Savings for Retirement

Our family house was very large and worth a lot of money and we had a sale agreed at the first viewing to the wackiest people you have ever met,but they where lovely they turned up in an old Fiat car falling to bit's so please don't think people are envious of what you have got Frank,not everyone is the same thank goodness.I must stop myself coming on here before I go off to work for the day it raises my blood pressure.

Previous comment continued.

Birmingham does seem to have some Social workers / Care assessors with strange views who try to get jointly owned property sold if one of the owners have to go in to care.
They must know that the council can not force the sale of a house if there is a joint owner living in it as they have the right to stay in it although they keep trying it on.

Frank

Hi glammanana

Oddly enough I purchased a Volvo a few years ago and made a few visits and happened to be there when some people turned up in a Ford Escort which was about 20 years old.
I visited the garage about 4 or 5 times before paying a deposit and saw these people twice looking at the cars.
When I collected that car I arrived a little early to find this old escort parked in a prime position on the front of the garage and the people were with the salesman paying for a brand new volvo which was a lot more expensive than the one I was buying and they drove away in it.
That old Escort remained on the front until the salesman finished with me.
I found out by chance later they lived in a very upmarket area in London and had the Escort for years while living there.

Frank

absent

OMG Frank I am surprised you did not cancel your order seeing such an old car parked among those Volvos, and how dare the salesman give those common Escort drivers his attention. Worse still how dare he sell them one that was more expensive than yours. No wonder you are so heavily involved with social workers you must have been scarred for life poor lamb. because I must be simple to even bother.

Lots of people do not change cars frequently - we tend to buy a new car and keep it till we think it is getting on a bit or we have a problem brewing. You can never tell whether people have lots of money or little by where they live or what they drive. Everyone has different ideas of how they want to live and also what they want to spend their money on.
I lived in an area where what you had was more important than the type of person you are - I found it sickening and was glad when I was able to move away.
What people consider to be a big house or wonderful car is very subjective and depends on the community in which you live. A few years ago we downsized about the time we retired - much to our amazement people in our new community thought we lived in a big house - we didn't and it was just that the houses they lived in were much smaller. We have now sold that house and live in an extremely rural community where no ones cares where you live etc and it is GREAT - neither do they keep on about nursing homes etc.
Interestingly here in France I understand children are legally obliged to fund nursing home care for their parents unless all are very poor etc. Parents on the other hand are unable to block a child inheriting from their estate when they die.

gilly.

gillybob

I was trading in an Escort as well but it was about 4 years old.

Frank

Hi Bez

Could the children be legally obliged to sell their house to fund their parents care?.

Frank

gilly I'm off to work now I've got a headache already !

Not sure but I gather that they are chased by the authorities. I have not looked into it at at all - the only people I know who had parents in a care home did make up the deficit themselves.

Hi again Bez

I did read of a case a little while ago where a French man owned a house in both France and England.
He was widowed and he got married to an English lady. Sadly he passed away and left the house in England to his new wife.
She wanted the house in France as well which would have left the children with nothing.
The last I read was the court in France concluded that the children would get the house in France but they could not order the house in England to be habded over to them so it appears the new wife got the house in England.

I could see some problems in France if say the mother passes away and the father gets married again.
If the father leaves the new wife on her own in the house can the children order her out on the day of his death possibly with no where to go.

Frank

HUNTERF Do you know any families where the members don't hate each other and are not wrangling about inheriting property?

Frank you do seem to be obsessed with property and money - do you ever stop to appreciate all the lovely things around you?

Most people I know don't care that much - just as long as they have enough to get by. For about 10 years I drove an old claptrap of a car, it was rusty and definitely looked its age, but every time I turned the key it started so I kept it until it finally gave up the ghost. At that time we lived in what was described to me as the most expensive house in the village - to me it was just bricks and mortar and my home, its value was of no consequence until we wanted to sell. I now live in a much smaller house in the same village, my neighbours don't assume I have fallen on hard times because I no longer live in "the big house".

Hi absent

I had no problem with any relatives when I inherited my father's house. All the people who were complaining about me inheriting the house were non relatives.
We do have clauses in our wills.
At present my estate goes to my 2 daughters and if they are not alive at the time the estate goes to my 2 son's in law and if they are not alive it goes in to trust for my granddaughters.
I will have to alter my will later this month when my new grandchild arrives.
I also have a clause in the will if none of the above are alive the estate goes to other parts of the family and they have similar clauses in favour of us in their wills.
I think as the grandchildren get older I may be writing a new will so most of my estate will go to the grandchildren.

Frank

If your DDs pre decease you - and I could think of nothing worse - then you would have time to make adjustments in your will. Have you thought of the scenario that if your money goes to SiLs they could remarry and then your grand daughters could end up with nought.

There are often wrangles in France about the property as all sorts of relatives could stake a claim but as far as I know the children come first especially if their mother owned part of the house.
There are strict rules about who inherits what percentage of the house - so it is quite likely in the case you state that the children already 'owned' a percentage of the house. They are not allowed to put the remaining parent out on the street as far as I know.

Coming back to the OP, the problem if someone has a small pension pot of less than £50K, is that this will at current annuity rates give them only a pension of about £2500 per year + state pension. they may then fall into a benefit trap and lose entitlement to things like housing benefit and pension credit, which they would have been entitled to, if they had saved nothing.
This obviously acts as a disincentive to lower paid workers to save.
However, I think from April all workers have to be enrolled in a workplace pension.
Perhaps it's a cunning plan to reduce the eligibility of people for means-tested benefits.

Hi Bez

I have thought about what you are saying but my oldest grandchild is only 6 and at this stage I think my son's in law would need the money to look after the grandchildren.
I am going to review my will as my grandchildren get older.
Unfortunately you can not cover everything.
Last year we all went on an aeroplane to Jersey and one of my son's in law came on another aeroplane a day later as he could not get the day off work.
If the aeroplane went down with everybody on it except him he could have been the only one left alive.

Frank

Hi Bez

I think you mean step parent in your last statement. Am I correct?.

Frank

Hi Jane

It looks as if you are correct.
I have however had no dealings with pension benefits.
When I got made redundant from the council they quickly stated I would not be entitled to any.
My occupational pension is a lot more than what my state pension will be.

Frank

I wasn't talking about you actually, Frank
I was talking about people who, for whatever reason, work in low-paid jobs but who nevertheless make a valuable contribution to society.

Hi Jane

I see what you are saying but I think a lot of the 70% who have less than £50,000 saved for retirement could have saved a lot more.
As I said a lot of people who I worked with thought I was an idiot paying in to the occupational pension scheme and I remember my manager saying I was the first one who approached him about joining the scheme on my first day.
He said the general policy of the bank was to approach new joiners about 6 weeks after they joined and they often joined a month or so later.
In my case as I joined late in the month they could not take the contribution out of my first salary payment but I asked it to be taken out of my second salary payment and I asked for it to be backdated to the day I joined.

Frank

Jane

Unfortunately I have not read much about benefits.

Frank

No Frank - I did mean either parent or step parent. Depends I would think on the legal situation of the house however when one parent dies as far as I can ascertain the children do inherit from that parent at the time.