sheltered housing

Hello and welcome.

My father had a lovely home in a sheltered housing complex for his last few years. He had his on four walls and front door but there were communal rooms and social activities on site for him to use/join in if he fancied. A warden lived on site and each flat was connected to an alarm system. It was perfect for his needs and a lovely place to live.

My mother was lucky enough to get a lovely self-contained Alms House. There was no on-site warden, but one visited every day to check all was well with the residents. They were extremely well run and the residents well looked after. It would be worth checking to see if there are any in your area.

It also depends on your finances. There are retirement apartments specially designed for over 50s, with restaurants, swimming pools, communal areas , etc on site which means there are others your age around you and faculties on hand. One I know off is just 5 minutes walk from a lovely town centre. But they can be expensive and there is an annual service charge to factor in.
Or there are sheltered housing complexes, often council owned, but sometimes the 'houses' are tiny and you may not be eligible. But they do offer all the advantages listed by molllie and york.
You need to shop around and do your research.

And beware of unscrupulous park owners who try to stop you selling your mobile home and "take it off your hands" for a pittance, or even worse, intimidate you into selling at well below the market price. I think it was You and Yours last week which did a feature on park homes.

We live in a park home and yes there are unscrupulous park owners around, but it is possible to sell your own home, giving the park owner a percentage, this should be agreed when site is purchased. We have friends who live in sheltered accommodation which is very comfortable, but full of corridors, and they do not have any private access to the gardens -they have their own front door. I always feel as if I am in an hotel whenever we visit. We are very lucky we have Lidl, Sainsbury,Tesco, all within ten minutes walk, plus a KFC, McDonalds Pizza HUT. Burger King, with B&Q on ou doorstep, but because we also have our little plots of gardens all well kept, we are alost like an oasis. oh! and the coast just 15 minutes by car.

My grandmother lived in LA sheltered housing. The flats (hers was a single) were on two levels arranged in a square around a communal garden. There was a stair case for each set of four flats. She had her own front door, there was a warden who could be summoned by a panic button from each flat. The common room served afternoon tea. They played quizzes and other games. She was very happy there for the last 8 yrs of her life.

Take your time and have a good look at the options as sheltered housing schemes vary a lot. Make a list of your priorities. Dogs, own garden, community activities, etc. In Norfolk most schemes used to have their own wardens but this is being cut back and some look very nice but are isolated with no warden or transport links.

There may be places like New Oscott Village available to you somewhere.
I know somebody who lives there and you pay for services when they are required.
It is warden controlled and he has a cord to pull if anything goes wrong.
There are medical services on site but at present he has stayed with his own doctor.
Tesco is about a 10 minute walk away where he does most of his shopping but there is a shop on site which he uses for anything he forgets.
There are good bus services in to Birmingham and Sutton Coldfield which he can use if he ever has to stop driving.
There is also a restaurant on site which had to be booked when the complex was built as people were wanting to bring relatives etc in. Now it is busy but if you turn up without a booking there is occasionally a 20 minute wait which is not horrendous and you can have a drink while you wait.
Oddly enough he transports friends / older relatives to hospitals etc at present.
They all live on the north side of Birmingham but of course they have developed medical conditions which require treatment on the south side.
I sometimes help his family and he helps me if we have 2 relatives needing to get to hospital at the same time for example.

Frank

alanthetiler you may find when doing your homework on this that some authorities have a "supported housing" scheme which is a bit less "organised" as "sheltered housing" we live in a supported housing apartment and whilst it gives peace of mind to our relatives etc we have our own front door and front garden area also the shared facilities of a communial garden,the warden involvement is up to the individual needs of the tenant and the warden can be booked to call everyday down to once a week,I only book the calls if I am away overnight and mr.glamma is on his own just to check he is OK the calls can be done over telephone or personally it's up to the needs of the tenant,the costs are realistic and affordable and gives peace of mind to me and to the rest of the family.I would tend to enquire at your local Council and see what they have on offer for you or chat to someone at AgeUK.Best of luck to you and yours.

Sheltered accommodation, in my experience, benefits those who aren't really that independent. It sounds like you and your wife are very mobile, so I would look for sheltered accommodation that doesn't require a warden and emergency buttons etc. You could end up paying a lot of money for those kind of services, which you probably wouldn't even use. The homes are usually for life, so most people won't move out until they pass away.

If I were you, I would find a flat in a built up area so that you are not cut off and public transport is nearby. Plus, there will always be people around and you can make friends.

When my dad died, my mum felt insecure in the house on her own and as her mobility was impaired by her osteoporosis she downsized to a really nice flat in sheltered accommodation right opposite the sea. She was very happy there, lovely house manager, lots of social occasions arranged, lunches out, visiting gardens, theatre trips that sort of thing. In fact she also had similar sort of social functions through her church so it made me glad that she had a full diary during the last few years of her life.

The downside of a lot of these developments is they can have very greedy managing agents. The company that managed my mum's block were called Peverel and I have since read a lot about them in the financial press, and not in a good way. If I remember rightly my mum's annual charges were probably a couple of thousand per annum, this wasn't really a problem for her because at that time in her life she was awash with funds from downsizing. I do think it would put some people off though when taking this sort of flat on. For the same reason it can make them hard to sell on and this type of property could become a liability to whoever inherits it because the charges will still have to me met until it's sold. I know because I was paying them for about a year. To be fair I can see where the money went, permanent house manager on site, gardeners once a week, lift maintenance, the common areas were always immaculate, all the carpeting was replaced in the communal lounge area and hallways when my mum was resident. If any machine packed up in the communal laundry they were replaced immediately. However, I have read about groups of savvy residents in similar types of sheltered accommodation who got rid of the appointed agentsl and managed the block themselves, thus saving themselves thousands. When I eventually sold my mother's flat after she had had died Peverel charged a stonking £1,000 just to transfer some documents, my solicitor pointed this out to me and he felt that it was a complete rip off, but it was in the small print, so our hands were tied.

Good luck with whatever you decide to do alanthetiler, on the whole it was a positive experience for my mother. I would echo previous poster, jayjones sentiments though, there's a hell of a difference between a very mobile sixty something and a not very mobile eighty something, so I wouldn't opt for sheltered accommodation if you are fairly active.

A lot of the private companies like Peveral charge high annual charges. The flat my mother was looking to buy charged a total of nearly £3000 with care charges on top which sounds horrendous. But when we totted up what she'd spent on her bungalow over the previous year which would be covered by the service charge - maintenance, cleaner, gardener, etc as she could do little for herself, it wasn't too far short.

It takes a lot of research.

Go and speak to your local Age UK. They are a fund of advice on housing options and will know what is available locally.

Also look at this site http://www.housingcare.org/ . Housing Care specialise in providing information and advise on accommodation for older people. They list all available accommodation whether sheltered accommodation, care homes or other alternatives, private and public, bought or rented and have a telephone advice line.

Hello again. Thanks for your quick replies and comments.You have given me a bit more scope. Can I ask you what You and Yours is. Cheers
Martom

Hello again. Thanks for reply. It sounds as if we will have to move onto your park. Sounds ideal. We like the park life, but not when it is too isolated? Cheers. Martom

You and Yours is a programme on Radio 4 every weekday at 12.00pm. It deals with a wide range of consumer issues.