Need to keep things legal

[uselessdaughter]

Can anyone advise me? I will not go through all the previous history but basically my husband and I live 200 miles from my Dad. My brother lives near Dad and has been brilliant with keeping him going at home but works full time and has children so cannot do any more. DH and I visit for a weekend each month (I am still working) to clean the house and help keep the garden tidy. However, I cannot continue living with the stress of Dad being on his own so much. He is getting to the stage where he does not always know who we are. He refuses to go to any day centre or have anyone in to help with his personal care and keeping the house clean so just sits there day after day. He has also said that if we “put” him in a home he will die.

So, (and I also feel guilty with all the references to “invisibles” that I am not doing my share) I think the time has come for drastic action. The only thing I can think of that will be acceptable to Dad is for us to sell his and our homes (neither suitable for us all to live together) and buy a property where we can both have our own living space but still be together, plus somewhere nearby for two horses. I guess this would also involve using his and our savings. Obviously when Dad dies (he is in his 90’s) we will have to move again in order to comply with his Will that states that my brother and I should half each of the estate.

My question is – when we come to sell the property how do we work out what we are due back (our house price and savings) and what is due to Dad’s estate, especially if we have to sell at less than we paid for the property? Do we just have to divide what we sell the property for into two, half for us and half for the estate? I don’t want to be accused by the OPG of depriving Dad’s estate of assets.

Thanks

Linda

 

[jenniferpa]

Can I just say that while I understand where you are coming from, I think perhaps this is not such a good idea. If you were thoroughly committed to doing this because you thought it was right and went into it because this was what you (and your partner) really wanted to do, that would be one thing, but it sounds to me that you are doing this because 1) you feel guilty and 2) your father is unwilling to be helped in his current environment. I can't help feeling that this is not the right frame of mind (i.e. what sounds like desperation) to start a major life upheaval.

Please, consider the possibility (even perhaps probability) that 1) you will not be able to continue to care for him at home if he becomes incontinent and/or unable to walk 2) the strain this will put on your own immediate family 3) that he may well be unhappy in this new environment. Now, a lot of people do manage to deal with all these things, but I suspect not when they've gone into them in the state of mind you appear to be in.

Apologies if I've misread the situation, but I felt I had to say it.

As to the financial aspect. If you use your father's assets together with your own to purchase a property you can have the ownership drawn up so that a certain percentage of the property is legally his. Obviously, after he has died you will have to sell the property (another reason for not doing this) but I believe that his estate can only receive a percentage of the realized asset. Hopefully if you chose to do this your brother would be prepared to wait while you sold this property.

I can't see that the OPG would come into it. True, you'd probably have to get permission to purchase the property together, and that normally means a third party would be appointed to act for your father, which makes the whole thing more complicated. Much more of a problem would be if you could no longer care for him at home.

I'm sorry I do think this is not such a great idea for all concerned.

 

[turbo]

Hello useless daughter, our situations have been fairly similar (except that my mum has now been in a care home for eighteen months). I'm 200 miles away and my sister has done the vast majority of caring etc. My mum would not accept any care or go to day centres because she always insisted she was in perfect health. All she wanted was to be in her own home. I suspect that your dad wants to be in his own home and perhaps he will not accept anything else. I do understand your constant worry about your dad being on his own and I know how stressful this is.


Turbo

 

[cragmaid]

Please think long and hard about this plan of action. You are talking about giving up your family home, for a very uncertain future and for an unspecified amount of time. I appreciate what you are saying about his wish to "die" if you put him into a residential home, but it will get to a time when he will not know where he resides and that any home is the right home, or the wrong one come to that, when you read how many want to " go home" meaning a childhood home. You will be depriving your family of the home they know now and possibly causing financial problems for many years. This will carry on after Dad dies while you sort out, and possibly sell what has been your home, so you can pay your brother his share. Another thing to consider..given Dad's age, you may risk causing greater confusion by moving house and telling him that his home has had to be sold, but it's all right Dad we'll all live together!! What if he becomes agressive, agitated, incontinent, destructive? These are all things which need to be considered.
I think you will have to get together with your brother and talk with Dad, explaining how worried you are at his being alone when he won't even have help in the house. Ask him what he wants to do and then tell him if it is possible, how you will make it happen.
Don't rule out residential care all together. Perhaps you could arrange a respite stay for him..he might like it.
Take care and sorry for the long post, Maureen.

 

[sussexsue]

You are planning to do what we did. However it has only worked because I am at home full time to care for mum (and I do mean 24/7). Your dad will be very confused when he moves and will probably not see it as home and may well react much as he would if he were in a care home.

We bought a house that could be extended to provide an annexe for mum and the horses live at home with us (I could not leave the house to go to a yard twice a day and leave mum alone).

When mum sold her house she gifted me a chunk of money to build her extension and my brother an equal amount to do with as he pleased. The balance of her money has been invested, along with her savings, to provide any care she may needed. She would always be self-funding. We were confident that there was enough money should she need to go into care, based on the fact that she was mid 80's and had already suffered from Alzheimers for 7 years. Realistically she would only need to go into a care home for the last 2 or 3 years of her life and there was more than enough money to cover that. The house is solely in our name, but as she would be self-funding this should not be an issue.

I will be honest that we didnt know anything about the legalities of things when we did this and it was only some time later reading threads on this site that we realised we may have done things wrong.

 

[Coletta]

Can anyone advise me? I will not go through all the previous history but basically my husband and I live 200 miles from my Dad. My brother lives near Dad and has been brilliant with keeping him going at home but works full time and has children so cannot do any more. DH and I visit for a weekend each month (I am still working) to clean the house and help keep the garden tidy. However, I cannot continue living with the stress of Dad being on his own so much. He is getting to the stage where he does not always know who we are. He refuses to go to any day centre or have anyone in to help with his personal care and keeping the house clean so just sits there day after day. He has also said that if we “put” him in a home he will die.

So, (and I also feel guilty with all the references to “invisibles” that I am not doing my share) I think the time has come for drastic action. The only thing I can think of that will be acceptable to Dad is for us to sell his and our homes (neither suitable for us all to live together) and buy a property where we can both have our own living space but still be together, plus somewhere nearby for two horses. I guess this would also involve using his and our savings. Obviously when Dad dies (he is in his 90’s) we will have to move again in order to comply with his Will that states that my brother and I should half each of the estate.

My question is – when we come to sell the property how do we work out what we are due back (our house price and savings) and what is due to Dad’s estate, especially if we have to sell at less than we paid for the property? Do we just have to divide what we sell the property for into two, half for us and half for the estate? I don’t want to be accused by the OPG of depriving Dad’s estate of assets.

Thanks

Linda

Hi Linda,

I couldnt agree more with Jennifer. I have done exactly what you are proposing, the difference being my husband is an only child and MIL and us lived nearby. She is 96, registered blind, very hard of hearing and has Alzheimers. We moved in together 10 years ago, and it worked well at first, but she has deteriorated now so much she gets lost indoors, has to be directed everywhere, never knows where she is and every day I here the cry: 'I want to go HOME'. It still makes me feel guilty for having moved her and I'm often wondering how she would have been in her old home. ( it has been comforting to me to read that this can happen also when people have not moved.) As you are still working and your dad is in his 90's I would think long and hard. Would it make a difference if you could arrange for a male carer to attend to dad? Might renting out your current home and renting a house near to dad be an option?

By the way, when you live 200 miles away, you can only do so much, and you are doing it, in my opinion. Don't mention invisibles, because you're not one of them, as you are willing to do more than you can.
Let us know how things work out for you.

Love and best wishes
Coletta

 

[germain]

Hello

I moved 250 miles to be around the corner from my Mum. I got a transfer with my job but eventually had to retire early as the job & practical caring every day, together were just too much.
Have a think about how you would cope if YOUR health became a bit dodgy !

Because of circumstances Mum came to stay with me for 3 weeks & I was on my knees by the end. She was incontinent, had hallucinations & was up & down all night. How others do it for years I will never know.

We moved Mum into very sheltered accomodation , with carers on site, but she really couldn't cope with this - after 3 months still couldn't find her loo. This accomodation was rented via a national charitable foundation & can be accessed via Social Services. Moving her into a care home was very hard but a relief for all & Mum seemed to actually enjoy it.

Please think long and hard before totally changing your life for your Dad - if he was well would HE want you to do this ??

Regards
Germain
ps & don't let the "guilt monster " push you into anything either

 

[uselessdaughter]

Thank you for all your replies.

Jennifer – yes you are right I am desperate and guilty. None of the other options I suggest have worked and Dad is starting to ask if he can come and stay with us because he is so lonely. Totally impractical in either of our properties. In the last telephone conversation he asked if he could come and stay for couple of years. Having us all live together but with our own living space seems the only solution to me. Dad is already unhappy in his current environment because he is so lonely but at least I would be there to keep him company. He already cannot be left on his own in our house anyway. Thanks for the financial advice, I now have some starting points.


Turbo – my brother is not complaining about doing the majority of the caring but the fact is that because his wife works nights he cannot keep dropping everything and sometimes having to get the kids up because Dad has called to say he needs him urgently. Nothing has ever been wrong but he feels that he cannot take the chance. It is just not fair that he is the only one dealing with this. If we lived together, or nearer, I could do my share.

Maureen – We have had numerous family discussions were my brother and I tell Dad how much we worry but he is only interested in not going into a home and tells us that he can’t understand why we worry so much. I end up getting upset and Dad just wonders what all the fuss is about. My brother is so laid back he is almost horizontal so we would have no problems about waiting for property to be sold before any money could be sorted out. I do not have a family there is just the two of us so it would not be like uprooting children.

Coletta – Dad won’t even let my brother help him. God knows when he last had a proper shower. He will only wash himself down at the bathroom sink. Renting might be a way around it. It is something I will have to look into. We may get a couple of reasonable years before it all falls apart.

Germain – my health is already being affected. I have developed a minor heart problem which my GP is probably caused by stress and I need to de-stress. He had no ideas on how to achieve it though!! I cannot see Dad ever settling into a care home – he has had such a horror of such places since having to work in one as an electrician when he was 18. He always swore he would kill himself first.

Thank you all for the support but at the moment I cannot see any other option. If anything happened to him that I could have prevented I would not be able to live with myself.

If anyone else has done the same thing and has some recent legal advice I would be grateful.

Linda.

 

[Katrine]

Live-in carer?

My suggestion is that you consider having someone living in your Dad's house to look after him. We have this for my mother and it works very well. There are some difficulties when we occasionally get someone that does not suit her, but with your brother around he would be able to monitor this. My mum lives 500 miles away from me and I travel up every 3-4 weeks for carer changeover and to manage household affairs (and to see her too of course!). We are lucky in that we get quite a sizeable amount in Direct Payments to help with her care costs, but she still pays for the majority of her care from her own funds.

So it might not be affordable for your dad, but there again if you all move house that is going to cost quite a lot. You could try a live-in carer via an agency for a short time, say 2 weeks, to see how your dad gets on with the idea. This is quite usual, and sometimes is just used to provide respite when family go on holiday. PM me if you would like details of the agency that I use.

I think you will have to toughen up with regard to his "I will die if you put me in a care home", alongside wanting his children to be on call all the time. It is perfectly understandable from his point of view, but not from yours. My MIL has had us all boxed into a corner in the same way. We are only now beginning to see, with some outside help from dementia professionals, that we have been so afraid of her possible distress that we have allowed HER to set the agenda.

She has now agreed to visit a good local care home for lunch, with a view to going on 'day visits' once a week. This is her introduction to a modern residential care home and we hope that she will be pleasantly surprised. She remembers 'geriatric wards' in hospital when she was a young nurse and has no other idea of what a residential care environment could be like. I suspect your dad has the same memories.

Katrine x

 

[uselessdaughter]

Help at home

Hi Katrine - thanks for your input.

I have been thinking about your reply. Dad will not even tolerate the suggestion of someone going in to do the cleaning, etc. as he does not want "people poking into his things", but he does have a carer in every morning to check he is OK, had his breakfast and meds. I will get in touch with the agency who do this and see if they can provide live in carers and how much etc. In the past Dad has been very resistant to paying for anything as he would have to be self funding. Until my brother and I became Attorneys for his bank account, etc., I had no idea how much money he had but know we see that he is quite well off (probably because he has never wanted to pay for anything). This does mean however that we can pay for stuff now without him knowing.

Perhaps when I have looked into this I can try putting it to him that it is either this or he goes into care. I'm not sure I can do that to him but perhaps the threat will be enough.

Food for thought anyway.

Linda

 

[FifiMo]

Just a suggestion...

Have you considered a half way solution perhaps? Would he be prepared to moved into sheltered or very sheltered accommodation? He might have the best of both worlds there - company during the day and his meals etc provided for him in a cental dining room. He could maintain a level of independence too if that is something he feels strongly about. If he was nearer you then you could visit more often but wouldn't feel guilty of the fact that you have to work full time as well. I have an aunt who lives in such a facility and she absolutely loves it - it has given her a new lease of life with all the people she meets on a daily basis and yet everyone knows that she is supported and there are people around to keep everyone informed if something isn't going right.

This could potentially be a cheaper option as paying for 24/7 live in carer could be expensive.

Fiona

 

[uselessdaughter]

Thanks

Hi Fiona

Thanks for the suggestion but I am afraid we have already been down that route. About three years ago I got him to look at some lovely new sheltered housing near me but as far as he was concerned it was still a "home". I managed to find a similar arrangement with bungalows and a community area but he would not even go and look as he "did not want to get friendly with someone and then they die...".

On reflection if ever I do get him to move I think it would be best to keep him nearer my brother as he could not afford to keep travelling to my part of the country to see his Dad and the boys to see their grandad.

I'm not sure now that he could move somewhere else without having someone with him all the time because he would not know where is was.

Appreciate the thought anyway.

Linda

 

[jenniferpa]

I'm sorry you don't think Fiona's suggestion of the sheltered or very sheltered concept would work. I wasn't able to get my mother into very sheltered until after she had had her strokes, primarily because of 1) it didn't occur to me and 2) I doubt she would have gone, but after the fact, I realised how much she would have gained from it.

 

[Perdita]

Hi Linda,

I'm actually going through a very similar thing to you, in fact have just had our home valued for the very same reasons. Sorry can't offer any advice, but just to say I understand what you're going through and will keep an eye on this thread as it may help me understand the ins and outs

 

[zoe1968]

Hello! I sold my house last year and have paid to have an annexe (for me) built onto mum's bungalow. I sought advice from a solicitor who has said that we should get a 'tennants in common' agreement signed up which states how much money I have put into the property. Then to decide to either a percentage of the total value or the actual sum of money put in. We haven't got that far yet as the building is only just finished!
As for all living together (I have a 15 year old son), I can't say it hasn't been stressful at times (we've been here over a year now), partly due to having to squash into a 2 bed property while the house sold and building was done, and partly because of mum's alzheimers. But the stress of worrying about her being on her own would have been much worse I'm sure. We made the right decisions for us as a family. Wishing you all the best!
Zoe