"Wealthy Pensioners"

Hi Ana

It is difficult to say what '' taking advantage of the system is on times ''.
I do know of a case where a lady aged 90 had to go into a nursing home who had little money but half of a house worth about £600,000 belonged to her.
The daughter who was widowed had been left the other half of the house by her father.
On retirement the daughter joined the mother in the house which they jointly owned and sold her own house.
As the daughter was an owner occupier the council was unable to take any of the house for payment of the fees and they also could not take any of the house as the daughter was over 60.
Several people thought the house should be sold and the daughter made to find a more modest house but she just refused and the council had no legal powers to make her sell so it had to pay most of the nursing home fees.
Sadly the mother has passed away and the daughter now owns all of the house and is living in it.

Frank

Ariadne, I do know someone who admits to taking advantage of the system, and no, they don't live the way I think they should either! Of course not everyone on benefits is a 'scrounger', but to say none of them are is also unrealistic.

nanaej I agree; so many people have anecdotal evidence of "scroungers", often fed by the populist press, but the silent majority just get on with it. I do get so fed up with the "I know someone who..." ( "doesn't live the way I think they should" being the corollary)

We cannot know the background of all people on benefits, and to condemn them all out of hand is uncompassionate to say the least.

To reiterate "Nothing is black and white."

Happy New Year Ana

Happy New Year, POGS!

Ana

Just a joke, sorry if I upset you, [ flowers]

Not sure how you figure that out, POGS. I don't think I was the only one to give the opinion that the figure of £50,000 was not that high, and I did say that our own household income was much less than that. I am still working, after all.....

Barrow

Thank you for updating us from your original thread. I think there is a lot of spin and hype in politics, scare tactics too which are simply below the belt.

I am sure at some stage all benefits will be looked at, the country owes too much money to keep the status quo, irrespective of what any politician of any colour says. Nice to know you did get a reply though and one that didn't flower the situation.

Ana.

Now I know what your bed matress is filled with. £50 notes. Not a princess who couldn't sleep on top of a pea then.

blubell that was my point..that nothing is black and white and everything far more complex than first looks would suggest.

'Policing' a system to try and make it 'fair' costs money too and sometimes on balance I guess those with the inside knowledge of costings decide it is not always worth pursuing. Frustrating for those of us who have always worked hard, saved what we could and tried to live honest lives!

I do not share messenger's gloom about scroungers. I know there are people , and have met a few, who manipulate the system but the huge majority of people are basically honest!

Wow! ..surprised to find I’m officially below the poverty line!! ...as are several other GNs. Been receiving state pension since I was 60 ...worked part –time until I was 75 to supplement income. I have a frugal lifestyle (learned in wartime and early poverty). I have a small house,no mortgage and some savings therefore am just above eligible level for pension credit. I’ll be very miffed if my free bus pass is taken away!!

Having savings give you the choice of care you want though. My mil chose a very nice Care Home - it ate up all her savings, but it certainly made her last couple of years much much more enjoyable and comfortable.

Funny how 'wealthy' is always just a bit above your own standard. I personally wouldn't put the bar at 50.000 but 75.000. My own income is about 15.000 but combined with my OH's quite a bit more.

My sil and bil get fuel allowance and bus passes (which they have never ever used - don't think either of them have ever been on a bus!!!)- and yet their income is + at least another nought. They certainly don't need either.

I sympathise with you and am in total agreement with your comments I too get very angry and frustrated with the so called `professionals` within these departments especially for the lack of follow-up and do seriously think that the people responsible for their lack of action and for allowing the transgressor to continue transgressing should be named and shamed publicly instead of being allowed to hide behind protocol

Reporting something doesn't guarantee anything will be done. Some years ago we knew someone who was on benefits as he couldn't work due to his drinking problem. When his wife left him he was given custody of their child (his wife had moved in with a drug addict).

Any money he received in child allowance went on alcohol - my DH found his daughter wandering the street at 1 in the morning. He tried to take her home but her father was so drunk DH didn't feel it would be safe to leave her there so brought her home and she spent the night with us. The next day we returned her to her father, but also reported it to Social Services. They said they would look into it. A couple of weeks later the father told us he had received a visit from Social Services and they had given him a lecture about looking after the child. That was it, no follow up, nothing. We tried to keep an eye on the child but after we moved it became more difficult. Some years later we heard the father was still drinking and the girl had run away several times and when she reached 16 she moved out, started working on the streets and taking drugs.

If it had been a condition of receiving benefits that the father had to undergo treatment for his drinking problem, there may have been a different ending

G night Nonu...will have another `thread` for you to get your teeth into soon..watch this space......

DH just come after watching Norwich v Man. City , so he a bit blue .

We are off now to have a sit down together .

{goodnight all]

Bluebell....taking your comment about `reporting ` them ie scroungers..well bluebell these people already know that we ,as a nation,are fundamentally opposed to `reporting` any kind of `wrongdoing` except in extreme circumstances so the `scroungers`...to coin a phrase bluebell just `carry on scrounging`.

bluebell, of course I'm not condoning Messenger's drastic solution, and I wasn't actually referring specifically to sickness benefit claimants. I know personally of one woman who deliberately fails to impress at interviews she's sent to as she'd rather claim JSA and scrounge off her parents than work.

You like grin , don"t u messenger ?????

But Ana you can't accept messengers approach - how do we define a scrounger? And quite frankly, if I was ABSOLUTELY sure that someone was committing fraud - because that's what it would be , not scrounging, I would seriously consider reporting them. However, there are lots of hidden disabilities especially with mental health and people may be entitled to benefits without appearing ill. Messenger - if you really mean what you say then I am horrified. If you are so concerned , come up with something that would be feasible. As for not beibg anywhere near 50 k income - does anyone have figured on how many are? But starving people????

So does my DD, bluebell and london, but we all know that there are those out there who take advantage of the benefits system.

bluebell well said my two work hard for rubbish wages,x

I`m for real bluebell..I see it every day in our community ...even know some by name...woman goes to local bookies[unable to name bookies or claimant] for obvious reasons,as for `fisherman` he`s left the area..thank heaven..but after working 40+years with wife working full time even during my National Service days and with private and National pensions we are no where near the £50,000 mark but I get so angry at these `scroungers`.
If I had my way I would open ALL the quarries in the country,lay on transport to the quarries..take all scroungers to the quarries and MAKE them work or starve them until they had produced enough `hard-core` for all the `pot-holes` in the country and road re-surfacing required.{angry}

Well I don't know anyone like that but I know a lot of hard working families on disgraceful low wages topped up by tax credits -ie tax payers subsidising the profits of large companies. Are you for real messenger or winding us up?

Wealthy pensioners....well,well,well..at last we`ve hit on a subject that is relevant to all GNs...my comment...just `pop into` your nearest bookies to see how your average pensoners dispose of their pensions to say nothing of the average `long-term`unemployed and `sickness` benefits claimants, spend their ill-gotten gains.
We all know,in our own communities who are the `sickness` benefit scroungers, we see them loading their cars with `fishing tackle` and golf clubs after their monthly assessment appointment with local GP and disposing of their lightweight `crutches`until the next visit to their GP.
Until any government initiates `in-depth`scrutiny of the `benefit` scourge we will all be tarred with the same brush.