Trying to safeguard my Mothers home

[watty21]

I under some confusion as to whether the local council will force me to sell my mother home to fund her care.

After my father died my Mother transferred her property to me, this was 7 years ago, then my Mother was diagnosed. During these & years my mam has lived in the house paying all the bills & looking after herself.

It is now become difficult to care for her in her home & feels she is on the brink of professional care. The family are applying pressure for me to place her in care. This is the last thing she wants & gets quite upset at the thought of going into care.

This all new to me with countless horror stories, I am an only child working away from home, my wife is acting as unpaid carer every day & I feel so guilty that she is caring for my Mother, who she did not have a good relationship previousley, when she has both of her own parents who she feels she is abandoning.

 

[Kate and jack]

Hiya quick question I'm interested to how your mother transferred her house over to you,someone said this cost thousands ,can you fill me in how this was done ,obviously there were legal requirements ......

 

[Saffie]

Hello and welcome to TP.
I think this will hinge on whether you mother was showing obvious signs of dementia when she transferred the house to your name. Most especially if she had a diagnosis.
This will appear as an attempt to avoid paying for possible future care by the local authority. The 7 years is for inheritance tax purposes and is irrelevant for deprivation of assests.
If your mother was showing no sign of dementia when she handed the house over to you, I would think you have nothing to be concerned about.

 

[Delphie]

How long ago was your mum diagnosed?

I ask because this might impact on how the local authority will view the transfer of ownership. If there is a suggestion that this was done to prevent the house being used for funding care in the future, then they might take steps to do something about it.

Given that your mum continued to live there, what was the reason for giving you the house, on paper, at that time?

 

[Noorza]

Hello and welcome to TP. There seems to be two issues here, which is can your mum continue to be cared for at home? Does she have the capacity to make that decision?

The local authority will go into your mum's finances and it is possible that the transfer of the house could be viewed as depravation of assets and insist it is sold to pay for her care. They may not of course but the transfer of the property may not be enough to protect it from care home fees.

 

[Chemmy]

Without assets to self fund, your mother is at the mercy of the local authority. They will decide if/when and where she goes into permanent care.

My MIL had a fall six weeks ago, followed by two weeks in hospital, two weeks on a 4x a day care package set up by the hospital, followed by another fall and then the last two weeks in a community hospital.

Because she is self-funding (modest savings and a small bungalow) we made the decision to move her into a CH and she went in willingly two days ago to a CH of our choice.There was no social services involvement whatsoever and that is the benefit, IMO, of treating assets as hers, not as an early inheritance.

So actually you do have a choice. There is nothing to stop you selling the home that she lives in that you now own to pay for her care. Some might argue that morally that is the right thing to do, whereas there are others who will vehemently disagree and who will insist the State (ie current taxpayers) should pay for your mother's future care.

Personally if it gave your wife her life back, I know what I would do.

 

[WILLIAMR]

Tenants in Common may have been a better option

I under some confusion as to whether the local council will force me to sell my mother home to fund her care.

After my father died my Mother transferred her property to me, this was 7 years ago, then my Mother was diagnosed. During these & years my mam has lived in the house paying all the bills & looking after herself.

It is now become difficult to care for her in her home & feels she is on the brink of professional care. The family are applying pressure for me to place her in care. This is the last thing she wants & gets quite upset at the thought of going into care.

This all new to me with countless horror stories, I am an only child working away from home, my wife is acting as unpaid carer every day & I feel so guilty that she is caring for my Mother, who she did not have a good relationship previousley, when she has both of her own parents who she feels she is abandoning.

Fortunately my parents never went in to care but my parents split the ownership of their bungalow in to tenants in common ownership so I was guaranteed to get at least one half of the bungalow unless both my parents went in to care at the same time.
As it happened my father got re married and so my step mother could use the bungalow till her death he left me his half on condition I would let her use it until she died or until she entered care.
The council tried to force me to sell it when my step mother entered care but the council could not as she did not own it.

William

 

[vernumamy]

Without assets to self fund, your mother is at the mercy of the local authority. They will decide if/when and where she goes into permanent care.

My MIL had a fall six weeks ago, followed by two weeks in hospital, two weeks on a 4x a day care package set up by the hospital, followed by another fall and then the last two weeks in a community hospital.

Because she is self-funding (modest savings and a small bungalow) we made the decision to move her into a CH and she went in willingly two days ago to a CH of our choice.There was no social services involvement whatsoever and that is the benefit, IMO, of treating assets as hers, not as an early inheritance.

So actually you do have a choice. There is nothing to stop you selling the home that she lives in that you now own to pay for her care. Some might argue that morally that is the right thing to do, whereas there are others who will vehemently disagree and who will insist the State (ie current taxpayers) should pay for your mother's future care.

Personally if it gave your wife her life back, I know what I would do.

Hi,

Just out of curiosity, does that mean people think " previous " taxpayers haven't " already " paid their due's?

 

[nicoise]

Was the transfer done via a solicitor?

I ask only because if it was, they may still have their notes which would hopefully prove that the solicitor felt your mother understood what she was doing at the time (ie, had full capacity). These notes would also show that she had been advised of the implications of such a gift - her own vulnerability with regard to the roof over her head, and her ability to support herself without having to sell her house to support herself if in need financially.

You would also have been advised of the need for her to pay you a market rent to avoid the implications of a gift with reservation, should she not have lived for the 7 years after making the gift in order that it would be exempt from inheritance tax.

 

[Chemmy]

Hi,

Just out of curiosity, does that mean people think " previous " taxpayers haven't " already " paid their due's?

This is an issue that's often been discussed on TP and there are, and always will be, opposing views It doesn't alter the fact which is that if you have assets you are currently expected to self fund your long term care.

However, what I was pointing out was that the OP does have a choice. Assets are available to pay for his mother's care. Otherwise, he may have to accept the consequences, which might not be in the best interests of his mother, or indeed his wife.

I'm really sorry if this sounds harsh; it's meant with the best of intentions.

 

[Chemmy]

You would also have been advised of the need for her to pay you a market rent to avoid the implications of a gift with reservation, should she not have lived for the 7 years after making the gift in order that it would be exempt from inheritance tax.

POAT
http://www.taxguide.co.uk/content/about-poat-pre-owned-assets-tax

My neighbours got caught out with this. It closed a tax loophole and was applied retrospectively. They've really regretted giving their home away as it's caused a massive fallout within the family.

 

[Jess26]

If I put our (hubby and I) house in our children's names, and either of us God forbid needs residential care. What is the time frame for this not to be deprevation of assets ?? We are both perfectly physically and mentally fit at present.
A solicitor would state that we would live out our lives in the house.

 

[jaymor]

Who were you trying to safeguard your Mother's home from? No one can take it from her while she is alive. Her home can be sold to pay for her care should she need care, which obviously she does.

No care is free, if the LA are involved then state pension, private pension and attendance allowance are taken from the person needing care and they are left with the princely sum of £23.90 per week to cover their needs. This is where self funding gives your Mother choice, choice of where she spends the rest of her life, the care she gets for the rest of her life and still have pensions and allowances to buy the nice things in life to make her comfortable.

It is nice to leave a little something for your children but my home is my home for me to either live in until I die or pay for care for as long as it lasts. Thankfully my children are with me on this but had it been other wise then Mum would not be for turning.

It is sad that we need to use our assets when it comes to dementia care but until this changes and IMHO it probably never will, we have to use them to make sure we get the care our loved ones and maybe ourselves need and deserve.

JY

 

[vernumamy]

This is an issue that's often been discussed on TP and there are, and always will be, opposing views It doesn't alter the fact which is that if you have assets you are currently expected to self fund your long term care.

However, what I was pointing out was that the OP does have a choice. Assets are available to pay for his mother's care. Otherwise, he may have to accept the consequences, which might not be in the best interests of his mother, or indeed his wife.

I'm really sorry if this sounds harsh; it's meant with the best of intentions.

Hi Chemmy,

My comment wasn't a personal attack on you, and I understand it was made with the best of intentions, as I try to do the same.

I do understand that we all have our own points of view, and to be honest mine is that I want to try to protect the inheritance that my children " might " receive off me.

I do not have savings, but I do own my own home, paid for out of my working class job and pay.

I only ever bought my home as an investment to leave to my children, to help bring them out of the gutter, to help them in their future lives, so as not to be a burden on society and benefits, not to help them have holidays abroad here there and everywhere.

I don't believe that the " rich " should be penalized by a double taxation system, and I'd say that whether I own my own house or not.

We all contribute through our working life, paying income tax and national insurance, and I don't see why home owners should sell their homes to pay for nursing home fees, when renters don't.

Now that isn't a critisism of somebody who has to rent, or chooses to, my two children both rent, and because of affordability in buying property, a lot more younger ones are going to end up in the same boat as them.

The thing is in the future, we are going to be a nation of renters instead of home owners, and " all " renters without savings will fall into the " funded " category, therefore costing the " country " even more.

My personal feeling is that we should increase the national insurance contribution percentage, and ringfence the extra money raised solely for NHS use, I don't want to lose our fantastic NHS system, but I don't see why one section of society pays their due's all their life, then " has " to pay extra at the end of it, when the other section of society gets it free.

Just to let people know I am not rich, I earn less than £15000 per year, but I don't agree with telling " rich " people you have got to pay £50000 or £100000 or even more on top of what they have already paid, and I feel 1% or so extra on N.I contributions is fairer.

But back to my original post.

I made my comment as some people are new on this forum, and for those and others, I don't want people to feel shamed into not receiving their inheritance.

 

[Noorza]

If I put our (hubby and I) house in our children's names, and either of us God forbid needs residential care. What is the time frame for this not to be deprevation of assets ?? We are both perfectly physically and mentally fit at present.
A solicitor would state that we would live out our lives in the house.

There is no set time frame if it is to avoid care home fees the LA's see that as depravation of assets. If it was done for another reason, then it's never 100 percent guaranteed but the longer the space between in being put into trust and needing care homes the better.

 

[Chemmy]

People seem to be under the misapprehension that once a house is sold to fund care, then that's all the money gone.

My mum self funded (or spent my potential inheritance, if you prefer) for eight years in a CH. She too had modest assets consisting of savings and the sale of her small bungalow back in 2005 , but over the years we gradually drew down those assets to top up her continuing pensions and AA. When she passed away in 2012, there was still some inheritance for me and she was by no means a wealthy woman. We will now do the same for my MIL.

If there's anything left to share out at the end of it, then that'll be great. Like you, Jaymor, I'll expect my children to treat me (and my money!) in the same way in the future.

 

[Saffie]

I don't want people to feel shamed into not receiving their inheritance

.
It's not 'their inheritance' until they own it.
Until then it is the place where their parents reside and is their's alone.
Personally, we bought our house as somewhere to live, with not a thought of leaving it to our children, of whom we only had one at the time.
I find it really strange that others think that far ahead when all I could think about at that age was how to pay the mortgage and survive until the end of the month!

 

[jaymor]

.
It's not 'their inheritance' until they own it.
Until then it is the place where their parents reside and is their's alone.
Personally, we bought our house as somewhere to live, with not a thought of leaving it to our children, of whom we only had one at the time.
I find it really strange that others think that far ahead when all I could think about at that age was how to pay the mortgage and survive until the end of the month!

Same here Saffie,

We needed somewhere to live so we bought a house and worried about paying the mortgage and surviving. It was to be another 48 years before any thoughts of care homes or how to fund it became part of our lives.
Jay x

 

[vernumamy]

.
It's not 'their inheritance' until they own it.
Until then it is the place where their parents reside and is their's alone.
Personally, we bought our house as somewhere to live, with not a thought of leaving it to our children, of whom we only had one at the time.
I find it really strange that others think that far ahead when all I could think about at that age was how to pay the mortgage and survive until the end of the month!

Oh, Saffie, I am so sorry that you find me " strange ", however, why I bought my house is for my own personal reasons, not any one else's

When we buy things in life the reasons are personal to us all as individuals, you have your reasons and I have mine, I dont find your reason wrong, its up to you, so please don't critisize mine, that is also up to me.

However, I bought my house as an investment for my children, it would have been so much cheaper to rent, and still be able to go out for a drink, for a meal, smoke, take holidays abroad every year.

But I sacrificed them all, as that is what " I " wanted to do.

If I didn't have that goal in life then I wouldn't have bothered, and still would end up being " funded " should I need nursing care, and that is why I believe in increasing the rate of N.I contributions.

Of course it is not my childrens inheritance until they receive it, but I will make damn sure that I will do my best in order for them to get it.

Do you know Saffie, I never considered it strange to think that far ahead, to worry about what would happen to my children, and grandchildren in the future, when I am not here, it's called love.

What I do find rather strange, is that as well as the help and information we get on dementia, using this forum, I notice a lot of people seek information on money and how to protect it, should all those people now stop using and asking these questions on this forum, in case they are seen as leeches on society not prepared to pay their share, not forgetting that the people who have dementia have " ALREADY " paid their taxes throughout their life?? and are being required to pay " AGAIN ".

 

[meme]

you say the house was signed over to you before she got ill...end of story...no deprivation of assets.... and dont be frightened by the bogey man of this large constantly wielded stick!!!..