Elderly parents living in poverty

Hoonay

Hello,

I'm looking for some advice for my elderly parents.

One is aged 80 and the other 83. Only one is still working, self employed but bringing in a very low income, approx £7k per year. Has always been self employed but neglected to pay various contributions earlier in life so now only the other has a state pension which they both try to live off.

The problem is that they live in an old family inherited cottage which is worth a lot and is based in a very expensive council tax band. They have £40k in savings.

Both are in ill health, need emergency dental treatment, have had mini-strokes, need small operations etc - but because they are living in borderline-poverty and are keeping the savings for retirement home time - they are just falling in to ill health more and more.

They refuse to do a means test any more because the value of the property is high and they have the savings. Yes they should sell the house but it's all they have and have lived there for 60 years. Neither want to move and both want to end their days there.

What can they do? Can the savings be gifted to another trust worthy family member who gives them access to it? So they can then qualify for more benefits?

Their council tax alone is £214 per month - they just don't have that money.

Any advice is hugely welcomed.

Thank you.

le_loup

Hoonay wrote: »

Can the savings be gifted to another trust worthy family member who gives them access to it? So they can then qualify for more benefits?

I think you probably know that this would be fraud.

Pixie5740

That's nice. Your parents are sitting on a valuable asset but because they don't want to downsize into something more appropriate for their financial circumstances you want then to defraud the tax payer by "giving away" their savings to a trusted family member.

Are you for real?

somethingcorporate

Google deprivation of assets. No, of course they cannot give away money so the taxpayer will prop them up. They should be spending their savings to improve their quality of life or look to release money from their property.

When they have less money they may be able to qualify for more benefits but not by giving it away.

Mojisola

Hoonay wrote: »

The problem is that they live in an old family inherited cottage which is worth a lot and is based in a very expensive council tax band. They have £40k in savings.

Both are in ill health, need emergency dental treatment, have had mini-strokes, need small operations etc - but because they are living in borderline-poverty and are keeping the savings for retirement home time - they are just falling in to ill health more and more.

They refuse to do a means test any more because the value of the property is high and they have the savings.

The value of the property is irrelevant to means tested benefits - the value of your home is not counted as an asset. It's the cash they have that would affect any benefits.

If they would rather keep £40k in savings instead of getting medical treatment and paying for carers, that's their choice.

Upsidedown_Bear

Spend the £40K surely?

xylophone

They should consider using the savings on the essential work on their teeth and house - if the working partner retired, they might then be entitled to pension credit?

As for the care home, if one needed it, the other could not be required to leave the house - if both, the house would be sold and the proceeds used to fund care?

http://www.ageuk.org.uk/Documents/EN-GB/Factsheets/FS48_Pension_Credit_fcs.pdf?dtrk=true

Cheeky_Monkey

Surely this is a wind up!

The title of the thread is BS for a start and quite frankly an insult to people who actually are living in poverty :mad:

HappyMJ

Hoonay wrote: »

Hello,

I'm looking for some advice for my elderly parents.

One is aged 80 and the other 83. Only one is still working, self employed but bringing in a very low income, approx £7k per year. Has always been self employed but neglected to pay various contributions earlier in life so now only the other has a state pension which they both try to live off.

The problem is that they live in an old family inherited cottage which is worth a lot and is based in a very expensive council tax band. They have £40k in savings.

Both are in ill health, need emergency dental treatment, have had mini-strokes, need small operations etc - but because they are living in borderline-poverty and are keeping the savings for retirement home time - they are just falling in to ill health more and more.

They refuse to do a means test any more because the value of the property is high and they have the savings. Yes they should sell the house but it's all they have and have lived there for 60 years. Neither want to move and both want to end their days there.

What can they do? Can the savings be gifted to another trust worthy family member who gives them access to it? So they can then qualify for more benefits?

Their council tax alone is £214 per month - they just don't have that money.

Any advice is hugely welcomed.

Thank you.

They can use a part of the £40,000 savings to make the council tax payments of £214 per month. They could reduce that bill by downsizing but you've indicated that isn't an option.

p00hsticks

Hoonay wrote: »

Their council tax alone is £214 per month - they just don't have that money.

Yes they do

Hoonay wrote: »

They have £40k in savings.

Hoonay wrote: »

Any advice is hugely welcomed.

With £40k in savings, your parents are living in poverty only because they choose that way of living. You need to try to persuade them that the rainy say that they were presumably saving for is now here, and they need to start using these savings to pay for their necessities - council tax, dental treatment etc. Once the savings are depleted to below £16k, they may start to qualify for some means tested benefits such as council tax benefit, pension credit etc

As others have pointed out, any attempt to gift these savings with the purpose of deliberately bringing themselves below the threshold for means tested benefits will be detected and the savings still treated as if they had them under the 'deprivation of assets' rules.

Hoonay wrote: »

they ....are keeping the savings for retirement home time

The value of their main home won't be taken into account for means tested benefits, but is likely to be taken into consideration if both of them need to go into a retirement home (and remember that not everyone does). Saving cash for this purpose doesn't seem sensible to me - they would be better off using the money to pay their current bills and getting the correct medical attention now.

xylophone

If they have care needs, they might consider applying for Attendance Allowance which is not means tested.

http://www.ageuk.org.uk/money-matters/claiming-benefits/attendance-allowance/what-is-attendance-allowance/