Helping elderly parents move house - is this proposal workable? 5 September 2022 at 10:19PM in Marriage, relationships & families 18 replies 1.8K views

Brie

Did anyone also mention that POAs and wills should be in place?  Don't leave it til it's too late (like we did).

Also - very handy if you or sis have third party authority on their bank account(s).  This is great for when they aren't able to get to the bank, want cash, need DDs changed etc.  They may be able to do all of that now themselves but things do change.  Sometimes suddenly.

boots_babe

Sounds like a very complicated way of dealing with the situation, along with some rather large assumptions re any future inheritance. 

We had the same situation, and simply 0ut in the extra money to help my parents buy their chosen house, and had a Deed of Trust put in place to legally protect our share. Was very cheap and straightforward to do.

marycanary

Could you simply make their current home more livable? For instance by offering to pay for a gardener and cleaner together with applying to the council for a stairlift or other changes to help your parents? I appreciate that does not solve the issue of the decline of the area but it could be a less problematic way to help them.

seven-day-weekend

Would they consider a ground floor flat in a complex for over 60s?  These are often cheaper than a similar flat on the open market.

Mark__H

marycanary said:

Could you simply make their current home more livable? For instance by offering to pay for a gardener and cleaner together with applying to the council for a stairlift or other changes to help your parents? I appreciate that does not solve the issue of the decline of the area but it could be a less problematic way to help them.

Thank you for the suggestions.
Unfortunately getting them out of the area is a big priority. My dad still drives but if anything were to happen to him, or indeed, if he were no longer able to drive, there would be issues with their current location

Mark__H

seven-day-weekend said:

Would they consider a ground floor flat in a complex for over 60s?  These are often cheaper than a similar flat on the open market.

A good suggestion. I think my mum would embrace such a change but a 'communal' living arrangement is probably not for my dad. We have enquired with a couple of 'assisted living' developments in our area which are owner occupied by over 55's. The flats are lovely but the service charges for communal areas, maintenance, etc are off the scale.   

Keep_pedalling

Mark__H said:

seven-day-weekend said:

Would they consider a ground floor flat in a complex for over 60s?  These are often cheaper than a similar flat on the open market.

A good suggestion. I think my mum would embrace such a change but a 'communal' living arrangement is probably not for my dad. We have enquired with a couple of 'assisted living' developments in our area which are owner occupied by over 55's. The flats are lovely but the service charges for communal areas, maintenance, etc are off the scale.   

Those places are notoriously difficult to sell as well, so I would never recommend buying one.

getmore4less

Keep_pedalling said:

Mark__H said:

seven-day-weekend said:

Would they consider a ground floor flat in a complex for over 60s?  These are often cheaper than a similar flat on the open market.

A good suggestion. I think my mum would embrace such a change but a 'communal' living arrangement is probably not for my dad. We have enquired with a couple of 'assisted living' developments in our area which are owner occupied by over 55's. The flats are lovely but the service charges for communal areas, maintenance, etc are off the scale.   

Those places are notoriously difficult to sell as well, so I would never recommend buying one.

Which makes them relatively cheap second hand.

As mentioned it the running costs that have to be watched as they don't go away when the occupant vacates.