Can you create a trust to avoid losing inheritance to a means tested caring costs

Art_Deco

andrew_hampshire wrote: »

Apologies if my original post was not clear. What I am asking is there a way of protecting his estate without having to pay for care. If you have less than £25k I believe you don't pay for care, is there a way to take assets out of a means test?

Yes there is a way , you could care for him yourself.

Robisere

Looks like Andrew has gone away to hide.

Keep_pedalling

Robisere wrote: »

Looks like Andrew has gone away to hide.

Afraid not too many people want to do that and quite frankly I don't want my children to be burdened with that task should I become that decrepit.

Dird

Surely it's possible to hire an au pair for elderly? Much cheaper & they can stay in their own home (assuming they have enough to pay the au pair wage)...someone I know went to do it in France for like €75/week (watching kids not elderly). The risk you have there is the young girl could marry OP's dad and take the house on his death

IHT is a load of crap anyway. You get taxed at source, taxed on any gains, then they take another 40% while !!!!ing on your grave

tea_lover wrote: »

So you want your dad to go without so you get a nice inheritance?

What happens if he lives longer than expected & his assets run out? Presumably he'll still end up spending his last days in a run down council funded care facility & OP has nothing

Person_one wrote: »

Maybe everybody should get disability benefits. :cool:

Many certainly try to

meer53 wrote: »

You seem to be missing the point. Why should someone who has assets have their care paid for by the local authority ?

Why should someone who has assets have hospital treatment provided by the LA?

Keep_pedalling

"IHT is a load of crap anyway. You get taxed at source, taxed on any gains, then they take another 40% while !!!!ing on your grave"


Really? we have never or ever will have paid any tax on the £500k gain we have made on our house that we bought a few decades ago. That gain is also well below the IHT nil rate band so it still won't be taxed. We must have taken at least £80k of gains from our investments over the last 5 years and have paid no tax on those either. Our ISAs contain a 6 figure gain as well, none of which can be taxed.

Although we have taken advantage of the 7 year rule to reduce it currently our estate will still be subject IHT, but if we both fell under a bus today our children get £650k tax free and 60% of the rest, survive a few years and the tax free amount will be up to £1M, hardly punitive considering they are getting free unearned money.

EdwardB

I think it WAS earned, by YOU in tax you paid over the years, these were just the allowances over that period. In your position I would start gifting them.

60% on capital gains on money you already paid tax on has always seemed unfair to me.

Of course the super wealthy like Cameron and Osbourne have their trusts, but the obedient citizen gets hammered.

EdwardB

Dird wrote: »

Surely it's possible to hire an au pair for elderly? Much cheaper & they can stay in their own home (assuming they have enough to pay the au pair wage)...someone I know went to do it in France for like €75/week (watching kids not elderly). The risk you have there is the young girl could marry OP's dad and take the house on his death

Dird you have "form" for making posts that wind people up, e.g. your using abortion to choose the sex of a baby. So everything you say has to be seen in the same light.

In my family two very capable adults could not cope with the needs of a parent who suffered with dementia, the idea that an EU "nanny" is ridiculous and it is somewhat sexist to think you can prostitute a young girl to an old man.

troubleinparadise

Dird wrote: »

Surely it's possible to hire an au pair for elderly? Much cheaper & they can stay in their own home (assuming they have enough to pay the au pair wage)...someone I know went to do it in France for like €75/week (watching kids not elderly). The risk you have there is the young girl could marry OP's dad and take the house on his death?

Of course you can have live-in paid help.

There are agencies who will handle this - the fees are pretty steep (not unreasonably), and the carer still has to have time off so additional help is needed to cover those hours. A car, board and lodging, holidays... and the carers change every few months. But the agency handles all the employment law aspects, insurance etc.

You can hire live-in help yourself, but in that case you have to be the employer and all that entails, and take a leap of faith with the competency and trustworthiness of that person...

There are many more risks than just having to worry about the issue of the carer marrying for the house.

Gavin83

Dird wrote: »

What happens if he lives longer than expected & his assets run out? Presumably he'll still end up spending his last days in a run down council funded care facility & OP has nothing

It is an awkward situation but very rare. The average lifespan of someone in residential care is 2 years, some last literally hours. However if someone has been in a care home for a while and the funds have run out often the care home will allow them to continue living there on the council rate.

The OP is irrelevant in this situation, he isn't entitled to anything.

Dird wrote: »

Why should someone who has assets have hospital treatment provided by the LA?

It just feels different. I like the idea of everyone having free medical care should they need it but I don't think everyone should have free residential care. Maybe it's because one is an essential situation and one isn't. Maybe it's because I can see the arguments of people trying to get their parents in care to get the property and the LA not agreeing. Maybe it's because I don't the idea of taxpayers paying a lot of money for someones care just so an individual can inherit money they're not entitled to. Take your pick.

pimento

When my husband was terminally ill, he was discharged from the hospital under NHS Continuing Care and, as they could not say when he would die, the hospice wouldn't take him so he went into a local nursing home where he lived for about a month.
He didn't have to pay for this as the NHS picked up the (£900 a week) bill.

I don't understand why he was different to the Alzheimers patients who lived in the home and who were paying their own bills but was grateful not to be presented with a bill nonetheless.