Grandmother losing EVERYTHING!

ChesterDog

I have already faced this with two financially careful and astute parents, plus another much less so. It's difficult for everyone.

But do give the OP a break. Everyone on this board is seeking to protect and maximise assets after all. If you can't ask here...

zagubov

Can she contribute towards the cost by renting out her house while she's in the home? Sounds like there's nobody living there.

troubleinparadise

I can talk from my own experience of "having been there", and learning about the system as it stands - in our case with dementia, but it would also apply to anyone whose principal needs were social rather than medical.

My parents were careful with their money, both worked hard, eventually bought their own house, and saved for their retirement. With their older years came illness, sadly. First Dad, who died after 4 years of decline and Mum caring for him. Within 6 months, Mum was diagnosed with Parkinson's, and latterly went on to develop dementia.

My sibling and I were completely unprepared for how to deal with that. We had no idea of the need to have to drive all aspects of caring for a person with dementia. The healthcare aspects, Social Services, Care Agencies, Powers of Attorney, distance caring for someone who insisted on staying in their own house in the face of all logical reasoning, taking over the finances of the parent who had always been in charge and was still reluctant to hand over responsibility nor take steps to make their own life easier.

Our first response was a common knee jerk reaction to do with money - what, she's got to pay for it all? Get her to sign over the house (yes, that was my sibling's response to the news of the diagnosis - and Mum would never have done that anyway!). Isn't there any help other than medication and doctors appointments that she doesn't have to pay for?

And the answer was no. But once you start doing some fact finding and research, you get the answers, unpalatable though some are. And find support you hadn't thought of, like some excellent elderly mental health teams, and the Alzheimer's Society website which proved a mental lifeline for me.

Until you experience it at first hand you tend not to look too closely at how to handle such a situation, nor realise the need for early planning before a crisis occurs.

And the exhausting toll it takes on many levels means that all your energies go into looking after that person, and none left over to fight for the bigger causes however unfair it may seem.

If just one person reads this thread and it makes them think a little more about looking into the future and making some plans should the worst occur, it may save them some sleepless nights and worrying, and give them the choice as to what they would want for themselves or someone they care for.

As it was, Mum only needed a short time in residential care before she died. I wish she had lived the high life and enjoyed herself more, and we had longer with her in good health. But she was able to fund excellent care of our choosing when it became necessary, and her story ended as well as we could have hoped for.

JenniferK

Interesting that Scotland has a different care regime to England yet Scottish MP's vote that the English should pay more for care than their own constituents.

margaretclare

JenniferK wrote: »

Interesting that Scotland has a different care regime to England yet Scottish MP's vote that the English should pay more for care than their own constituents.

Don't even get me started on that one....

BucksLady

ChesterDog wrote: »

I think we should be more sympathetic to the OP, who clearly feels he is dealing with a crisis - few of us are able to think clearly, calmly and perhaps even appropriately at such times.

He is trying to protect his father (inheritance) and his grandmother's no-doubt hard-won assets. To seek to do so is, in my opinion, honourable, justified and right.

.

Personally, I would not describe the pursuit of protecting personal assets in this situation as ''a crisis''. Surely, the main consideration at this point in time should be the wellbeing of a loved one. If the family had wished to protect the lady's home, they should have planned accordingly.

Archi_Bald

JenniferK wrote: »

Interesting that Scotland has a different care regime to England yet Scottish MP's vote that the English should pay more for care than their own constituents.

There appears to be only one party that promises to change that. You got to ask why the others seem to think the status quo is acceptable.

margaretclare

Archi_Bald wrote: »

There appears to be only one party that promises to change that. You got to ask why the others seem to think the status quo is acceptable.

One reason is that Labour is dependent on its Scottish Labour MPs. Ed Miliband will not risk upsetting them by 'rocking the boat'.

Steve_xx

BucksLady wrote: »

Personally, I would not describe the pursuit of protecting personal assets in this situation as ''a crisis''. Surely, the main consideration at this point in time should be the wellbeing of a loved one. If the family had wished to protect the lady's home, they should have planned accordingly.

I think that people here are jumping to way too many conclusions regarding the OP's original query. Typically, people are reading all sorts of situations into something that may not have been presented that well in the first place.


Most people want to protect their assets, no matter who they are.


There's no harm or wrong in the OP asking the question that might produce a better way forward, financially, for both grandma and father.


Many of the more ascerbic remarks in this thread seem to me to come from people who have cited their own experiences where they have invariably banished their parents to care homes. But of course they've been the most expensive ones that the parents own money can afford and therefore that's ok by them. Yet these caring and loving people have deemed it normal to have someone else care for their parents and they do not feel that they themselves ought to do it. Would these same individuals palm their own children off to a care home, I kinda think not?

Archi_Bald

Steve_xx wrote: »

I think that people here are jumping to way too many conclusions regarding the OP's original query. Typically, people are reading all sorts of situations into something that may not have been presented that well in the first place.

I read: "Grandmother losing EVERYTHING!". I didn't need to jump to any conclusions. I can simply say that this is not true since grandmother loses none of her assets. They are hers, and hers alone, to be used as she pleases and in her best interest.

I, and by the looks of it others, also read something about "for the sake of my fathers inheritance " in a post the OP seems to have removed now. Again, I didn't need to jump to any conclusions or read anything into it, I just needed to read the words. Nobody can convince me that they really meant "for the sake of my grandmother's wellbeing".