Moving mum to live with me

[AR1]

Hi
I wanted to put this out there to people who care for a relative who has dementia. I’ve been going around in circles and I’m not sure what to do. I know that no one can tell me what to do but some rational conversation with people that are in the know or who have faced/are facing a similar situation would be great.

My mum was diagnosed with vascular dementia in Dec.2014 and is in the early stages of the condition. Mum has capacity and is fully orientated. The main problem is with remembering things in the short term and she cannot retain dates, appointments, get her days mixed, takes longer doing basic daily tasks, gets confused easily and suffers with anxiety.

I moved in with mum because she needed the support and mum sees me as her rock. I live in her home in a small cramped room in an area which I don’t particularly like living in and although mum is familiar with the area, there are no good day centres, dementia groups/cafes/activity sessions nearby and she has no friends left in the area. Mum has a few acquaintances in the areas and is quite friendly with one of her neighbours but she has three young children and works so she is not in a position to have mum over everyday between 3-6pm when mum arrives home from the day centre. I get back from work around 6pm. Mum doesn’t go anywhere on her own anymore except the corner shop. Mum will either go out with me on the weekend or with one of the carers.

I never agreed to move in permanently with mum but I am happy to look after mum permanently. I just need my own space. Mum says she is happy to move with me wherever I go and is quite frankly fed up of the area where she lives which is sweet but I do need to consider what is best for her.

I am informed by health professionals that if you are to move someone with dementia, it is best to do so in the early stages to give them the best chance to adjust to a new house and location. What do I take into consideration for the move? So far, I’ve looked at areas where there are good day centres and dementia activity groups nearby for mum and local Asian shops within walking distance. For myself, I look for good cafes and restaurants, parks, local shops, dance/exercise/yoga classes that are close by. At the moment once I get back to mum’s after work there’s nowhere for me to go. I don’t have any friends in the area; all of my childhood friends have long left the area. I’m 36 and mum is 70. I work Mon-Fri: 9.30am-5.30pm and I’m single.

I’ve discussed it with my colleagues at work and my friends agree that I should move to my own place and take mum with me but ultimately I should move to somewhere where I’ll be happy because as things get more difficult I will need the energy to look after mum so if I’m happier I’ll be able to give more to mum so it’s more important that I’m in the right area. Also, mum doesn’t go anywhere without her carer or me so she wouldn’t be losing her independence because she doesn’t go out on her own anymore. Also, I would always make sure she maintains contact with the few friends she has, and would be happy for her to visit familiar shopping areas/places if she wanted to. I see in the logic in this but I get feel guilty or I get cold feet.

Ideally I would want to move mum to an area where she has a couple of friends but that area does not have any dementia support services nearby and nor is it somewhere I would choose to live because there’s no social activities for me. I feel stuck.

Also, I’m assuming there’ll be financial repercussions too if mum were to come and live with me. At the moment mum gets two calls per day from carers; a breakfast and evening call and it’s funded by social services as mum lives in her own home which is her only asset and she does not have any significant savings.
When mum comes to live with me, her home will be taken into account as an asset and therefore she would be over the threshold of £23,250 which means she has to pay for all her own care until she has paid for £73,000 worth of care costs herself? After that apparently, it will be free, but the person could die before the cap on care costs is reached or immediately after?

I think it would be good to rent mum’s home to get an income as then perhaps we could get a better care package in place as the current one is very poor. I’ve changed care agency for the fourth time in the last couple of years. (Managing the care agency and carers is a job in itself). Also, mum is only moving because she needs my support. If I was to walk away she would not be able to live independently in her own home and then social services would have to offer her more care at home. My mum only owns a small inner city terraced house (valued around £125,000). Should mum rent it, my concern is that she may not be able to meet the cost of her own care from the rental income alone so will social services still expect her to pay for all her own care at home or will they consider paying towards some of it? Will they expect me to pay for her care? Could they force mum to sell her property if she’s not living in it? But… what about keeping the house as insurance should mum ever need to go into care ( I hope it’ll never come to that). Surely the local authority wouldn't want mum to sell her house and use it for home care? If mum needed to go into a care home later down the line she would be completely reliant on the state. How does this all work? It doesn’t seem fair? I’m confused. Should I call a review with social services?

Thank you for taking the time to read this. Your thoughts on this matter would be highly appreciated.

 

[PeggySmith]

Hi AR1 and welcome to Talking Point. I can't be much help but didn't want to read and run so am posting to bump your post until someone with more knowledge comes along.

Re the house, my instinct would be to sell because managing a rental property brings its own complications. However, I'm not very financially literate and lots of other people do rent property successfully. Do you own your own place or would you be renting because that makes a difference in terms of complications.

Has your Mum done Power of Attorney yet? If not it needs addressing straight away while she still has capacity. The financial one makes a huge difference and, depending on where you are, the health one can be crucial.

Will they expect me to pay for her care?

No. Nobody is responsible for paying for another person's care. However, if they cut the care package you may have no choice. Your Mum has the right to get the LA money for her care paid directly to her and you may want to consider this if you can't find an agency that is reasonably efficient.

 

[jaymor]

Care home care is a progression of care. You start with home care and progress until full time care is needed though this is not always the case. So don't worry about keeping the house to pay for full time care.

As your Mum progresses you will have more and more things to think about and manage, taking care of a rental house is maybe one thing you won't want to deal with. Selling the house now removes that and gives you the funds to get the best you can right now for your Mother. When she reaches the magic number re her funds then the LA step in whether it is care in the home or full time care home care.

 

[Beate]

Hello and a very warm welcome to TP.

Firstly, you will not ever be expected to pay for your Mum's care.

Secondly, choose where you want to live with care as every council have their own financial rules, and support is a postcode lottery. It always annoys me when people tell me their day centre charges £60 a day! I don't know where you live but if you were considering London, please be advised that there is one borough, and it's the only one in the UK, that does not charge for home care, and that is Tower Hamlets. That means no charge for day care or sitters/home carers and only a fixed charge of £128 per week for respite in a care home, once she is assessed as needing it. A permanent move to a care home is different of course. If you live in the North, a move to London might still be very costly as rents are high, but if you are moving within London or looking to move there anyway, then this is something to consider. There is a very big Asian community here and lots of carer cafes and day centres plus places for you to socialise.

With regards to the house, you could ask to enter into a deferred payment agreement with the council, ie the council pay for her care until the house is sold (on her death or earlier), which is when they get their money back from the sale.

 

[Quilty]

I manage the rental of my mothers house and it is a great deal of work and worry. My tenant is a relative and its still hard but bad tenants can be a bigger problem. Getting power of attorney while your mum is still able to decide is the first thing. Second is choosing based on care services. Make sure you get carers in to give you time to yourself to. Being a carer is a long journey and you need to look after yourself too. Keep posting. There is plenty of help here.

 

[Witzend]

Re the rental question, if you can't or don't manage a rental property yourself, there are agent's fees to take into account (10% is about the minimum around here but this is SW London) plus tax on the income if you are over the threshold, plus fees for mandatory annual gas etc. checks.

You are also nowadays obliged by law to register a deposit with one of the official schemes, and there will be a fee for this, too (penalties for failing to do so are hefty.) Added to any maintenance/repairs, all these can make quite a big hole in the rent. And from experience, if you have to rely on a managing agent to arrange any repairs, the cost will usually be considerably more than if you'd been able to arrange it yourself.

Just saying, for when you are weighing up pros and cons. Apologies if you were already aware of all this.

 

[AR1]

Thank you so much everyone for taking the time to give me your advice. I feel so alone in all of this. I just want to do the right thing for mum but have lost myself in the process. I know the that the reality is that if I don't address a balance between mum's and my needs now I may become bitter and resentful in the end and that is not me.

I am the sole POA for mum's health and financial matters; we were advised by her GP to do it asap when mum first started to first suffer with anxiety and had a few falls. The diagnosis of Vascular Dementia came later.

Mum owns her own home it's a well look after small 3 bed inner city terrace in Handsworth (Birmingham)and it's worth around £125K. I agree when you say renting it could cause more hassle than it's worth... I know the area and the kind of tenants it may attract! I don't want to be chasing tenants for rent or having to constantly pay for repairs because tenants don't look after the property. I was thinking we sell it but buy a city centre apartment and then let it out through an estate agent. The agent takes a small percentage of the rental income each month but is responsible for letting and maintaining the property. City centre apartments usually have a high rental yield.

I would love to live in London, especially Tower Hamlets because I love Shoreditch and would love to live around there. I don't think however, I could uproot mum so far though even though there is a large asian community in the area.

I was just thinking to moving to an area in Brum which I would be happy enough to live. Right now I'm living out of black bin bags in a small room in mum's house in area I don't like.

I'm not thinking of renting, I'm looking to buy a small property with my own funds that would be suitable for both mum and I. The problem is that I don't have enough funds to buy a small property in the areas that I like. It's all about location as usual. I could buy a huge house in the area we already live in but that's not what I want so that's another reason why I'm probably dithering as well as being worried about whether mum will adapt to any new area......

I had a chat with my mum's nurse practitioner yesterday when I took mum in for some routine checks and she gave me some advice... she said it has to be a 50-50 balance. Given my age and the fact that I am a professional young lady (relatively young I hastened to add), I need to make sure that I invest in my future now before it's too late; it can't be all about mum. As mum doesn't have an active social life in the area that she lives and is dependant on me to visit the few friends she has in the nearby areas, that I could continue doing this on regular basis regardless of the area I moved to in Brum.....so now I'm feeling a bit more confident about choosing an area that is better for me (i.e Moseley/Hall Green) and that has better access to good dementia day centres and services for mum instead of trying to buy a house in the area or areas near to where mum already lives just for the sake of familiarity for mum.


Thanks again everyone for all your advice and listening to me. I've never done this before. I'm kind of overwhelmed with the response.x