Old people having to sell home to pay for care is discrimination and ageism

Hi HUNTERF Apologies if I implied any dishonesty on your mums behalf, it certainly wasn't what I meant.

In my parents case they simply wouldn't dream of doing anything (legal or otherwise) that may raise questions at a later date. They sold their home, put everything in the bank then filled in the relevant forms declaring exactly what they had in the bank and as a result have paid full rent and council tax until they quite literally have virtually nothing left.

In your mums case I (personally) can understand why she did what she did. I don't blame her in the slightest.

Hi gillybob

I don't think my mother did anything dishonest.
She had cntributed towards the house and wanted her half of the house to go to me and not my father.
She had seen a situation where a wife passed away and the husband got married again and passed away within 6 months.
The house went to the second wife and was then left to her family.
This is clearly what the woman who wanted to marry my father desired.

Frank

Hi HUNTERF I don't know that it is difficult to define honest. Honest is surely just a matter of being truthful about a given situation. In my mum and dads case it would have been against everything they stand for (honesty and integrity) to even begin to think about taking steps (legal or otherwise) in order to protect their money. Mum and dad have never even considered having a will as they quite literally now have nothing to leave anyway. The local authority have it all.

Hi gillybob

It is difficult to define honest sometimes.
My mother left her half of the house to me as she did not want Dad to get married again and her half of the house to go to a future wife of for his care.

Frank

Hi Absent My parents sold their extremely modest ex council home a couple of years back as my mum could not longer manage the stairs/get to the bathroom etc. There are many things they could have done in order to protect their "asset" and ensure my sister and I had a small inheritance. Being the very honest people we they are, they sold the house, put the money in the bank and paid full rent and council tax on a small local authority bungalow. Just over three years on they have virtually nothing left.

Hi Absent

You are right.
With DNA etc I think less will get away with it.
A difficult situation could arise if say a parent with dementia fell on the stairs and killed themselves.
A senario could happen where a son / daughter was trying to stop a parent falling but failed possibly because they did not have enough strength etc and the parent fell.
I have spoken to relatives in the care home and they walk the parent around the garden most days knowing there is risk of a fall etc.
The children have said they have discussed the situation with the nurse and they have taken a mutual decision to not confine the parent to bed.
May be at some point in the future the parent will fall and kill himself but I don't think anybody could say the children were responsible.

Frank

Hi absent

I think it is more likely the council would put a charge on the house if the child was under 60 and lived in the property.
It is possible for a parent to be taken in to care and he / she may die a week later so the costs would not amount to anything like the value of the house.

Frank

HUNTERF We shall never know how many sons and daughters have murdered their parents and got away with it for obvious reasons.

Hi absent

I think the odds of a son / daughter not being found out if they murdered a parent is very small.
I did have a car accident once and my father had some scratches but thankfully nothing serious.
The accident was not my fault as a drunk driver came out of a red light and got caught on camara.
If the cause of the accident was not so obvious and my father had been killed I think there would have been an investigation.

Frank

HUNTERF The rule about pensioner children, which as I have said may have changed, applied to a son or daughter over 60 living in the house even if they didn't own any part of it. They couldn't be chucked out and made homeless.

Hi absent

If you look at Age Concern Factsheet 38 if a joint owner occupies the house they have the right to live in it and this would apply to the offspring if half the house had been left to them by the deceased parent.
In one of the cases I have been involved in the daughter had been left half of a £500,000 house by her father and she had moved in to the house with her mother.
The social worker did try to say the house would have to be sold and the proceeds divided.
The daughter stood her ground and just said she was going to continue living in the house.
This made the mothers share of the house worthless for care fees purposes as nobody would buy half a house with somebody in it.
The daughter was 56.

Frank

HUNTERF No convicted murderer, related to the corpse or otherwise, can inherit from the dead person. If he/she is not found out, then he/she can inherit.

Everyone dies of heart failure.

Hi absent

I don't think a child can inherit the parents estate if he / she murders them.
My grandad passed away when he was 88 and it was obvious it was old age.
They did a post mortum on him I think to check we had not murdered him.
As it happened I took him to the doctor the day before as he had not been there for over a year except for his annual flu injection.
The nurse did a medical and found nothing wrong and she took 3 blood samples which were sent to the hospital but the results had not come back.
The blood was checked but nothing sugested death was about to happen.
The cause of death was heart failure.

Frank

HUNTRF Unless the offspring is over retirement age, I think. It used to be over 60 but may have changed recently.

Hi Absent

You are right with wills.
Often widowed people require care and if say the offspring is living in a parents house as a half owner inherited from the other parent none of the house can be taken for care fees but if the house belonged just to the parent who needs care the house could be sold in spite of the offspring living in it.

Frank

gillybob I think that quite a lot of people – parents and adult children – assume that there should be rights of inheritance. In other words, someone's assets, including their house, should be inherited by their children and not used for their own benefit if necessary. Naturally, most of us would like to pass on some wealth, if possible – those two are the operative words.

We have recently seen this taken to extremes with the son who first tried to kill his parents by means of a car "accident" in the river and then, when that failed, shot them because he wanted "his" inheritance.

I totally fail to see the problem with using assets to pay for services which is surely what we are talking about.

Wills only apply once someone is dead so quite often don't enter into the calculation.

I think it is wrong that all of a house can be taken for care fees if a husband / wife has not willed half of the house to the offspring.
In my case my mother / father knew the legal situation and they did mirror wills leaving half the house to me when the first parent passed away so I was guaranteed at least half of the house unless they both had to go in to care at the same time.
As it happened because I was widowed and then early retired I went to live in my parents house and if my father had required care none of the house could have been taken.

Frank

I ask because you were very forthright in your assertion that only those who are not on means tested benefits could say 'but as a life choice'. I just wondered if you speak from experience or assumption.

I'd like answers to my other questions too.

I'd like to know which Labour Party branch disbanded in 1987 as I'm not aware of any constituency party doing so.

I suppose it is an unfair question, and yet tempting.

Come of it Frank, to pretend that some people do not claim benefits wrongly, and as such, steal from those who truly deserve help - is plain silly- surely you are not that naive.

Saying this having always voted labour at national level and liberal/lib dem at local level. And a great admirer of the UK NHS and Social system - sadly failing partly due to massive abuse.

vampirequeen, Why do you ask ?

Ivanhoe...have you ever claimed benefits of any sort?

^vampirequuen for anybody on welfare today long or short term, to hear the following would make them sick in my view.

""but as a life choice"".

I find this term offensive, because in my opinion, only people who have never been on the receiving of of means testd welfare State benefits, would use the term with apparant ease^

Well then now you've met somone on means tested welfare State benefits who can and does say this with great ease. Why does the truth offend you?

Why would you ask to talk to my daughter's friends? Are you suggesting I'm making it up?

I've asked you this on a different thread but you chose not to answer so I'm asking again. You say you were a party activist until 1987 when you and your branch became so disenchanted with the way the party was going that your branch disbanded. Was this the local constituency party or a sub-group? Were you part of Militant Tendancy? Where was this branch that disbanded?

Mind you we have a neighbour, a genuinely lovely lady, a single parent who looks after her children well - and claims disability allowance for having Chrones disease. While my DDiL with severe Chrones and no large intestine works full time. Should I have reported my neighbour? Hopefully the new system will sort it out.