What's this scheme called please

Lathyrus

Callistemon, no there is no post death charge if it was not taken into account initially.

I think the English Government website is really clear. But I think you are in Wales?

Yes.
I suppose I should check.

Barmey, you and your husband changing ownership of your house from joint tenants to tenants in common (I presume in equal shares) is perfectly fine. Nobody's saying it isn't. It is not the same as giving assets away. You or your husband would be assessed for care fees on the value of half the house. Each of you can leave your half to whoever you want in your will, but that only takes effect after you die. In the meantime, care fees can eat up the half share you own. Also, if you want to downsize and your husband has gone into care, if he has become mentally incapable you won't be able to sell without appointing a second seller. Maybe someone to whom your husband has given power of attorney, other than you. You would only be entitled to half the proceeds of sale to buy another house. Has your solicitor explained all this to you?

Callistemon, no there is no post death charge if it was not taken into account initially.

I think the English Government website is really clear. But I think you are in Wales?

Barmyoldbat is what I typed!

Bar hold at, regardless of the differences express by posters, I am concerned that you haven’t perhaps received the best advice or had all the ramifications of having half your house in trust on the death of one of you.

I wasn’t sure if your son would be the trustee alongside another or the beneficiary of the trust but I hope you are aware that the trustees are bound in law to act to the benefit of the trust. For instance thiscould mean the half of the house that belongs to the trust being put up for sale even if you are still living in it, if it is deemed the most beneficial thing for the trust. Certainly the trust would be bound to charge you the market rent for their half or could even rent their half out to someone else.

Did you have all this explained to you?

I think that Germany has just introduced a tax which is ring-fenced for possible care in the future. Not everyone will need to go into care, of course so it is a type of insurance like other insurances we may take out.
We all may pay house insurance, car insurance but we don't all claim. However, if we do claim, it may well be for a substantial sum so it would be covered by other people's insurance money as well as what we ourselves have paid.

If the spouse or civil partner is living in the house it cannot be taken into account when assessing care costs
Is there a charge on the estate after the death of the other partner to recoup those costs?

I asked previously but I don't think it's been answered.

I'm with GSM but what happens if you suddenly become incapable? No-one else could help.

Sorry if that seems long-winded, I am just catching up on this thread which is very interesting.

Barmeyoldbat

We took legal advice on all this and we were advised that it’s was all above board, so are you telling me that the legal profession has got it wrong.? No it’s not fraud by any stretch of the imagination, is it any different to keeping your vast amounts of money on shore so the tax man can’t touch it.? As for helping members of my family now I am afraid I can’t, the small amount of savings is being used to supplement treatment that the NHS should be providing but don’t or take to long to provide leaving me to rely upon morphine.
But don’t worry Volver you won’t be paying for me to be in a care home because I shall never ever go there
Kate I would say go ahead and get the advice from a solicitor, you you will find it’s not fraud

Not the legal profession, just your solicitor.

GSM does know what she is talking about.

Barmeyoldbat

Jut because keeping money offshore is, in your eyes, unfair, that doesn't mean you get to do things that others think is unfair, or fraudulent, with impunity.

If you can't help out members of your family now, but your assets can help them after your gone, then clearly you want to have your cake and eat it. You want to profit from your assets right now, and you want your descendants to profit from them after you've gone, but you absolutely don't think that anyone else should get their sticky little hands on them, after all, you worked so hard.

If you need to be in a Care Home, I would be glad for my taxes to support that. As I am always glad that my taxes go towards a better society and I have always been proud to pay them. Not, like some people, to conceal my assets so that I can get something over on my fellow citizens.

And if you want a solicitor/legal advice, you would be well advised to listen to GSM.

We took legal advice on all this and we were advised that it’s was all above board, so are you telling me that the legal profession has got it wrong.? No it’s not fraud by any stretch of the imagination, is it any different to keeping your vast amounts of money on shore so the tax man can’t touch it.? As for helping members of my family now I am afraid I can’t, the small amount of savings is being used to supplement treatment that the NHS should be providing but don’t or take to long to provide leaving me to rely upon morphine.
But don’t worry Volver you won’t be paying for me to be in a care home because I shall never ever go there
Kate I would say go ahead and get the advice from a solicitor, you you will find it’s not fraud

Just to add that Tenants in Common can will their share of the house to whomsoever they wish. It doesn't have to be the other tenant.

DH only spent his last seven weeks in an excellent nursing home, paid for out of our savings and subsidising residents inadequately funded by the local council, but we have savings precisely in order to make choices when we need to. If I live to a great age the house will fund me and the children will get what, if anything, is left. We equipped them for life with excellent and expensive educations and provided the deposits for their first venture on the property ladder so anything else will be a bonus though I do hope to leave something to the grandchildren. That all feels fair to me.

Potentially it’s fraud, and any attempt to give away assets in order to avoid them being included in an assessment for care home fees or any benefits will be traced. People think they can get away with it but they can’t and won’t. Money or other assets can be given away if you can prove you didn’t do it in order to avoid care fees. The older you are, the more difficult it is to prove. If you survive for 7 years they won’t be deemed to be part of your estate either, subject to various conditions.

In my book it’s completely immoral and parasitic to expect others to pay for your care whilst you syphon off assets to your children. And as I said, it will be found out and the investigation and questioning will be far from pleasant. You will get the treatment you deserve for trying to defraud the taxpayer.

ElaineI

There are differences between Scotland and England. Don't know about Wales or N.Ireland but DSil unravelling the rules as his DF is going into care and house jointly owned by his father and mother. She still lives there. House will not be taken into account but his half of savings will. She will get half his work pension but all his actual pension is used and he will get £23 or so pounds a week for sundries. This is in Scotland.

Yes this is my understanding of the system here in Scotland .

I’m unsure though how much in savings is allowed?

Enough for bury you I’d hope?

volver

Barmeyoldbat

And that’s why I intend to help them in anyway I can

What, even to the extent of defrauding the tax man?

Fair enough. ??

I do apologise if people think I'm being curt but this is such a big thing to me. It's unfair, it's possibly illegal ( GSM? ) and I don't think it should go past without comment. If we want to help younger members of our families, give them the money now.

Got to agree with volver here.

This is something that drives me nuts. It's just wrong. I have a friend, or I should say had a friend, who did anything and everything to try to preserve her '*inheritance*. Just drove me mad how much thought and energy was going into this.

Anyway, we've told our children to never rely on inheritance. If we both dropped dead today they'd be laughing, but we don't know what the future holds.

Kate
It’s all here and written so that we can all understand it.

helpandadvice.co.uk/tenants-in-common/

Barmeyoldbat

And that’s why I intend to help them in anyway I can

What, even to the extent of defrauding the tax man?

Fair enough. ??

I do apologise if people think I'm being curt but this is such a big thing to me. It's unfair, it's possibly illegal ( GSM? ) and I don't think it should go past without comment. If we want to help younger members of our families, give them the money now.

And that’s why I intend to help them in anyway I can

Very true. A worthy but sadly badly paid career.

Sorry about the typo, it should have been gc but my fat fingers and lost glasses just meant a typo. We will just have to agree to disagree. Also their career choice, we can’t all be lawyers, who would do the care in care homes if we did

Thanks volver, glad I wasn’t alone in misunderstanding ‘5 go’!

Apologies for the number of children Barmey but your post was difficult to understand there.

MPs don’t have huge salaries, far less than I earned, and they need a home in their constituency as well as a place convenient for Westminster so I don’t object to the reasonable (and we all know some take the p*ss there) costs of having to buy, equip and maintain a second home being paid by the taxpayer. If that didn’t happen there would be a great many more absentee and/or extremely wealthy MPs. I would be pleased to see the end of heavily subsidised meals though.

I’m sorry your children earn low wages (their choice of career), but it doesn’t mean that anyone else should pay for your care, so that they could buy houses, should you ever find that you can’t carry out your plan (as you will have seen, mine simply involves different drugs).

Barmeyoldbat

Sorry German…… mum I think you need a visit to spec savers, I don’t have five children, I just two2 but I have 5 grandchildren all in their early twenties and two of these were long term foster children. Do you think it’s fair that your taxes go a long way towards paying for the very generous expenses for MPs, aren’t we keeping them when they are perfectly able to buy their own lunches without a subsidy, or to furnish their London home that we the taxpayers have very generously bought them AND then be able to sell them at the end of their term and make a profit. If it makes you feel a lot better I have no intention of going into a care home, my family have said they will always provide my care and if they can’t, then I will sit down with my bottle of morphine, a bottle of red wine and probably a box of chocolates. Just for the record my go are not lazy or spendthrifts, just on low wages with two of them working in care homes

Well instead of rudely telling GSM to go to Specsavers, perhaps you could have explained to us all what "5 go" means as I thought you have 5 children as well.

Anyway, there's lots of things all governments spend my tax on that I don't agree with. Biggest thing is the way they spend money on defence, I suppose, but nuclear power is up there too.

But all of us who live in this country buy into the concept that we elect governments to spend money on our behalf. I don't spend a single minute worrying about MPs eat for lunch and how much it costs, because that is a drop in the ocean. We don't get to decide how much of our tax goes to each "pot" and we don't get to decide that our family is more important than anyone else's is, in the grand scheme of things.

By the way, I never even had Child Support. Can I keep that bit of my own money back to fund my life from now on? No, of course not.

It's nice that your family are going to care for you in old age. Some people aren't so lucky.

Sorry German…… mum I think you need a visit to spec savers, I don’t have five children, I just two2 but I have 5 grandchildren all in their early twenties and two of these were long term foster children. Do you think it’s fair that your taxes go a long way towards paying for the very generous expenses for MPs, aren’t we keeping them when they are perfectly able to buy their own lunches without a subsidy, or to furnish their London home that we the taxpayers have very generously bought them AND then be able to sell them at the end of their term and make a profit. If it makes you feel a lot better I have no intention of going into a care home, my family have said they will always provide my care and if they can’t, then I will sit down with my bottle of morphine, a bottle of red wine and probably a box of chocolates. Just for the record my go are not lazy or spendthrifts, just on low wages with two of them working in care homes

Kate1949

Sorry I don’t see any “arguments “ on here. Discussions, different points of view and helpful advice, yes

Isn’t that only for personal care though, not the ‘bed and board’ element of care home fees?