are fewer and fewer rooms without en suite facilities these days.

But when it's in someone's best interests NOT to have their own room, what's to come first, the guidelines, standards and regulations, or a person's best interests?