Being put in a home then told to sell your house to pay for it

ian_duncan_smith

seven-day-weekend wrote: »

I personally do not see, and never have done, why people other than the very poorest should be given money for having children - and now they are also given money to pay someone else to look after them!

There may be more money for the elderly if this was cut back. You have a choice about having children - you don't about getting old.

(Although I can see that if people chose not to have children that would cause huge problems).

The rationale behind universal benefits for children is this. Not every dad is loving or responsible, some of them go out spend their wage boozing and gambling and turn violent if the wife asks for money to run the house. Children do not ask to born into such a house. The state helps such women and their innocent children by taking a fair portion of their husband's wage and giving it to them, so if the husband is violent they do not have to risk antagonising him any further and can at least meet the basic needs of the child.

Beate

Wow, I am overwhelmed by the huge response and I thank everyone for their input, it has given me a lot to think about, although I do not necessarily agree with each and everyone of you, but I didn't expect to.My father had heart trouble and was largely immobile in his last years, but mentally still all there. My mother was the opposite. While she still used to cook, her mind was going, dementia and Alzheimers set in. She used to wake my father in the middle of the night because she thought it was time to get up, and she forgot a pan on the hob a couple of times, which was actually quite dangerous. We were told that the state could no longer look after them at home, and that they both would have to go into a care home, but it could not be guaranteed that both would end up in the same home. My father was adamant that they should stay together, which is why they chose a private care home.So yes, that was his choice and he could afford it, even though they had to sell the house they had lived in for so long. I might not be so angry about it all if at least they would have received great care. Everyone seems to think because it's private care it must be the best, surely. It was very expensive, but I did not see special efforts being made to care for my parents apart from attending to their basic needs, i.e. dress and feed them. In actual fact, my father was sworn at and called names by a nurse, he told us. When we spoke to the managers about it, it stopped, but the nurse in question was never disciplined and is still working there. My father always intended the house he had worked so hard for to stay in the family, and was very sad that it had to be sold to pay for his and Mum's care, a care he always thought they would receive from the state. Maybe that was naive, and yes, private care enabled them to stay together (albeit in separate rooms due to their different conditions), but he felt cheated, and he was not very happy when he died. Btw, someone mentioned renting the house out instead of selling it. Actually, that is something we suggested and we were told quite categoricallyt that this was not an option - the house would have to be sold and the money used to pay for the care until it was down to the maximum savings they were allowed to keep. Whether this was really the correct procedure or not I could not say.I know about the Coughlan Case but don't think that it would have applied in my parents' case as I think it deals with cases in which the care is purely medical and not just social - but I am not an expert.Anyway, many thanks again for your thoughts. I still think the state should have done more for my parents who paid taxes and NI contributions their whole lives.

Kaz2904

At least they got their pensions though.
I pay out £700+ per month on tax and insurance and there will not be a state pension around when I come to retire. My children will probably never be able to afford to leave home so we will end up with loads of us living in a 3 bed semi.

One way of looking at it is to think that if the older homeowners had not been so greedy about house prices and taking so much money from younger generations then there woud never have been this amount of false wealth.
It would not be necessary for both parents to work full time and it would not be necessary for people to move away from their homes in order to have a home on their own for the next generation. The non working person would then be able to look after the children and the grandparents and there wouldn't be any issues.

A lot of the circumstances of today have been brought about by different factors. There is no issue with people having to pay their way- why shouldn't they? I have to say that I have very strong views on this subject and think that most benefits should be scrapped.

BTW- whoever mentioned about paying childbenefit for foreign workers children- check the facts. My friend said she had to live and work here for 6 years before she will be able to claim any child benefit. She pays the same amount of tax and NI as I do and what does she get out of it?
Her DH starts work at 5am and finishes at 1pm. He goes home and gets her and the baby and brings her to work. She then works from 1.30pm until 9.30 pm and he has to come back out to fetch her if no-one can give her lift home because we have no bus service.
They are paying out a £140k+ mortgage for a not very nice house in a not nice area. I think that they are doing their bit towards the country.
Then we get the people who are British born and bred and watch the system.
They know exactly what to do to be given everything going. They don't work because of various problems and sit raking in the benefits.

AFAIAC work should be compulsory and benefits should be limited to a certain timescale.

margaretclare

Kaz2904 wrote: »

One way of looking at it is to think that if the older homeowners had not been so greedy about house prices and taking so much money from younger generations then there woud never have been this amount of false wealth.

I agree that it is 'false wealth' but we did not ask for this to happen. We are 'older home-owners' and as I've said before, I bought this place at £58K. It's now valued at £175K but I really can't believe it is actually 'worth' that much. Probably £75K because it has been updated, modernised and redecorated a lot, but the extra £100K - no, I don't believe it.

BTW- whoever mentioned about paying childbenefit for foreign workers children - check the facts.

This was apparently an answer given in Parliament by a Treasury spokesman to a Commons written question. It was in a newspaper report and I have no reason to doubt it. It related specifically to migrants from Eastern Europe, the most recent group of large-scale migrants.

AFAIAC work should be compulsory and benefits should be limited to a certain timescale.

I actually agree with you. Myself, I have worked from age 16 to 67, except for 3 years, 1961-64. I even worked while a full-time student 1978-81, worked night shifts for 14 weeks every summer. My DH and I have nearly a century in the workplace between us, so I don't think that I need a lecture on the desirability of work.

However, do be careful about expressing your strong opinions in threads like this one. I have expressed strong opinions before now, based on personal experience of life, and I have been told that people do not want opinions, don't want experiences, they want bare facts.

Margaret

EdInvestor

Kaz2904 wrote: »

I pay out £700+ per month on tax and insurance and there will not be a state pension around when I come to retire.

What makes you think that?The basic state pension is slated to start rising in line with earnings, not prices, from 2015 at the latest.So it's actually much more likely that the state pension will be larger than it is now when you come to retire.

What's more, as of 2010, you will only need 30 years of NI contributions to claim it.Overnight, this will double the number of retiring women who can claim the full pension from 35% to 70%.

You pessimism is not based on the facts.

EdInvestor

Some info:

http://www.alzheimers.org.uk/News_and_Campaigns/PDF/NHSContinuingCare_briefing.pdf

If mother has ever been admitted to hospital under the Mental Health Act ( section 30 IIRC) she would be eligible for 100% funding of her care by the NHS.