Advice on transfer of grandparents house

jacdoy101

Hi there,

I am looking for some advice regarding the transfer of my grandparents house. To cut a long story short my Nan and Grandad haven’t planned adequately for their retirement and they are now starting to struggle financially.

The family have discussed it with them and whilst the logical and easiest solution would be for them to sell up and downsize, this is something that both are not willing to do, and besides, if they live for another 20 years, the money they earn from any sale would potentially run dry anyway. Other parts of the family are not willing/able to help so today my father and I had a discussion as to how we could help.

The basis of the plan we came up with was to have my grandparents transfer the deeds of the house to my father and then for the two of us to pay my grandparents a fixed monthly sum, allowing them to live in the house until their passing, when my father would then sell the house and he and I would split any proceeds between us.

I have little knowledge on the actual process/legality of such a plan and would like to ask if anyone has any advice on how to ensure things work out the way they should. Obviously if there is anything dubious about such a process then we will not be partaking and will have to go back to the drawing board. My main concern was the fact that if my grandparents ever had to go into care, could the transfer of the house be seen as asset depreciation with the view of avoiding care home fees? Both my grandparents are as fit as fiddles and this plan is solely for the fact that they are really struggling financially and the house is all they have left.

My father and I are aware of some of the potential risks this would involve. As I said this is just a very rough plan at the moment but if anyone has any ideas of who I could talk to to get further information that would be great. Many thanks.

PS: Apologies if this thread is in the wrong place.

G_M

I don't unerstand the logic of transferring the house to you.

If you have the money available to give them, why not just give them the monthly money as a loan?

Discuss with them and they can write into their wills that you get back what you've loaned them out of their Estate.

Jelly_Tots

Book an appointment with a solicitor. You and your dad would usually need separate representation to your grandparents. The solicitor would go through all possible avenues, talk you through the legality of each route, what to be aware of etc.


They would probably charge but some firms do free 30 minute advice appointments.


What you've described can be done, but all parties need advice before signing anything.

jacdoy101

G_M wrote: »

I don't unerstand the logic of transferring the house to you.

If you have the money available to give them, why not just give them the monthly money as a loan?

Discuss with them and they can write into their wills that you get back what you've loaned them out of their Estate.

Our thought was that if their house was required to be sold due to care home fees or for any other reason, then they wouldn't have any estate left to be paid back out of.

BitterAndTwisted

In which case "deprivation of assets" would be a very serious risk if your father bought their house from them.

Also, they could be at risk of being turfed out onto the street with no come-back whatsoever.

There are so many holes on this plan there's not enough time to enumerate them.

Mojisola

jacdoy101 wrote: »

Our thought was that if their house was required to be sold due to care home fees or for any other reason, then they wouldn't have any estate left to be paid back out of.

If they need residential care, the financial assessment would include any debts.

As long as any money you give is documented as a loan, that would be repaid from the sale of the house and their ability to pay care home fees would depend on how much was left.