Deprivation of assets ?

Albermarle

MSE_JC said:

Hi all,

I'm not going to go into the particulars of this specific thread, but I am going to offer a bit more general clarity on a part of the Forum rules.

The rules state:

Do not promote, encourage or glamorise any illegal activities. In particular on MSE, if you are thinking of posting about taking advantage of something that is dubious, or that exploits a 'grey area' of the law, err on the side of caution and do not share information about it. Common sense prevails here.

For obvious reasons, we don't allow people to wilfully advocate - or request how to perform - an action that they know to be illegal (or otherwise dodgy).

On occasion, a user may simply be unsure or unaware of the legal implications of a situation and other Forumites are able to give them insight. In this case, if a thread/post is discouraging a user from doing something illegal (or encouraging them to do something that IS legal), then that sits within the purpose of the Forum.

In summary, if someone's found to be deliberately posting something they know is legally dubious the Forum Team will take action.

Makes sense.
Often with Deprivation of Assets issues, many new posters have simply not thought through the issue very clearly.

Grumpy_chap

Mgman1965 said:

And "invest" the rest in (her words) "non traceable assets" such as  Gold, platinum rings  that can be kept at home or in a safety deposit box, Medium to High-end jewellery even watches, items that can be claimed as "personal items" not Assets and be forced to sell or be taken as DOA for buying and "later, cough cough") sold on or kept.

The rules around DoA and "personal assets" can be complicated.

As for "investing" whatever residual balance remains after selling her current home (£300k), buying a flat, covering the expenses of sale and purchase and moving costs, maybe decorating the flat to her own taste and furniture to suit the flat rather than the house.  Well, it may not be as much of a balance left over to invest in anything, but the OP's MiL may wish to review this recent thread where an individual won a £5k jewellery item 38 years ago and now tried to sell it and found the value was really only the melt-down value for the weight of gold at around £2k.  Certainly not an investment rate of return.
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6604718/gold-jewellery-shock/p1

lindmel

Exodi said:

Honestly I'm sick of DoA threads, I've reported it.

You can't ask advice for robbing banks, yet it's seemingly OK to seek advice on robbing taxpayers. It shouldn't be allowed, there shouldn't be a back and forward about what might be looked into and what might not. The OP is clearly not trying to steer their MIL into the light and there's an obvious motivation why not.

And that's disregarding the sheer audacity of asking forum members, aka taxpayers, on the best way to fleece themselves.

If your MIL does not want to pay for her own care, who does she think will be picking up the bill? Or does she simply not care?

She's already enjoyed the benefit of "(buying) her council house many years ago at a huge discount" off the back of the council/taxpayer, I'm surprised she's so desperate to make the council/taxpayer pay even more.

That's not fair. It's not an elderly person's fault if they get dementia or Parkinson's and need social care. They've worked for their money and should be able to do what they want with it. Ask yourself, is it fair, for a young drug addict, or alcoholic who has never worked, to get NHS care for free? Or for a drunk who goes out and injures himself to get free A&E treatment? There are loads of things which the tax payer pays for. Schools, hospitals, roads etc. The NHS isn't means tested so why is social care? Not everyone needs to go to hospital and not everyone has children but everyone pays for it. Nobody quibbles about someone having an operation at tax payers expense so why is social care regarded differently? Some people get it all for free and have never worked or bothered to save while others who have done without during their lifetime get it all taken away and left with a pittance to live on. Taking everything away from someone because they have to go into a care home can leave a spouse with hardly anything to live on? Is that fair? My husband has Parkinson's. Because he has a small pension the council want to take it all. It leaves us with nothing to repair the house etc. We have carers four times a day and the cost is extortionate. I'm expected to care for him 35 hours a week (but in actual fact I'm having to care for him 24/7) for £345 a month. Carers who come for just 15 minutes, four times a day to do the personal care which I can't do because he needs 2 people to lift him get over £1000 a month and that's subsidised. Is that fair? The GP wants him to go into a care home but we can't afford it because I won't be able to afford to pay the outstanding mortgage on our house.

We've really had to struggle. All we have is the house. We haven't been able to have holidays, or go out. My husband has no life whatsoever. He spends all his time in a bed with just a TV to amuse himself with. We don't mind paying a bit towards his care but the council want £1000 a month, which is basically all of his private pension and expecting us to live on just his state pension. No account for the fact that the house is falling down around us and needs constant repairs. No account that I'm nearly at breaking point worrying about money. I don't blame people for not wanting to use their savings to pay for social care. It's disgraceful that someone who gets ill has to pay while someone else, who has paid nothing into the system, gets everything for free.

elsien

You have my sympathy, you really do because looking after someone is not easy. Paid carers get to go home family members don’t. I started having TIAs because of the stress of caring for her husband and that was the point at which he had to go into residential care. 

But where do you think the money for  free social care is going to come from? We have an aging population living longer and inincreasing need of higher level, a population who don’t want to pay more in tax and there isn’t a magic money tree to fund it all. 

If you feel the financial assessment is unfair, then challenge it. Have you explored all the other options such as equity release or simply selling up and paying off the mortgage if you can’t cope any longer? Neither of which you probably want to do both or sometimes there isn’t a better option, just a least worst one.

GDB2222

lindmel said:

Exodi said:

Honestly I'm sick of DoA threads, I've reported it.

You can't ask advice for robbing banks, yet it's seemingly OK to seek advice on robbing taxpayers. It shouldn't be allowed, there shouldn't be a back and forward about what might be looked into and what might not. The OP is clearly not trying to steer their MIL into the light and there's an obvious motivation why not.

And that's disregarding the sheer audacity of asking forum members, aka taxpayers, on the best way to fleece themselves.

If your MIL does not want to pay for her own care, who does she think will be picking up the bill? Or does she simply not care?

She's already enjoyed the benefit of "(buying) her council house many years ago at a huge discount" off the back of the council/taxpayer, I'm surprised she's so desperate to make the council/taxpayer pay even more.

That's not fair. It's not an elderly person's fault if they get dementia or Parkinson's and need social care. They've worked for their money and should be able to do what they want with it. Ask yourself, is it fair, for a young drug addict, or alcoholic who has never worked, to get NHS care for free? Or for a drunk who goes out and injures himself to get free A&E treatment? There are loads of things which the tax payer pays for. Schools, hospitals, roads etc. The NHS isn't means tested so why is social care? Not everyone needs to go to hospital and not everyone has children but everyone pays for it. Nobody quibbles about someone having an operation at tax payers expense so why is social care regarded differently? Some people get it all for free and have never worked or bothered to save while others who have done without during their lifetime get it all taken away and left with a pittance to live on. Taking everything away from someone because they have to go into a care home can leave a spouse with hardly anything to live on? Is that fair? My husband has Parkinson's. Because he has a small pension the council want to take it all. It leaves us with nothing to repair the house etc. We have carers four times a day and the cost is extortionate. I'm expected to care for him 35 hours a week (but in actual fact I'm having to care for him 24/7) for £345 a month. Carers who come for just 15 minutes, four times a day to do the personal care which I can't do because he needs 2 people to lift him get over £1000 a month and that's subsidised. Is that fair? The GP wants him to go into a care home but we can't afford it because I won't be able to afford to pay the outstanding mortgage on our house.

We've really had to struggle. All we have is the house. We haven't been able to have holidays, or go out. My husband has no life whatsoever. He spends all his time in a bed with just a TV to amuse himself with. We don't mind paying a bit towards his care but the council want £1000 a month, which is basically all of his private pension and expecting us to live on just his state pension. No account for the fact that the house is falling down around us and needs constant repairs. No account that I'm nearly at breaking point worrying about money. I don't blame people for not wanting to use their savings to pay for social care. It's disgraceful that someone who gets ill has to pay while someone else, who has paid nothing into the system, gets everything for free.

It seems like you are really trying incredibly hard to shoulder a huge burden, and I’m sure we all respect you for it.  

sheramber

Surely these carers  go to other people as well so are getting paid for working full time. not  for working  15 minutes 4 times a day.

newsgroupmonkey_

Be careful. My cousin did this.
Admittedly, they were in a slightly wilder situation - they lived in a mostly mortgage free £200k house.
The MIL was a millionaire.

They combined and bought a lovely house in the Cotswolds. The MIL needed care and the council came after them.

Once she died, despite leaving everything to them, they had to downsize again.

MobileSaver

newsgroupmonkey_ said:

Be careful. They combined and bought a lovely house in the Cotswolds. The MIL needed care and the council came after them... they had to downsize again.

I don't think there's any doubt that cash-strapped councils are going to be doing this more and more in the future; it is a complete no-brainer for councils to hire experienced investigators whose sole job is rooting out deprivation of assets cheats.

There are many perfectly legal and transparent ways to reduce your capital but the cunning plans we often see on this forum are likely to be a disaster waiting to happen. 

Deliberate deprivation of assets is already a criminal offence and I wouldn't be surprised to see legislation updated in the future to increase both penalties and prosecutions. Some people who think they are being very clever today may have a very nasty surprise waiting for them when the time comes several years down the road...

GDB2222

newsgroupmonkey_ said:

Be careful. My cousin did this.
Admittedly, they were in a slightly wilder situation - they lived in a mostly mortgage free £200k house.
The MIL was a millionaire.

They combined and bought a lovely house in the Cotswolds. The MIL needed care and the council came after them.

Once she died, despite leaving everything to them, they had to downsize again.

If MIL was a millionaire, I think it was very good of her to use a home at the cheaper end of the scale, so as to maximise money for her family.

MobileSaver

GDB2222 said:

newsgroupmonkey_ said:

they lived in a mostly mortgage free £200k house. They combined and bought a lovely house in the Cotswolds. 

If MIL was a millionaire, I think it was very good of her to use a home at the cheaper end of the scale, so as to maximise money for her family.

I don't think that's what happened. They combined the £200k house with millionaire MIL's house to buy "a lovely house in the Cotswolds" which could easily have been £750k+ for somewhere big enough to house two households.