Brother Wants To Purchase Mum's Council House..........

Running_Horse

Your brother is not in the slightest bit interested in giving this elderly lady any security. He just wants some free money courtesy of taxpayers in a country he does not even live in. Your mum has security now and will not benefit in the slightest from this arrangement; tell him to leave her alone to enjoy the rest of her days free from greedy scheming children. With children like this she has my sympathy.

duchy

As your brother doesn't live over here he may not be aware of the implications/risk in doing this.

Although some posters have put quite harshly the possible outcomes -basically they are right.

Even if your brother's motives are genuine and pure you could end up with a really difficult situation if Mum's health declines as she gets older and needs alternative accommodation. Either she'd have to wait to sell her own property to have the means to move into something more suitable or even she refused to move as she regarded it as your brother's property and ended up less comfortable or even in a less than safe environment-and that's without the issue of her needing care home accommodation and the property needing to be sold. I could see a difficult situation with an elderly person soldiering on and resisting more suitable accommodation because they are aware it will end up "costing" their children their "inheritance".

From your point of view -if you live over here then you could end up in a situation of needing to care for your Mum fulltime in the current home because she refuses to move as it would impact on your brother financially. Not good for you or Mum. My Mum was in excellent health and never expected to not be able to live an independent life until hit out of the blue with a brain Arianism which she survived but never achieved full independence again and eventually had no choice but to move home despite full time family help and support.

UnderPressure

Wow thank you so much fellow MSE'rs :beer: I knew I would find the answers here

Let me get the profit side out of the way, I have no doubt in my mind whatsoever that my brother is doing this to purely benefit himself whether that be making a profit when eventually sold or ending up with what is a nice house on a now very nice mostly private estate he could use in his older years to return as and when he pleased, I am not 100% sure of his long term goal with this but have no doubt at all either way it is purely to benefit himself, as said in my original post I have to put this aside for the sake of argument, I only at Christmas spoke to him for the first time in over 15 years and now we are both a bit older we seem to want to try and patch our family back up as much as possible so for the sake of this I have to put all of this to one side and ignore it, as much as it pains me :mad:

My goal is to make sure my Mum will be OK no matter what happens, she is 70 this year but is not like you old fashioned 70 year old, she is as strong as an ox apart from hating retirement she is very well, she is more like 50 than 70, I know this could change at any time but there is nothing we know of on the horizon to think she is "frail" in any way.

My brother is very successful having already made his money over the last 25 years he now lives an extremely comfortable life in Los Angeles and Florida and really wants for nothing, he does not invest in anything risky and has huge savings that he never uses so again there is no reason to think at any stage he will not be able to afford repairs and maintenance however when it comes to money he is also extremely tight fisted, he could have made my Mums life easier at any stage if he wanted and in all the 25 years he has been in the USA he has bought her a TV and 1 set of flight tickets, I don't "get" him in this respect as if I had the money I would have helped Mum without thinking twice about it, I do however believe he will take care of any repairs or maintenance that is required, no doubt he will leave some kind of fund in a UK bank account or maybe a credit card that Mum has access to to cover such expenses.

It is pretty much as I thought it would be, however I had not considered the sheltered or care home possibility, this is going to be a difficult one to talk to her about, I am a bit old fashioned and have always thought no matter what Mum would live with us but I know there may be certain situations where this would not be possible, it would break my heart to see her go into a care home but if they can offer a better standard of care than we can there would be little option, so this really needs to be a major consideration.

Also she does not have a live in partner but she has struck up a relationship with a "gent" over the last 3 years, he lives on his own as well a few miles away from her, if they did decide to live together and if my brother does buy the house then I presume he would move in with her, how would it come about that he ,the partner had any rights to the property or any interest in it?

To make things even worst my brother is "the blue eyed boy" he was the first born and although she would never admit it he is her favourite so to speak, she trusts him completely and saying that I do not believe he would knowingly do anything to abuse that trust, don't get me wrong he is not a "bad un" in any way but with him being out of the country for so long he may need his eyes opening to a few facts!

Anyway as said thank for all the replies I really do appreciate it :beer:

kaya

Hmmm, if he brings 100k into the country and " gifts" it surely there would be a huge chunk of tax to pay? There are limits on how much money you can "gift" people without tax implications I beleive , I take it if the roof caves in he's got the funds to sort it out, same if the heating system needs replacing etc. a friend of mine has a flat they brought years ago in a block of council properties and has just been hit with a demand for £20,000 they have to pay as the blocks are being modernised by the council , food for thought but as mentioned before his intentions are more to put money into his own bank account than anything else

McKneff

Imagine his face though if he gave mum the cash to buy the house. It would then belong to her totally . And hopefully not for a long time your mum leaves this earth with a will leaving everything to you or the local dogs home. That'd cap him.
:rotfl::rotfl:

Tell him to leave her alone, she has security for the rest of her life as she is.

cte1111

I think in your position, I'd worry that brother would avoid paying for any repairs, particularly as he's known to be tight fisted. He might think it's fine to live with a kitchen that has drawers falling apart or a leaky window. Your Mum would be in the situation of having to beg to him for repairs to her own house.

UnderPressure

kaya wrote: »

Hmmm, if he brings 100k into the country and " gifts" it surely there would be a huge chunk of tax to pay? There are limits on how much money you can "gift" people without tax implications I beleive , I take it if the roof caves in he's got the funds to sort it out, same if the heating system needs replacing etc. a friend of mine has a flat they brought years ago in a block of council properties and has just been hit with a demand for £20,000 they have to pay as the blocks are being modernised by the council , food for thought but as mentioned before his intentions are more to put money into his own bank account than anything else

I used the 100k just as an example it should be a lot less than that, it is a 3 bedroom semi detached house that over the last 5 years has been completely modernised, double glazing, efficient central heating, new kitchen, new bathroom, new downstairs wc, new shower, new roof, insulation literally everything has been done, this is another of the reasons that makes it look even more attractive. He would no doubt take out buildings insurance as well to cover any disaster but as said there really should never be a scenario where he cannot afford to do whatever needs doing, this is not a point of concern for us, he is well off, he has not been given anything and has worked 70-80 hours and more a week since he was 16 so really deserves what he has now. As said he is not a "bad un" in any way.

An similar house but not a corner plot like Mum's house sold last October for £125k so we are "assuming" after discount a price of £50 - £75kish.

McKneff wrote: »

Imagine his face though if he gave mum the cash to buy the house. It would then belong to her totally . And hopefully not for a long time your mum leaves this earth with a will leaving everything to you or the local dogs home. That'd cap him.
:rotfl::rotfl:

Tell him to leave her alone, she has security for the rest of her life as she is.

Ha ha ha yes, this made me smile she would not do anything like that but I do have a concern with her future needs regarding accommodation being at risk because she owns the house, she really has nothing to gain from this at all which again annoys me slightly as in the future if everything goes to plan he is going to make £xyz, if it were me doing this I would be giving Mum £x upon completion as her "cut" so to speak, this would not have even entered his head though :mad:

Amber_Sunshine

Then I can see no benefit whatsoever to mum, brother is either just looking for a money-making scheme or is misguidedly assuming that he is doing a good deed. Seems like there are too many risks and legal/financial implications here.

jacques_chirac wrote: »

No bedroom tax for pensioners.

Yorkie1 is spot on, the suggestion that this is being done to give mum security is nonsense - she already has it.

dodger1

UnderPressure wrote: »

My goal is to make sure my Mum will be OK no matter what happens,

As things stand she will be without the help of your brother. As others have said, your mother will have the property for life or until she needs to move into a home if that ever happens.

Your only dilemma is whether or not you are happy for your brother to "possibly" make money from this and again as others have said he could lose most of the gift. I'd say it's an unnecessary risk on your brother's part.

UnderPressure

cte1111 wrote: »

I think in your position, I'd worry that brother would avoid paying for any repairs, particularly as he's known to be tight fisted. He might think it's fine to live with a kitchen that has drawers falling apart or a leaky window. Your Mum would be in the situation of having to beg to him for repairs to her own house.

Yes this is a concern, although I know he can more than afford any repair required it is another thing getting it out of him! We would have to negotiate this and I think the only way would be for him to leave £xyz in a UK bank account or credit card that Mum has access to, we are a very trustworthy bunch so there would be no problem with this, or she would have to take his word, which she would. As he is tight fisted but with something like this I really could not see him being unreasonable and if for any reason he acts completely out of character and is then I will encourage her to release some equity somehow so she can get any repairs done that need doing, she would still be in the drivers seat to a certain degree but as said we are a trust worthy bunch so it should not come to this.