Making sure my children get my house when I’ve passed

There are so many typos in my post. I do wish we could edit, so I don't sound like a character in 'Allo 'Allo.

I hope it is still possible to make sense of what I tried to say.

Just to put it in proportion around 15% of us actually end up in a care home. The rest of us manage with a bit of help.

Probably we all know stories of how a trust set up to avoid fees has backfired in different ways. I certainly know more than one. Once it’s done you can’t undo it if things change.

I know one case where the money inherited all had to go to pay the spouse’s gambling debts. Another where the daughter used the trust as collateral on a loan, didn’t pay the interest and the son inherited nothing. Once you give up your title you;have no say in what happens thereafter.

You also have no choice about your care. If someone else is paying they decide.

I can see the fairness argument of spenders don’t pay. But is it right that someone struggling on a low income should pay for someone else to inherit thousands?

No, but two wrongs don't make a right. That unfairness is not a reason for accepting the unfairness in the current system. It really does need a shake-up to be fair to everyone.

A graduated future care insurance scheme? That’s the only way I can see to make it as fair as possible so that it doesn’t penalise low earners in favour of capital rich house owners.

I thought there was something called a Land Trust where your property passes to the people you designate when you die. We keep meaning to look into this as we are now on the wring side of 70.

I'm not sure how that would work - would it be similar to taxation? If so, then maybe that would be the answer for younger people, but it wouldn't help those of us who are at a stage in life where we aren't earning much but have paid tax all our lives.

If previous tax were taken into account, or another way to cover older people were found, I would support it in principle, but otherwise I can see our generation being stuck with the inequity of the current system.

It looks as if what I was thinking of is a Property Protection Trust

www.thewillpractice.co.uk/property-trusts.html

I haven’t read through this yet so it may or may not be helpful.

My Mil 92 pays for her own nursing home. £1014 per week.
She also pays for her hair, chiropody, days out (before lockdown).
Tissues, bubble bath, shampoo etc.(Out of her allowance per month)
The lady she shares a table at breakfast, lunch and dinner with pays nothing.
Same size room, same nurses, same meals.
The social worker told us before she went in and in front of her that she can afford to live there for the next 3 1/2 years
but when her money runs out either WE have to top up or she will need to move to a cheaper home.
When we said the only other home in our town charges £988. SW said that mil would need to move out of town then.

The local council can go back as far as they want, not just 7 yrs, anything they think is deprivation of assets will be challenged.
I’m sure there are ways of getting round issue, none are guaranteed so be warned, the best plan is to go quickly, if you don’t, relatives who are going to benefit should do the caring.

In my opinion HMRC seem get you whatever you do. My mother gifted us her London house when we got married, but she had to pay a substantial amount of tax. She died within seven years, so once again we ended up paying inheritance tax on the property. It seemed like a double whammy.

MiL later sold her house and went to live with her DD giving her most of her money. DD subsequently evicted MiL penniless to a home and we were asked to contribute to her care!

I just hope 4th time round we are lucky enough to pass on what we have to our children without anyone else, particularly HMRC, reaping the benefits. I feel disillusioned.

The local council can go back as far as they want, not just 7 yrs, anything they think is deprivation of assets will be challenged.
That is correct Katie, you have to supply every bank statement and document as evidence.

Jane43

It looks as if what I was thinking of is a Property Protection Trust

www.thewillpractice.co.uk/property-trusts.html

I haven’t read through this yet so it may or may not be helpful.

Has anyone actually gone through this House Trust plan? To the end

As the whole point of doing it is to avoid carehome fees, it is deliberate deprivation

My mil's house was sold to pay for her care. And my parents' too. Fair enough. In both cases, a little was left for us to do something in their memory.

DIL's granny, aged 94, completely blind and with dementia, went into a nursing home because she could no longer stay in her own home. Nursing home fees were met solely from the proceeds of the sale of her modest little flat. Granny was very happy and settled in the nursing home. After 4 years her money had been used up completely, apart from the £23,000 which, by law, she was to retain. Social Services agreed that they would continue to pay the fees to the nursing home for her but, by sheer coincidence, 1 month after her money ran out, the nursing home decided that Granny's needs were becoming too much for them to cope with. They gave Granny's family the choice of finding somewhere else to put her or, alternatively, they would agree that she could stay there but the fees would double. Family couldn't possibly afford £7600 a month and Social Services wouldn't pay that much either, although they tried to negotiate with the nursing home because moving Granny would cause severe distress. Nursing home would not budge and requested the family to get her out asap. Granny is now in another nursing home, fully funded by Social Services and the state, but the upset and distress it caused her and the family cannot be underestimated.
So... if Granny had never had the proceeds of the sale of her home to use for later life care, she'd have been put into a Social Services state funded care home from the outset and wouldn't have been chucked out on her ear when her money ran out. As a previous poster said upthread, the rich will always be ok; the poor will always be ok but it's those in the middle, who just have modest savings or equity from a life times work get squeezed and suffer the most.

Someone has to pay and tbh it wouldn't bother me if I had to go into a care home that I was paying whilst someone with less money was there foc. The one thing that does make me angry is that paying residents often pay more and effectively subsidise state funded residents. That actually doesn't seem right. I looked after my MIL until she died aged 101, we only had paid help in the last few months of her life and she paid for it. I understand that not everyone is able to do this but if we couldn't have managed I would have totally accepted that what money she had was spent on her care. If people don't want the elderly to fund their own care from the sale of their house, perhaps we should have a more punitive rate for inheritance tax. I honestly don't understand why people think the public purse should fund their relatives care so that they can inherit some money. As to people being fully funded, they are being funded because they are actually pretty poor!

I do not understand the statement that people work hard all their lives to buy a house, people work hard all their lives to pay for their rent too, they actually pay rent for all their lives whereas a mortgage is eventually paid.

If you want SS to pay for care then there will be no choice as to where you are cared for. When my mother needed to go into a care we sold her house and used all the proceeds to pay for a very nice care home.

*My Mil 92 pays for her own nursing home. £1014 per week.
She also pays for her hair, chiropody, days out (before lockdown).
Tissues, bubble bath, shampoo etc.(Out of her allowance per month)
The lady she shares a table at breakfast, lunch and dinner with pays nothing.
Same size room, same nurses, same meals.*
This is where I get my loading of means-testing from. The same thing happened to my grandmother. The woman in the next room was, coincidentally, an ex-neighbour of her cousin. All my childhood I remember my grandmother saying that Mrs X was going on holiday/out to eat/being what my granny thought was extravagant, when my grandparents were carefully saving for 'old age', having been brought up before the welfare state. Granny used to say that Mrs X would rue the day when she got old, but at least she and Gramps would be ok, as they had saved to pay their way.

They had to sell their bungalow and use their savings to pay for their care, whilst Mrs X got exactly the same care for nothing.

I wouldn't have wanted to see Mrs X go without, but nobody can persuade me that there was any justice in that situation at all. My Granny couldn't believe it, as she had an implicit trust in 'British Fairness'.

I do not understand the statement that people work hard all their lives to buy a house, people work hard all their lives to pay for their rent too, they actually pay rent for all their lives whereas a mortgage is eventually paid.

Again, that is a distraction from the point. The fact that a house is finally paid for is probably the main reason that people buy them. That others have not done so should not be used against those who have.

The fact that some never earn enough to save for a deposit is a scandal, but is a separate issue that is not related to the issue of social care. Also, not all renters are doing so because of poverty. Some people prefer not to have the responsibility of home ownership.

You may just as well say that some people never work but still have enough from inheritance to pay for private nurses, so everyone should have the same - why use the implication that all renters are somehow disadvantaged to make the case against equalisation of the care system?