Family home dilemma

If the worse case scenario occurs maybe it would be better to rent it out and use the monies for his care rather than lose the house. I really hope it goes well for you as this infuriates me. People who live on benefits or rented and squandered their money get looked after for free, whilst others who worked hard paid taxes through the nose get ripped off again.

I suspect you will need to take legal advice.

I also suspect that you can't gift houses to offspring just like that and then not pay for care but I could be wrong.

We have just taken steps and advice to try and pay less care home fees should it happen. It is legal to sign away your home but the council will do their best to get their hands on it. Your dad is in the early stages and it could be some years until care fees are needed, so if you can last until the 7 years have passed you should be ok. See no reason why your brother can't go ahead with his plans but you need to check it with a solicitor. We have changed our house from joint names to tenants in common so that each owns a share and therefore only half the value of the house will be taken into consideration should one of us go into care. Also should one of us dies then their share will go to our son and their is no 7 year rule on doing this.

Life is not fair and never has been. Some are born into loving families, some are not. Some are born with a lot of intelligence and ability to earn a lot and others are not. We cannot make it a fair world but we can try.

What are you on about mumofmadboys?

People always bring this tale of the feckless and wastrels getting their care for free. But actually, just how many of those qualifying for free care fall in that category?

All the people I know, who have qualified for free care are people who have worked hard throughout their lives as labourers, carers or in other poorly paid jobs which did not enable them to either buy a home or save more than enough to pay for their funeral, if that.

Personally, I am so thankful that we have enough equity in our house to pay for any care we may need. I have been in enough care homes and visited friends in care and dependent on SS to pay for their care to know that, anything is better than that.

We have never ever contemplated disposing of our assets to avoid paying for care

Having seen my daughter go through the system of paying for care I don't want ALL our assets to found our care. We don't have a large amount an it would only last a couple of years. In the meantime my son who bent over backwards to help his sister, more so than SS, would be left with no inheritance and I don't intend this to happen. It is your choice Monica that you have never contemplated disposing of your assets but there are many of us with difference views just as valid.

Menopauselbitch -Do what you’re saying is that people who worked hard all their lives and paid loads of tax souls have to sell there home to pay for their care, but people who lived off the state sponging can get it for free. There really is something wrong with the way you think.

If you work hard and have money you will have choice. The local authority usually pays only around half to two-thirds of what the highest rated care homes charge. Many will not accept applications from those dependent on Local Authority funding.

For example this article from the Telegraph just over a year ago (Dec 2017) found that in Oxfordshire the average care home cost was £955 per week but that the maximum funding offered by Oxfordshire County Council was £493 - so about half. www.telegraph.co.uk/money/consumer-affairs/care-cost-lottery-councils-will-pay-push/
Therefore residents who are dependent on Local Authority care funding will often find themselves priced out of the most attractive care options and will be faced with 3 options 1) accept a place at a cheap care home that may have poor staffing or fewer activities etc, 2) move away to an area where care is cheap, 3) have family/friends make top up payments.

"We have never ever contemplated disposing of our assets to avoid paying for care".
Same here.
My Dad was a conveyancing solicitor and could have done this transfer of ownership years before they died but refused because he thought it was morally wrong.

You need legal advice and ideally from a solicitor specialising in this area- ask Age Concern or Alzheimer's Society if they have a panel in your area. My brother and I had no end of trouble when my dad needed a care home as my mother had left her share of their house directly to my brother and I. About 4 years later, when he became ill the "delightful" social worker tried to force us to sell it to use the money for his care. ( He also had debts which took up about half of his share. ) It ended up with her boss and his deputy sitting in a room with our solicitor who explained the errors in their plan.

I will change my views when I see Amazon and Costa's pyling their fair share in taxes. In the meantime I am happy with my views on providing for my family and only paying a top up.

Well said, Barmey!

I do not understand why the OP's father ever thought doing this would work. If it did people would be doing it constantly and the papers would be full of advice on how to do it.

The current situation has been the law for decades. I first volunteered, with what was then Age Concern back in the late 1990s and this was the law then and has, as far as I know has never changed.

I also saw all the downsides of trying to do this, from elderly people being evicted from their lifetime home by their children. To another gentleman who was paying his children the market rent for the house (checked by Inland Revenue every year). He lived far longer than he ever expected, in an area where rents rocketed and sought advice when the market rent reached a point where it exceeded his monthly income.

The only advice was rent the house out and move to somewhere with a lower rent. He did not qualify for any benefits.

I don’t know the full story but my French mother who lived her last 20 years in France sold her house when it was obvious she could no longer live independently due to dementia. She went to live with my brother in the U.K. who at some point must have got POA, spent all her money so when she went into a care home it was entirely funded by the council. ?

It is legal Monica. Last week we spent some time with a solicitor taking advice on becoming tenants in common and so being able to leave your share to whoever. We have drawn up what is called a bloodline trust which will ensure that this happens and our assets get passed to the family. I am sure that there is plenty of people with millions who do this. The council will do everything to overturn it but if it is done several years before any illness is evident they haven't got a chance. This Friday we are due to sign the documents and I will check about the rent side of things but I was told last week that the person still owning the half share can live there as long as they want and even sell and downsize if they want. Any money made by the downsizing goes into the trust fund. There are legal ways of getting around it, for instances for my daughter with special needs I could leave her share in a Discretionary Trust so that no care fees are paid but we have taken the other route.

Plumcushion
It's such a convoluted dilemma that I think, much as there has been some useful advice offered, you would be better to seek legal and financial advice from people who are au fait with your problem.
They can offer expert opinions on the best routes to take and the pitfalls, if any.
We here may not have recent incidents which mirror your situation.
Best wishes for a happy outcome for all concerned.

Quite agree GG, advice from aj solicitor is the only way.

Barmyoldbat, what you are talking about is something entirely different. There is no change in ownership, just how it is owned. The fact still remains that SS can look to the share of the house owned by the person going into care and take its value into account when assessing care fees.

This is nothing to do with how you choose to leave your assets when you die, but who has claim on them while you are living.

If the father still lives in his house and had seeded it to his two children, he, the father is still deemed to be the owner unless he pays full market rent to the children and this must be proven. The children must then pay tax on that rental income if they are taxpayers. So HMRC get involved.
A house, if rented out, would need to command a rental income of £4000 pm in order to pay full care-home fees. That does not cover the 'owner' having to pay for repairs, outside painting and buildings insurance.
The OP needs legal and financial advice...*pronto*.

seeded deeded

Under the circumstances you mention when you make the change is irrelevant, because while you live, your share of the house will be taken into account when assessing costs.

If this sort of system worked, it would be regularly written up in the financial pages of the newspapers and advertised everywhere by solicitors and financial advisors

The idea that there is a clever wheeze to avoid having your assets taken into account when assessing care costs that most people do not know of, is so improbably that it is unbelievable.

As for when you do it, if you are under 50 and in excellent health and can provide reasons why you have disposed of any assets, then SS may believe you, but once you are over 60, they will take a lot of convincing and it is you that have to do the convincing, not them.

The above is some advice given on the Saga website (updated 2017) re the OP's problem. There is much more in the same vein.

My mother put her house in trust - it wasn't worth vast amounts, just a family home - but she wanted to avoid the situation of my being forced to sell.

Legal advice is vital.

Also worth bearing in mind that if your DB did manage to legally get ownership of the house with yur dad insitu, and he got into debt or sued etc, his assets: your dad's residence/home, could be seized!

You and/or your DB could die BEFORE your dad and your/his next of kin could turf your dad out.

Its not clever.

The rich do it by putting property in trust for their kids when they are young its a totally different situation, especially as the trusts/gifts are often second homes not the parents only residence.