Is it right that some must sell their homes to pay care home costs?

leathersofa

And as for 'paid your stamp' - how much did you pay? Certainly not £1000 a week, and where did it say you were entitled to luxury care for years on that? It's for the NHS and national INSURANCE, ie if you lose your job or become I'll or disabled, you won't starve. I'm old enough to have been working in the very early 70s and I know how little I paid, by modern standards. I earned £8 a week as a 16-yo library assistant and NI was about 40p. Even if that had been put in a box with my name on it and kept for me, it wouldn't cover much. The stamp argument just doesn't hold up, however much some would like it to.

chocaholicmanc

To be honest I think the question of whether current older people who do not have a home have 'squandered' their money is slightly irrelevant. However this will become relevant in the future. My grandparents generation were (on the whole) sensible and careful with money. I hate to say it but my generation and younger seem to have an overwhelming sense of entitlement to getting anything without working for it and living well beyond their means.
I know that this is generalising and there are many many people who have not been able to get on the housing ladder due to prices spiralling upwards (me included). But when I do finally get that house it will be mine! If I choose to leave it to my family, some cats or a random stranger that should be up to me. In the hopefully unlikely scenario I live to a time where I need to be in a care home I don't see why me working hard and saving should mean my family suffers when the dosser in the bed next to me spent all their money and gets everything for free.
What you did with your money to get into a situation where you have no assets should be taken into consideration. Having no assets because you had a low paid job is one thing. Having no assets because you made the choice to live it up is quite another.

leathersofa

But that argument is exactly like saying, I earn £200 a week but someone else should pay for my food and mortgage/rent, because I earned that money and it's mine and if I want to give it to the dogs' home I should be able to. The point as I see it is, the country/taxpayers cannot afford to fund everyone's care in old age. Some will be lucky and not need it. Those who do need it won't be living in the house any more, and why should taxpayers pay for that person to keep an empty, unneeded house? Heirs are neither here nor there. Nobody is entitled to an inheritance. If things pan out in a lucky way so they get one, great. If the person who owns the stuff needs it for themselves, well, it's theirs. If the person owning the goods feels that their heirs' needs are greater than theirs, they can struggle on alone. If the heirs want the house that much,they can care for the old person. There is no compulsion for anyone to be in a care home, but if it's what suits people, then they can't expect to have the house as well. And as for investigating how people managed their money 40 or 50 years ago....can you imagine how that would go down?!!! It's like the cries to Bring Back The Cane that you see all over certain newspapers. What the ones asking for it mean is, do it to other people but not me or my kids. Cane the ones who aren't like my kids, investigate the money management of those I think are wasters, but if anyone dares to cane my kids or ask me for paperwork from 1975 there will be hell to pay.

In practice, what happens is, if you have money, you get to choose and probably end up in a nice luxurious £1k a week private care home where you or your relatives call the shots and where if you're not happy you can easily move somewhere else. If you rely on the local authority, you get placed somewhere that they can afford. It may be very nice, it may not be so good. But you don't get to pick and choose. Believe me, having money makes it much easier and usually better and if anyone is that worried that they will be sitting in all their thrifty glory next to some low-class smug waster in their luxury private care home, they probably don't need to worry.

rinabean

I think owning an empty home for no other reason than 'it's yours' and refusing to pay for care you can afford is the definition of entitlement.

I think there should be some kind of grace period. Some people only want to go into a home on the condition that they could change their mind and go back. So for some number of weeks or months they should not have to sell their home. But after that? It is so, so entitled to think you deserve two homes, or for children to think they deserve a big inheritance, and 'suffer' if they don't get it.

Mojisola

rinabean wrote: »

I think owning an empty home for no other reason than 'it's yours' and refusing to pay for care you can afford is the definition of entitlement.

I think there should be some kind of grace period. Some people only want to go into a home on the condition that they could change their mind and go back. So for some number of weeks or months they should not have to sell their home. But after that? It is so, so entitled to think you deserve two homes, or for children to think they deserve a big inheritance, and 'suffer' if they don't get it.

There is a 12 week "disregard" of the value of the house when someone first goes into a care home following a SS assessment so that decisions can be made about whether the move is permanent or not.

Biggles

I'm afraid it's another nonsense poll, confusing two quite different issues.

The ideal is Option 4, ie in an Ideal World, everyone's care and board should be covered by the taxpayer. But that's a political funding decision that's still a very long way from being possible.

In today's Read World, Option 1 is the only realistic answer; we can't have people hanging onto houses they are never going to live in again just so that they can pass them on to their beneficiaries, who will mostly sell them anyway. A house is no difference from any other asset.

wildthing01

I notice that the most popular option is that the nhs should pay for all care
.While this is great in theory the money simply isn't there. With an ever ageing population who have increasingly complex needs, the cost of care is going up and up. Short of going to a Scandinavian style 70% tax rate I just don't see how you'd raise enough in taxes to pay for it all.

happyinflorida

The one thing that bothers me the most and no one has mentioned this so far, is the cost of care and nursing homes in the UK.


They are ridiculously expensive.


It does not cost the amount charged to keep someone in one of these small rooms.


Care homes have one nurse and that's it. The remainder of the staff are low paid, usually foreign, employees on minimum wage.


The owners of these homes are ripping the elderly off and that is what infuriates me. It is daylight robbery.


My mum is 88, has had Alzheimer's for 15 years and has been in 4 different care homes. They have cost from £975 per week to £575.


When she first went in the last care home it was £525 per week, in 3 years it went up £100 per week.


She needed a new chair as she couldn't sit up properly and kept sliding out of it onto the floor and they told me they didn't provide that type, I'd have to pay for one?!


She's now just a bag of skin and bones - she hasn't been given decent food in any of the homes she's been in, it's all cheap, processed rubbish and very little of it. For this she is paying a fortune.


I want this made illegal. People are being charged far too high a price in these care homes, it's a total rip off and we should not allow this situation to continue.

iyhr2011

I worked for 44 years before retiring. I always believed that it was my National Insurance contributions that would provide for a care home place should I need one - not Income Tax.
NI contributions were far higher when I was younger than they are now.
A care home place is not something anyone should give me but a service for which I, along with anyone else who paid NI Contributions, has already paid.
If the Government has mis-appropriated the funds it collected from me for care home fees if needed, why should I pay again?
What would happen to a private Insurance Company if they used everyone's premiums for something else and then said they couldn't pay out when you made a claim?
Shame on the Government.

williamkn

I am almost 81, very sound brain but body not so good. I own a fairly large house that my son now lives in and I live in a 2 bed flat that my son owns, works very well for both of us. We made the move 2 years ago, my wife died 5 years ago. No way will I ever go into a care home, If I am getting to feel that I am not able to cope with looking after myself I will ensure that I don't continue to exist. Simples. Alcohal, pills, plastic bag, jump off cliff, whatever. I feel it my duty not to continue leading a useless life, what is the point. No way am I going to be a burden to my family or The State. :j