How to protect my property being sold to pay care home fees if needed.

Rexey

Hi I am looking at how to protect our hard earnt money from being taken by the government if as we get older we need to go into a care home.   I have read to protect my childrens inheritance I can add them to our property as tenants in common - is this the best way to do this.

RAS

Do you want to end up in Over my dead Body Grange? Because if you can't afford the fees, you don't get any choice.

Assuming the LA don't start looking at deprivation of assets, and refuse to fund altogether.

There's a recent thread here where parents transferred their house to their daughters. One has married and is likely to divorce. Her soon to be ex will be entitled to 50% of her share of the equity in her parent's home. That means either selling or mortgaging.

What is your marital status, guessing married from the use of our? So as long as one party is still resident, the house cannot be used to pay care home fees for the first spouse needing care. 

A good will creating an IPDI trust will protect half the value of the house for the children of the first to decease. It'll also protect them from CGT, insolvency, benefits and SDLT issues, and ensure that if the survivor remarries the entire house doesn't end up benefiting the step-parent's family.

elsien

It’s not the government taking your hard earned money.
It’s you using your hard earned money to pay for the care that you need and can’t manage without. 

If you don’t want to pay it, and want to leave it to your children, then there is always the option of them looking after you in  old age instead of relying on the state. 

We have an aging population and an unaffordable care system. Magic wands  aside, where else do you think  this  money tree is coming from, so that no one ever has to pay towards their own care? 

Grumpy_chap

Rexey said:

Hi I am looking at how to protect our hard earnt money from being taken by the government if as we get older we need to go into a care home.   I have read to protect my childrens inheritance I can add them to our property as tenants in common - is this the best way to do this.

Why do you want to do this?
Should the need arise that you need care, would you not want to have the best standard of care that you are able to have, if that means spending the assets you have accumulated through hard work and prudence, then that is your reward that you earned.

If you take an action to put your assets beyond assessment as potential source of funds for care needs then that is likely going to be Deprivation of Assets and you will be deemed to still have the assets.

Have you considered any of the following potential factors?

• first time buyer status for your children (if applicable)
• higher rate stamp duty
• capital gains tax
• loss of your home to a child's partner in the event of relationship breakdown

Keep_pedalling

You say our property so I guess you are talking about yourself and a spouse, so for starters the house will not be touched if one of you needs to move into residential care and the other remains living at home. Do not consider putting the house in your children’s names or into a trust and that would be a foolish move and could eventually lead to significant tax implications for your children. It could also lose you the roof over your head if your children went bankrupt, divorced or pre decease you. 

The one thing you could do is convert  ownership to tenants in common and make wills that leave your share to your children with the spouse maintaining a life interest in your share. This protects both the surviving spouses’ security and your children’s inheritance from care cost for the surviving spouse or (probably more importantly) by them remarrying and not making a new will. This will protect at least half the house unless you both need residential care at the same time.

However rather than worrying about your children not inheriting as much as you would like you should really worry about having to rely on a cash strapped LA to fund your care. I know from experience that you will struggle to get that funding at the time you need it (you will have to be quite decrepit to get past the funding panel) and the choices will be few, and you do face the possibility of ending up in over my dead body grange. 

Savvy_Sue

DH and I have only one parent left between us, and that one is in need of residential care. 

The house is disregarded, because one of their children is over 60, and never left home. Indeed, thanks to them, parents were able to 'cope' through Covid; there was support for the survivor after one parent died; and then sadly there was a life-limiting diagnosis which has removed independence, and will continue to do so - they have already outlived the initial expectation by some margin!

So I guess we are 'fortunate', because ATM they have the resources to pay for the care home, but honestly I would give up EVERYTHING to enable that survivor to have the very best care for as long as needed, and IF there ends up being a suggestion that they need to move to a cheaper home then I anticipate that we will voluntarily sell the family home to ensure this doesn't have to happen. 

So, to the OP, you can always require at least one of your adult children to move in with you (although this only works if they're already 60+ or not far off). Expect / require them to make sacrifices to enable you to remain in your own home for as long as possible - initially that may just be shopping and providing a taxi service to any appointments, but ultimately it may lead to a need for personal care. And should your need for care outstrip what they are able to provide, accept that you may have very little choice of where you receive residential care. 

Good luck ... 

Olinda99

I think the bottom.line is that there is no way to do.this otherwise everyone would do it.

Stubod

You don't want to spend your "hard earned" money looking after yourself should you need to, but you are happy for all other tax payers to use their hard earned money to look after you instead.....please explain ??

FlorayG

I never cease to be amazed at how so many older people don't want to spend their money and want to keep it for their children - who have done nothing to earn it - to inherit. OP, if you have no assets then the care you will get, should you need it, will be very, very basic and have you considered that if your children are really deserving of inheriting your estate then they must surely also be the sort of children who will sell the gift you have given them anyway in order to ensure that the parent they love gets decent end-of-life care? Why would you want to leave everything you own to children who will let you spend your last days in a council care home where you will stare at a wall all day? 
Perhaps you will be one of the lucky ones as was my mother. She spent her money on private carers and I helped out a lot every day, so she never actually went into a care home and died at home. My inheritance was a lot less than it might have been because WE spent her money on making HER happy and comfortable but at least I have nothing to feel guilty about. If she had needed residential care I wouldn't have thought twice about letting 'my inheritance' be sold to pay for it

comeandgo

You may not care what standard and where you will be cared for but what about your partner, would you not ensure they have the best you could provide?  The care sector is very two tier.  If you have the ability to finance it yourselves the options are far better than waiting to be placed somewhere the authorities deem suitable.  In our area suitable can be 50 miles away.

Sea_Shell

I always wonder what the adult children's opinion is on these matters.

Most comments I've read (here and elsewhere), the adult children want their parents to receive THE BEST CARE, and aren't actually pushing to get THEIR inheritance.

Yet, at the same time, the parents feel adamant that they should get it, and should be ENTITLED to it.  

So I'd suggest sitting down with your children and discussing this, and see what THEY want to happen.