Hi, has anyone any idea about keeping part of a property that is sold for care? My MIL bought the house opposite us twenty years ago. We have been supporting her for the past five years due to increasing Alzheimers. Recently it has hit crisis point and we need to consider a nursing home. My question is can we keep or buy her garage if the house is sold? We've been using it for 20 years. There is an equity release mortgage on the property that enabled her to furnish and make alterations to the house when she moved in. She does not have capacity and we have LPA in both finace and health.
House sale
- Thread starter Annakatehb
- Start date
Hello @Annakatehb and welcome to the Dementia Support Forum. Is the garage attached to your MIL's house or within the property curtilage/boundary area? (if in doubt a land registry search may be required). If so, prospective buyers would expect it to be included with the house and, as garages tend to be quite sought after, selling it separately is likely to reduce the house value/sale price. There may also be legal issues around access.
As LPA you are required to act in your MIL's best interests, and must also not do anything that would benefit yourself. If the garage is completely separate from the house, and is able to be purchased separately, you would need to get a market valuation and then someone else would have to act on your MIL's behalf in relation to the sale to avoid any conflict of interest. I think that you'll need to get some specialist advice about this situation but I'm not sure who would be best to contact. Hopefully other members might be able to offer more suggestions as this is quite a complex issue.
As LPA you are required to act in your MIL's best interests, and must also not do anything that would benefit yourself. If the garage is completely separate from the house, and is able to be purchased separately, you would need to get a market valuation and then someone else would have to act on your MIL's behalf in relation to the sale to avoid any conflict of interest. I think that you'll need to get some specialist advice about this situation but I'm not sure who would be best to contact. Hopefully other members might be able to offer more suggestions as this is quite a complex issue.
Thanks Louise, that’s more or less what I thought. The garages are open fronted and separate from the houses. We had a gate put in when she moved in 20 years ago and we’ve been using it daily since then as well as the garage so I do t think access would be an issue. There is access there for the other properties to use their back gates. There are two parking spaces outside the house and out of a block of 5 garages only one person uses theirs apart from us. If we weren’t looking at residential care when the time came we’d have sold the house minus the garage as it would cover the ER mortgage. Sadly I don’t thinks we can carry on with the extreme night care needs.
Similar threads
