Protecting a house against long-term care money grab

Torry_Quine

[ In my MIL's relatively inexpensive and excellent care home she pays £415 per week as opposed to £314 for the same level of care for supported residents. This will continue until her money reduces to £21500 at which time the family will have to pay the £101 weekly top-up or face the possiblity of the council insisting she move to a care home which will accept their £314 rate.
.[/quote]

Your fees seem very cheap,my MIL has been in a care home for three years and her savings have now dropped below £19500 ( the level for local authority funding in Scotland). Even when she paid herself it was over £700 a week for a very ordinary home. Since the council have been contributing to her funding we have never had to top up the amount paid by them and in fact the home said it has never asked residents or their families to pay extra or move out so it doesn't always happen

dunstonh

and what exactly are other threads to do with this one surely the op should be given the same courtesy as every other new user on mse.

You should re-read the first post and look at the tone of the wording. Rightly or wrongly the OP's comments came across badly as it appears that the main focus for posting was protecting the inheritance.

It is sometimes hard to know the tone or feeling behind a post when it is made so wording is important. Saying "avoiding the money grab carried out by the government to finance this care" wasnt the best thing to post when virtually everyone in here is a taxpayer. It gave the impression of the OP being the money grabber.

monkeyspanner

Originally posted by Torry Quine
Your fees seem very cheap,my MIL has been in a care home for three years and her savings have now dropped below £19500 ( the level for local authority funding in Scotland). Even when she paid herself it was over £700 a week for a very ordinary home. Since the council have been contributing to her funding we have never had to top up the amount paid by them and in fact the home said it has never asked residents or their families to pay extra or move out so it doesn't always happen

Yes we are very lucky to have found my MIL's care home. Your comments are reassuring but I can't see them agreeing to a 25% drop from what are already reasonable fees.

Errata

LondonDiva wrote: »

If you are looking for information etc on homes, have a look on CSCI's site as they will publish details of the reviews etc.

you can ask social serivces for a list of homes int he borough & then look for their ratings and the comments relating to them.

Pay particular attention to what improvements a CSCI report asks a home to make and check the next inspection report to see if they've been made.
Pay particular attention to any comments about staffing levels.
Take all inspections merely as pointers about what a care home really is like. Try to visit as many as possible, ask what the food spend per head per day is

Once you think you've found a suitable home, ask for copies of ALL CSCI reports and read them thoroughly.

HTH - although to be frank, the final step is cross fingers and hope like hell the choice was the right one.

OP - sorry about your mum and wishing her well. Have you thought about renting her house out to meet care home fees?

To everyone - vanishingly few people give a seconds thought about how care will be paid for should the need arise. In the same way as few people give a thought to which is the best local chiropodist until they need one in a hurry.

dorry_2

to op

sorry to hear that your mum is so poorly.

we went through a similar thing with my dad.

my advice in hindsight and some knowledge of ss and continuing health care. The social worker who saw us said we had to sell it and we felt pressured to do so straightaway, we sold it for £18,000 7 years ago, when dad died last year it would of sold for £120,00!!!

is do not be forced into selling her home, let the put a charge on it but keep hold of it.

as monkeyspanner said insist on chc assesement to be carreid out in hosptial, don't be pushed out by them. keep on with application of chc even if checklist says no

we were never asked for more money for cost of dads home and I think the the other poster lives in scotland where rules are very different to uk #


hth

seven-day-weekend

Just want to say Margaret that I personally don't think you said anything you needed to apologise for. You were merely being realistic.

My late m-i-l went from being a relatively fit and healthy octegenarian to being able to do nothing at all after a massive stroke. They are horrible and no-one would wish their loved ones to suffer one.

Torry_Quine

dorry wrote: »

to op

we were never asked for more money for cost of dads home and I think the the other poster lives in scotland where rules are very different to uk #
hth

Since when was Scotland not in the UK?

You also said yourself that you weren't asked for extra money so it isn't just here.

Joey122

Margaret - I disagree with you completely

What do people pay National Insurance and tax for? FOR CARE IN THEIR OLD AGE.

EdInvestor

Joey122 wrote: »

What do people pay National Insurance and tax for? FOR CARE IN THEIR OLD AGE.

In that case many of them will be in for a big disappointment.

EdInvestor

margaretclare wrote: »

This would be a cheaper option than the idea of nursing homes and care homes, in which an attempt was make the place more like a 'home' and less like an institution. But these are all in the private sector, not covered by anything that has been paid in NI contributions and tax, and the private sector costs money. Which brings us back to where we started and no solution in sight.

I guess the next phase of the evolution is going to be "home care" - the provision of subsidised facilities (showers/stairlifts/mobility scooters etc) and visiting carers to the home so that people can stay in it for much longer, combined with "assisted living/sheltered accommodation" for those who need a bit more help.

This will eventually mean that there are only 2 main groups in actual care homes: sufferers from dementia/Alzheimers and people who have massive strokes and are physically virtually helpless, in need of full time nursing.

Now that people are beginning to focus more on dememntia, hopefully there will be a lot more funding for research and a cure will be found in the not too distant future.

When that happens, the solution may be in sight.