Buying my Grandmas House!!

harryhound

Keeping Gran at home rather depends on the nature of her disabilities and the unavailability of care plus the amount of time and effort the family can put in on what might be (say) a ten year commitment. I have had to make these decisions twice, with the relatives dying in 1996 & 2004. In both cases the increase in house prices FAR outweighed the costs of personal care; coupled with the fact that putting a confused old person into a home is a pretty nasty thing to do (As you loose your marbles, the effect is like taking the family photo album and ripping out photos at random STARTING WITH THE NEWEST PHOTOS. So when they arrive in the home they have a great problem remembering where they are and who all the new people are). In my case the relatives qualified for 24 hour attendance allowance for 3 years and 4 years - it covered about 25% of their care costs and fortunately they passed away before they became complete vegetables. Loss of balance (Zimmer frame) and especially incontinence were the difficulties.
The system then was for the NHS to ask "Is she self funding (ie own her own home)" and then to pressurise the next of kin into the "put her in a home" path, complete with glossy catalogues from the care industry.

Financially it is a gamble; to the person who remarked that 500 GBP is a lot of money: I checked out a posh chain of care homes in 2000:
550 GBP KT post code. Kingston-on-Thames
420 GBP SS post code. Southend-on-Sea
250 GBP DN post code. Doncaster
for what was very similar accommodation and services - so it depends where you live and the availability of cheap immigrant female labour; though minimum wage and sky-rocketing property prices will not have improved the figures in the last 7 years.

Harry.

Try this:
paste “care fees” site:forums.moneysavingexpert.com
into Google.
Go to the bottom of the first page and click
[SIZE=-1]Search within results |[/SIZE]
you will get a chance to add another search term:
[FONT=&quot]legal charge[/FONT]

scope

I think its disgusting to have to work all your life, pay taxes and national insurance, only for the government to start taking your property when you eventually start needing care.. What did we pay all those taxes for? In other countries care for the elder is FREE, and so it should be in this country. Some people would love for the money/property they have worked so hard for to go to their kids, not the government.

merlinthehappypig

A_Nice_Englishman wrote: »

I didn't think there was any tax liability when you sold your own house?

Presumably the tax liability arises on the "Gran's" death, when her share of the larger property is passed to you (or whoever she leaves it to)?

Is a charge put on the property if she goes into care?

Perhaps I phrased this wrongly - so much conflicting information even from qualified financial advisors. There is no IHT liability in our case as the house is only worth £200000 and they have just a few thousand in savings. The problems appear to be:

1. Council saying that they have deliberately deprived themselves of assets so still insisting that they have to pay if they eventually go into a home, despite the fact that we are doing this in the best interests of my parents in law and saving the Government money at the same time;

2. One solicitor has mentioned a new law aimed at stopping people doing what we plan to, to avoid IHT. Apparently, I don't have all the details yet, if they buy jointly with us they will have to make an annual payment to the Inland Revenue based on the rentable value of the proportion of the house they bought with their money. They will contribute about 40% of the money for the new house, so my understanding is that they will have to pay 'rent' to the Government of 40% of the rentable value of the house. This is despite not being liable for IHT anyway! Our solicitor says it is a new ruling and there might be ways of avoiding it, but is looking into it.

[Deleted User]

hey scope. It is all tax-paying youngsters who have to pay for the burden of care for the elderly who are ducking out. Not all youngsters have inheritances and in fact many only scrape by after paying their taxes

I am of the opinion that our generation have had it very good for a long time so why on earth should we expect the younger generation to pay. It is absolutely immoral to try and shelter a source of care home fees as the op is suggesting

lynzpower

there is a world of difference in terms of funding too of "care"

If its social care she'll need ( ie someone to help her prepare meals/ bathing/ washing/ laundry/ shopping) then at the end of the day of course she should pay for this sort of thing- I liken it to moving from your OWNED home to a RENTED home where there are staff on hand to support these care needs - as above. In this case, I would suggest that its perfectly acceptable to pay for your home- why should being older make you a charity case. If anyone else had 80k in the bank and we were paying thier benefits, there would be an outcry. I dont buy this whole "ive worked my whole life and want to gift this to my family" why are YOU more important than the taxpayer ( not meaning YOU personally OP, just in general) Once her savings have hit 16k, then she wont have to pay any more in any case this is the limit. ( or was when I worked in social work)

If its NURSING CARE- ie she needs turning ( for example) and having her physical and medical needs met, or needs help eating ( ie a nurse needs to help feed her- as opposed to just coking for her) then the state would pay for this in any case under the continuing care guidelines ( do a google!)

One potential solution has been that the property is rented out, which provides the income which helps to fund the care? However, if she passes on
and leaves the house to you there will of course be tax issues from what I know although tax isnt my strong point.

SquatNow

scope wrote: »

I think its disgusting to have to work all your life, pay taxes and national insurance, only for the government to start taking your property when you eventually start needing care.. What did we pay all those taxes for? In other countries care for the elder is FREE, and so it should be in this country. Some people would love for the money/property they have worked so hard for to go to their kids, not the government.

Those now in their 50-80s didn't actually pay very much tax. In fact they paid far FAR less than they should have done the services they received. This was acheived in 4 ways:

• Deferred Payment - since the late 50's all the civil service have agreed to work for MUCH lower wages than they would earn in private sector jobs in exchange for a great pensions. The government put NO MONEY ASIDE to cover those pension costs, choosing instead to pass them onto the generation which is now in it's 20s.
• Peoples NI money - was not put aside either, it was just returned to them in the form of other Tax Cuts. In reality people currently in or approaching retirement have saved NO MONEY towards a pension, having had it all back. Genuinely... the group that represents old folks, can't remember what it's called, went on TV and said that there should be plenty of money saved up in the vaults from everyone NI payments. They actually think the government was PUTTING IT ASIDE somewhere!
• Selling of national assets - At the start of the 80s the government started to run into trouble with the policy above, as members of the civil service starting to retire and demand the pensions they were promised. To cover the shortfall everything was privatised, Gas, Water, BT, BR, Council Houses, School Fields, a "firesale" in fact, and the money used instead of a tax increase.
• Energy - North sea oil is now dwindling but those in their 50-80s benefited from cheap petrol and gas for almost their entire lives. They closed the mines and switched to cheaper gas-fired powerstations with no thought to what would happen when the gas ran out. They benefited from "clean" nuclear energy which has left a £100bn+ cleanup bill for future generations, who face spiraling energy prices and probable shortages and blackouts.

The country was asset stripped and huge pension debts were run up, while 1 or 2 generations lived in a british "golden age". The nations infrastructure is crumbling, it's youth are crippled by debt and high taxes, while almost all of the houses and wealth in the country are owned by those in or near retirement.

Those in their 50-80s had the highest standard of living in the history of the human race, and it's probable that no generation in the future will ever enjoy such a high standard of living again.

I mean no offence to the OPs granmother, I'm sure she's a charming women, but how far will we go to give those in their 50-80s a comfortable life? They asset stripped the nation and lived the life of Riley... how far will we go to allow them to keep living that life?

fc123

OMG...squatnow.......i don't really like your abrasive tone on a lot of your posts (but some make me smile) however..though you have written the above quite harshly......i do feel that we (early 40's 2 big kids; 20 + 13) have only managed to scrape a modest living the past 20 yrs..we haven't mnaged to save anything...still paying off debts .
my parents don't get it...we were looking at a £4k dentist bill fo daughters braces...can't do it so ill have to wait 2 yrs for NHS...but dentist said it was urgent. ok we "chose" to pay for chools but never intended to until had to pull 8 yr old out of disastrous state primary yrs back.......we had to pay for all sorts of little things that were free when i was a kid...like swimming lessons.

being self employed retail..we pay 15k business rates per yr but it is just another tax as we pay for rubbish collection, xmas lights\ and sweep and clean our own street.
My grandfather had a huge home, his salary doubled when he married (grandma never worked) and increased when each child came along yet he had a quite ordinary career.

Running_Horse

scope wrote: »

I think its disgusting to have to work all your life, pay taxes and national insurance, only for the government to start taking your property when you eventually start needing care.. What did we pay all those taxes for? In other countries care for the elder is FREE, and so it should be in this country. Some people would love for the money/property they have worked so hard for to go to their kids, not the government.

Yes and no. Someone has to pay. That someone is the taxpayer. I have no objection to free care for the elderly, but it should be for everyone, not just those who saved nothing throughout their lives.

Squatnow, as someone who advocates an alternative lifestyle, can I ask why you are so obsessed with houseprices? Are you a homeowner?