Where to find reliable financial advisor for old age care for my mother

[Deleted User]

Sadly my father passed away recently, and until the end he had essentially been my mother's 'memory', remembering things for her, since she has a diagnosed condition called 'mild cognitive impairment' which is similar to early stage dementia.

I live nearby and intend to see her every day, but I'm not always going to be able to, so looking to get some dementia carer to visit regularly on the days I can't go, and daily when I'm away on holiday.

She's in a three bed detached house with big garden (mortgage paid off long ago, and probably worth close to 1 million), but with half the pension (now that my father has passed away) I worry about if its upkeep is going to be affordable on this income.

Selling up and moving to a retirement flat sounds sensible, but I keep reading horror stories in the media about them.

She has over 100k in savings, so I'm thinking she should just stay in her house and if the house maintenance and carer costs eat into the savings then so be it, and only when the savings run out consider selling or equity release.

One thing my mother does want to do is pay uni tuition fees for her grandchildren, of which there are two left at uni with 3 years fees in total to pay (so about 30k), but as I understand it, this could be seen as deprivation of assets if she ever needs local authority care, so is a risk, but could that risk be mitigated with an immediate needs annuity or something?

It's all very complicated, so I do think I need to sit down with a professional advisor and go through everything.

Richard1212

In my experience, someone with dementia cannot be left in their own home alone, no matter how many carers come in each day. It seems out of the question. However, you mention "early stage dementia", so there may be some room for manoeuvre about care at home.

Medical tests need to be thorough to find out the degree of dementia and a prognosis. Then you need opinion of consultant. Then you need to move over to expert advice from Social Services as to whether they think it possible for your mother to stay in her home and for how long.

Depending on result of tests and medical advice + the Social Services input, there will be costs for care starting now and, in most cases, increasing if dementia needs nursing home care. 

I would be wary about losing a third of her total savings for uni grants when all of her savings may be needed in the coming years, perhaps starting off with home carers and perhaps leading to nursing care home specialising in dementia.

My mother started off with mild cognitive problems which led to dementia ( before which she had made Power of Attorney); she paid for care at home for a while but eventually needed nursing home care, which soon used up all her savings which were more than £100,000. I paid for most of her nursing home care for 15 years after her savings had run out ----and, yes, it was a very considerable amount. I was lucky enough to afford it, but many are not.

IMHO you need full CT Scan results, consultant's opinion and diagnosis/prognosis/ likely time scale; then you move to next step of Social Services advice. I would have severe reservations about leaving my Mum in a house by herself but you may be able to have day carers for as long as possible. You need to find out. And I hope your Mum stays as well as possible for as long as possible. Best wishes at this worrying time.

Keep_pedalling

Exactly what horror stories are you seeing. There are plenty of very good sheltered housing and assisted living schemes available to those who can afford them. 

Someone with £1.1M of assets is not going to be seen as deliberately depriving themselves of assets by giving £30k away but the big question is is she mentally capable of making such a decision? You say your father was acting as her memory so that sounds doubtful. Does she have a lasting power of attorney in place for finance?

Malthusian

One thing my mother does want to do is pay uni tuition fees for her grandchildren, of which there are two left at uni with 3 years fees in total to pay (so about 30k), but as I understand it, this could be seen as deprivation of assets if she ever needs local authority care, so is a risk, but could that risk be mitigated with an immediate needs annuity or something?

As others have said, deprivation of assets is not an issue. As long as your mother has capacity to understand what she is doing by making the gift, she can do so. What is an issue is that it sounds like she can't afford it. Domiciliary care fees will eat up that £100k pretty quickly.

A secondary question is: why does she want to pay their tuition fees? Unless they are high earners, much or all of the £30k could end up being a voluntary donation to the Exchequer.

Only one in four people will fully repay their "student loans", and for anyone who has an outstanding balance at the end of the write off period (30 years currently), having a relative pay tuition fees when they could use student loans instead is voluntary taxation. 

It's all very complicated, so I do think I need to sit down with a professional advisor and go through everything.

Never hurts but at the moment that seems premature. If she is safe and happy where she is, all she needs to do is make sure her £100k is split between at least a couple of banking licences (or in NS&I) for full FSCS cover. I would be very surprised if an Immediate Needs Annuity was feasible at this stage; it might be worth looking at in the future if she moves into residential care and sells the house. 

[Deleted User]

Thanks for the answers everyone, a couple of further points needed:

My mother's condition is similar to early stage dementia, but not the same. With mild cognitive impairment (mci), in any given year there's a 20% chance it gets better, but also a 20% chance it turns into dementia, most likely it'll continue as is for a few more years before it turns into dementia. MCI does not require notification of the DVLA, though I am taking steps get my mother to give up driving. I think for now she just needs someone to visit for an hour each day, and on most days that'll be me.

On the tuition fees, in reality what my parents were doing was putting the 9k fees into a 5 year fixed term account for each grandchild, each year they are at uni, so when they mature they can either repay the fees or use it for something sensible like a deposit for a house.

Richard1212

If you want to go down the "retirement flat" road, as long as your Mum is able to look after herself ( possibly with a carer coming in) then I would suggest you look at the excellent flats owned by "My Future Living"-----no horror stories from them !