Selling house to pay for care home

Flugelhorn

Sea_Shell wrote: »

This "mutual will" you mention, do you mean that someone else inherited this house, but with a life interest for the mum? Is it not hers now to sell.

How can a will otherwise stop a living person from selling their own property, either with or without PoA??

I think that Mutual Wills were a type of will where the will could not be replaced after the death of the first partner ie the surviving partner was bound by it and couldn't write a new one - sometimes done to stop a surviving spouse remarrying and leaving money to a new partner and not the children of the first marriage.

May well stop the property being sold at this stage.

I gather that they are not recommended these days:

n the recent case of Legg and others v Burton and others [2017] EWHC 2088 (Ch) the Claimants, children of Mrs Clark, successfully established a constructive trust under the doctrine of mutual wills. This had the effect of making invalid the 13 subsequent wills the deceased made between 2004 and 2014, after her husband died. It was held by His Honour Judge Matthews in the Chancery Division of the Bristol District Registry that the wills Mrs Clark made with her husband in mirror terms in 2000 were mutual wills and as such there was a binding agreement with her husband, which she could not go back on after his death.

Mutual wills are not usually recommended by professionals, not least because the future consequences cannot easily be predicted at the time of drafting. They most commonly arise where the testators perceive the complexity and running costs of a trust as being too much of a burden, and there is a desire for certainty in the way the testator's estate is disposed of.

xylophone

The dead husband's will might well have been on the lines of " I leave my assets to my spouse Mary Jane Jones but if she predeceases me to our children ".

The wife has therefore received the assets.

Her will also says "I leave my assets to my spouse John Jones but if he predeceases me to our children".

She is not dead and a will can only come into effect on the death of a testator.

If she has used her assets and there is nothing left at her death then that's the potential beneficiaries hard luck?

xylophone

Currently she lives alone and she has a sister who is 65. If the sister is willing to live with her to help then the house might not be assessed.

The mother has already been diagnosed and trying to get a disregard on this basis would almost certainly lead to the Council's contesting the claim as an action taken with an operative purpose of seeking to avoid the payment of care fees?

If the mother had been growing frail and her sister had chosen to sell her own property and go and live with her and she was subsequently judged to need full time residential care, there might have been a case?

xylophone

perhaps not most, but Residential and nursing homes cost as much as a full time average worker,

More - my relative's relative was fully self funding and paying close on £65,000 a year which is rather more than the average full time salary.

csgohan4

xylophone wrote: »

More - my relative's relative was fully self funding and paying close on £65,000 a year which is rather more than the average full time salary.

All the more reason why people are trying to reduce their liability but doing DIY avoidance like transferring house into children's names e.t.c not knowing the Council are not stupid

Nebulous2

csgohan4 wrote: »

perhaps not most, but Residential and nursing homes cost as much as a full time average worker, it would be too expensive for insurers to pay out.

You are more likely to claim statistically than say Life insurance until you retire for mortgage purposes

Insurers won't have data on who will and won't claim and nor can they depend on what you wanted x years ago and not wanting to claim. things changE very quickly if you have a few strokes, get disabled e.t.c family can't cope.

Insurers can and do offer products to cover care home fees. Look for something called a long-term care annuity. You can pay them with a single premium or over a period of years. They were promoted heavily in the 90s, but never really gained a lot of traction, because of the cost.

It's fairly easy for insurers to get information on the average stay in a care home and price accordingly. Roughly a third of people will need long-term care and the average stay in a care home is less than two years (from memory)

If it costs £20k after deducting pensions and state benefits to stay in a care home - would you pay £50k up front to know you would not have to pay any more? A good deal if you last 10 years in care, but not such a good one if you only last 1. Possibly a good deal if you have a £1million estate, but not so good if you have £100k.

loulou41

elsien wrote: »

If she's only just diagnosed, it's very unlikely she'd be anywhere near qualifying.

OP, to get more specific advice you do need to answer the questions from Seashell about what you mean by a mutual will.
Either the house is hers to sell, or it isn't. Which is it?

The hourse is hers after her husband died two years ago but according to mutual wills it can only be sold when she died and the beneficiaries are the two sons not even sure she can downsize. She is not allowed to change the will. It is something hers sons had to discuss with their solicitor. The only comment the solicitor made is he does see this type of wills nowadays She is in early stage but the family wants to be prepared. In this situation I suppose the family can ask for deferred payment until the house is sold. She wants to stay in her house as long as possible but it is too big for her and her children live in another county. For example if she needs to be in a care home now Her savings will not last long and her sons are not in a position. In that case can the council pay for care home and then claim the money back from the sons after the house is sold. They are not trying to avoid care fees but want to know how to go about it if the cash is not readily available.

dancemum

With that amount of savings, she would be a self funder for care in my county.

Keep_pedalling

loulou41 wrote: »

The hourse is hers after her husband died two years ago but according to mutual wills it can only be sold when she died and the beneficiaries are the two sons not even sure she can downsize. She is not allowed to change the will. It is something hers sons had to discuss with their solicitor. The only comment the solicitor made is he does see this type of wills nowadays She is in early stage but the family wants to be prepared. In this situation I suppose the family can ask for deferred payment until the house is sold. She wants to stay in her house as long as possible but it is too big for her and her children live in another county. For example if she needs to be in a care home now Her savings will not last long and her sons are not in a position. In that case can the council pay for care home and then claim the money back from the sons after the house is sold. They are not trying to avoid care fees but want to know how to go about it if the cash is not readily available.

No will can do that. It sounds like it was poorly drafted, you should never leave a specific property in a will, because there is a strong chance you may no longer own it by the time you die, and the legacy will fail.

Mojisola

Keep_pedalling wrote: »

No will can do that.

Mutual wills can - they were often used by husbands as a way of controlling what their wives did with the estate after their death.