dad moved in with me and selling his house

ynot2005

Dad has dementia 87 years old and has just moved in with me.

I am considering the options of leaving his house empty , renting or selling.

One option i have thought is to sell the house approx £230,000 and then dad can gift me and my sister 3000 each year out of the proceeds, i am worried about depriving of assets if he needed to go into a nursing home

Renting his house out seems like a lot of hard work and worry i could do without , the house needs a new central heating system for sure and windows replaced.

We want and dad wants us to enjoy some of his money instead of leaving it all in the bank waiting for the day that may never come with large nursing home fees.

Has anyone any ideas?

Sea_Shell

Do you already have Power of Attorney for your Dad?

If not, and he still has capacity, you need to encourage him to get this sorted as a priority!!

MovingForwards

Does your dad already gift you £3k each per year?
If not, then it may be deemed deprivation of assets.

You need a power of attorney if he has capacity or deputyship via the OPG if he doesn't. Either way his money can only be spent for his benefit and not given away for your/your sisters benefit. I.E what ever he has done for gifts either Christmas / birthday / as hoc can be carried on, new ideas to reduce his assets cannot.

If he does end up in a home, I'm sure you would want it to be a nice one.

Linton

Leaving the house empty for an extended period is a bad idea. Insurance on unoccupied homes is expensive and the house will deteriorate. I suggest that if you have PoA you sell it. Discuss the idea with your father first if he still has the mental capacity to understand.


I suggest you dont bother with the £3000. You will get you hands on the money soon enough. The £3K limit is the total, not per person. If your father has capacity he could make his own decision to pay out a gift. If he doesnt have capacity you cannot use PoA to benefit yourselves unless he was already regularly making such gifts. However I think it should be OK if he could pays his share of the household bills, though you would have to be able to prove that the amounts were reasonable.

00ec25

if father still has capacity then your and his desire to transfer his money to you whilst he is still alive, but with an already foreseeable prospect of needing care in the short term, would be deliberate deprivation of capital

if he does not have capacity, then you making such a "gift" decision is simply an illegal act under a PoA

the sale of the house and him keeping his own money would appear to be the most sensible solution

Linton

One other point on leaving Dad's house empty....


The insurer will require that the house is internally inspected on a frequent and regular basis, perhaps once every 2 weeks. Do you live close enough to make that practical?

Mick-H

Sell the house ASAP it'll be one less worry.
Start looking round for care homes now rather than having to rush round at some point in the future.
I wish you well for the future you'll laugh and cry remember the good times.

xylophone

Your father has been diagnosed with dementia but this does not necessarily mean that he lacks capacity.

From what you have said, he currently seems capable of expressing his need and wants.

If he has not yet granted PoA and does have capacity, it would be wise for him to sign the paperwork now - in his circumstances it would be as well to do this through a solicitor.

It seems that your father has no desire to hang on to the house - therefore selling as soon as possible would be a good idea.

The proceeds must be paid into an account in your father's sole name - it might be a good idea for him to open an NS&I account now to receive the proceeds of sale pending any other decision about the use of the funds.

With regard to gifts, if he is capable of making his own decisions, he may make them but it would be as well for these to be within the limits of his normal expenditure on Christmas/birthday/ Easter etc - certainly the Attorney should only make gifts within the limits of what was usual for the donee. All decisions made by the Attorney must be in the interests of the donor.

Your father will be a part of your household and so should contribute his fair share of household expenses - if you are (say) a three person household then 1/3 of utilities/CT/ food etc. He should be able to cover this from his pension/other income. He could set up a regular SO from his bank account to yours to cover this

It may never be necessary for him to go into care if adequate provision can be made for him in your home but should it come to it, you will need to demonstrate that no deliberate deprivation of assets has occurred.

Mick-H

Slightly off topic

Your father will be a part of your household and so should contribute his fair share of household expenses - if you are (say) a three person household then 1/3 of utilities/CT/ food etc.

I agree totally with the above. However, where would the powers that be stand if your dad gave you say £800/£1000 per week similar to a care home?
They'd probably say that you were defrauding on his money but it would be an interesting argument.

ynot2005

thanks for the replies, dad has actually been diagnosed pre onset alzheimers 6 years ago, although wether thats actually 100% correct based on him answering general knowledge questions by a doctor seems a little wishy washy to me, he absolutely has dementia and its been getting slowly worse over the years.

our plan is to care for him in our home, we are not complete newbies at the game because we have been carers for him over the last 6 years and at the moment ts relief not constanlty going around his house for hours every day.

i agree with £3k gifts seen as deprevation of assets and selling the house and funds in his name only seems the right thing.

However it doesn't seem right that the money has to sit in his account for fear of the authorities questioniong him later about it, even though at the moment a care home is genuinely the last thing we want.

one last question. would funds from renting the house out be under scrutiny if he went into a care home?

POA has been done 6 years ago.


thanks.

00ec25

ynot2005 wrote: »

one last question. would funds from renting the house out be under scrutiny if he went into a care home?

POA has been done 6 years ago..

what does that mean? scrutiny by whom?

can you pocket the rent as your own income? No of course not, it is his income.

sounds like you need to do what you should have done 6 years ago and learn what it means to be a PoA