Mum having to go into care, what should we do with house

stoneman

Sadly my mum has had to go into a nursing home because of her vascular dementia, there she will spend the rest of her days, she is 90, but is as fit as a butchers dog.


My sister and I are now left with the best way to utilise her home to help fund the care. She has about £42K in the bank, receives £900 a month in pensions, the house is valued at £125K, care is £3000 a month!! (she needs MEI care because of the severity of the dementia) which is why the fees are so high.


So, we are looking at maybe renting it out, it will fetch £640 PCM inc. management fees (neither of us live near enough to deal with anything should it arise).


We have also looked at selling it, but don't really know what ramafications this might have. I have to add that we both have power of attorney.


Any advise would be welcome, we are not in immediate rush because she has savings, but we don't have a clue what to do either.


I feel so sad, my mum was in the WRAF during the war, saved a bit of money to give to her kids when she dies (dad passed away 15 years ago, and he was involved in the D day landings) and if she had any inkling that all that meant nothing and her hard earned savings would have to be used to fund her care, she would commit suicide before letting that happen.
Rant over

CWSmith

You have my sympathy, my mum had the same condition.

I rented out her house to fund her care. It worked very well most of the time. If you get full NHS funding for health purposes, that will knock a few hundred off of the nursing home fees. It's not a lot, but it all helps, so try to get your mum assessed as soon as possible.

Clearly you will still have to use some of her savings to fund her care, but between the rent, the NHS funding and her pension, it should make a bit of a hole in the outlay.

Good luck.

patanne

I know that it is hard but, having been there, the only reason for holding on to the house is that SHE will know if it is being sold & be upset. You should be able to apply for attendance allowance which will reduce the shortfall. If you work out how long the savings will last, it won't be long before you need to sell anyway. You need to bite the bullet as soon as possible. It is a horrible situation to be in. We waited to put our Mum's house up for sale until she stopped asking "how is my house?"

CWSmith

patanne wrote: »

I know that it is hard but, having been there, the only reason for holding on to the house is that SHE will know if it is being sold & be upset. You should be able to apply for attendance allowance which will reduce the shortfall. If you work out how long the savings will last, it won't be long before you need to sell anyway. You need to bite the bullet as soon as possible. It is a horrible situation to be in. We waited to put our Mum's house up for sale until she stopped asking "how is my house?"

I can identify with that too!

My dad had an illness which required a nursing home at the end of his life. At that time, my mum made me promise (hand on the Bible sort of promise!) that if the same thing happened to her, that I would never ever let the house go. Not for one second considering that it would happen to her, of course I agreed. She started showing signs of dementia within the year.

Morally I felt obliged to do what I could to keep it and it became a point of principle too. In the end, I'm glad I did.

bouicca21

Been there ... We held on to the house until the savings had more or less gone. Didn't rent it out just went over there and checked it out fairly regularly. My mum wasn't concerned about the house - she had no memory of it - but she had no understanding of why she was in a nursinghome or even that it was a nursing home. We were lucky, we sold it at the height of the boom.

It is truly awful to see anyone, let alone your mum, disintegrate like that. Makes me cry even now to think about it. Take care.

freeisgood

We are going though this very thing, mum is going to a home this month. She has some savings which we will use for the fees till the house is sold. Then we will stick the money in a high interest account, and hopefully the interest will cover a lot of the money per month it is going to cost.

stoneman

patanne wrote: »

I know that it is hard but, having been there, the only reason for holding on to the house is that SHE will know if it is being sold & be upset. You should be able to apply for attendance allowance which will reduce the shortfall. If you work out how long the savings will last, it won't be long before you need to sell anyway. You need to bite the bullet as soon as possible. It is a horrible situation to be in. We waited to put our Mum's house up for sale until she stopped asking "how is my house?"

She already gets attendance allowance but that stops as soon as she goes into a home.

KentishLady

I'm so sorry to hear about your Mum. This must be a difficult time for you and your sister. Care homes can be expensive that is for sure.

If I was in your position I would first check that Mum is receiving all the financial assistance towards her care costs that she is entitled to - the alzheimers society has some useful information that is dementia specific.

I'm assuming Mum has had a community care assessment and been assessed as self-funding due to her savings & assets. Have you had a community care assessment from social services? If so have they advised what help will be available once her savings have been used up? Normally at that point they will want the house to be sold so that the equity can be used to fund Mum's care - but they sometimes can fund the care for a period of time (putting a charging order or similar on the house until it can be sold).

If she hasnt had a community care assessment then you can request one (or at least ask to be signposted to a local organisation who can advise you on the benefits she may be eligible for - your local council may even have a welfare benefits advice team).

But some starters to explore:

• NHS continuing care funding - has mum been assessed - if not then contact your Primary Care Trust to request an assessment.
• Is mum receiving attendance allowance? If not you might want to consider applying for it.

If you DO decide to sell the house it might be worth investing in some financial advice (or even now to be honest) as there are now annuity policies which you can purchase to cover care home fees (If I remember correctly the payments get paid straight to the care home tax free - but I have no idea whether these would be worthwhile for your Mum's situation hence the need for finanical advice).

Hope the above helps a little - I expect other MSE'rs may be along to provide other advice (and to correct anything I've posted).

KL.

stoneman

CWSmith wrote: »

You have my sympathy, my mum had the same condition.

I rented out her house to fund her care. It worked very well most of the time. If you get full NHS funding for health purposes, that will knock a few hundred off of the nursing home fees. It's not a lot, but it all helps, so try to get your mum assessed as soon as possible.

Clearly you will still have to use some of her savings to fund her care, but between the rent, the NHS funding and her pension, it should make a bit of a hole in the outlay.

Good luck.

She does not meet the criteria for continuing health care funding apparently, as she does not need nursing care as such, she just needs to be in a secure unit, but that will change eventually.

KentishLady

stoneman wrote: »

She already gets attendance allowance but that stops as soon as she goes into a home.

This should only stop if Mum is being partly or fully funded by her local authority or by NHS continuing care. If she is completely funding her care home fees from her savings/income she should continue to be eligible for her attendance allowance - you might want to double check with one of the dementia charities or age concern.

KL

patanne

Attendance allowance doesn't stop unless she has some council/NHS funding, highly unlikely, which if she owns a house she won't have.