MegaSack DRAW - This year's winner is user - rgwb
We will be in touch
What's the score here, because listening to news reports is sending me all right wing raving daily mail fascist.
I.e is this right, two old people and one needs care and they own property does the property need to be sold or do they need to pay because they have an investment?
The money raised if sold keeps them in a home for say five years. Then once the private funding has gone are they told to bugger off?
This if the case leaves the second person homeless?
I'm very confused on this. The owners of these private homes 'seem' to do very well out of this system. And it seems at a glance that the real benificary of all that saving and mortgage bills are the care home owners.
Just watched a short report, an 80 odd year old is costing the home £2400 per month, I can't see a mobile elderly woman the size of a Sparrow costing that.
Enlighten me, or should I be doing some furious fist shaking?
Big thread here oldgit
This is my grans situation:
My gran, who was single (widowed), had to sell her flat and pay her own nursing home fees until her total "savings" came down to 16K (iirc). At that point the government stepped in and now she is allowed to keep about £15 per week out of her pension and allowances (to pay for sweets, shampoo, clothes, hairdressers etc) and the rest has to go to towards her nursing home fees. She currently pays around £500/month - I have no idea what the balance is that the government pays, but 5 years ago gran was paying a total of £1200 a month. So it should be the £700 balance & 5 years worth of increases?
I don't think you are made to sell a properety if one of you is able to stay at home. (Maybe the government have a claim later on when the second partner needs care?) Often people in that situation will go together into a warden assisted private property with a nurse on site. And from there into a residential or nursing home, and from there into a small wooden box 🙁
I wonder if it would be better to down scale your property every 5 years after the children leave home and spend the released capital on yourself and your family? Then let the state take care of you when you need it?
Hmmm
'generalisation hat on' the amount of Porches and Astons parked outside these homes bothers me.
It's a two tier system people seem to want on here?
/Devils Advocate mode/
"I believe the people owning the nursing homes look at it as a business rather than a charity and charge whatever rate they believe the market will bare"
The fact that there are Porches and Astons outside would seem to indicate that they have chosen a good business to invest their money in. They are simply working within an existing system . . . .
I for one will do all I can if the system is still the same to 'loose some of my assets i.e house' to my kids.
I think for many people a mortgage isn't a breeze, and I'm nowhere near middleclass, but having to sell a house why! I bought a house because I needed somewhere to live, renting was too dear and a council house wasn't an option. Why is giving a house to your kids different to anything else a car for example?
I'm quite surprised by the amount of support for private healthcare on here.
TBH I think if you are in favour of a two teir system as so many are on here, then it's the other end of the persons life you should be looking at, childbirth. Why should that all be free on the NHS. Those parents have chosen to have kids.
Old age care can never be done on the cheap. Not allowed to cage them like animals...
By the time someone reaches old age they have well and truly paid enough taxes to cover the costs of their declining years. And they do need care - the lucky ones are those who die suddenly instead of the descent into helplessness of so many.
Ask yourself this, you are 75 years old, you can no longer look after yourself, you somehow don't seem to have any money anymore because your decision making capacity has been flawed for the last few years, there is no government provided care - what do you do?
Care is very expensive. There is no great profit to be made in nursing homes especially if they are relying on the government funded level (Around £500 a week)
In the case of SSTs gran indeed the nursing home will have taken the hit on money - once her own money has run out then she goes on to the state funded level of £500 a week and they home forgoes the other £700 a week. Homes take a gamble on this - they ensure the person has the funds to pay the full whack for 3 yrs. ( average stay is under 2 yrs)
Oldgit - if you have the capital why should the taxpayer pay for your care? It means the taxpayer is subsidising your kids inheritance.
As for costs of a nursing home. Take a typical 120 bed home. At £500 per week income is around £2 800 000 a year. The wage bill alone will be well over £1 500 000 a year. Interest costs on the building will be a couple of hundred thousand, energy cost huge, equipment a hundred thousand a year or more usable supplies etc etc
Most homes accepting people on state funding will be lucky to be making 8% a year return. Many less than that. There is money to be made at the top of the market but it is a crowded market place.
Oldgit - if you have the capital why should the taxpayer pay for your care? It means the taxpayer is subsidising your kids inheritance.
You're right, of course - you've in effect saved for your old age
Given that, why should others be allowed not to save for their old age even if they can afford it?
Care is very expensive. There is no great profit to be made in nursing homes
I know a care-home owner personally, in Scotland. They do [u]VERY[/u] well from it and are opening several others.
I think the think that erks people is that if they do save for their old age and work hard to get a house, they get it all taken off them to pay for care, but someone who squanders it and saves nothing (enjoying it all in the time before old age) gets the same treatment. These could be two identical people on identical wages, just one was more cautious with money.
Coffeeking - I assure you unless you are in the top of the market the returns are poor - which is why virtually all care homes are part of a small number of large conglomerates.
8% return on capital is about the most you can hope for. So if you have a few homes you can make a decent living but its precarious and the returns are not good copared with other sectors.
I know of a few homes that have gone bust - even two of the large conglomerates has done so in recent years
As for your second point - yes that aslo appears unfair. Either way you fund it it looks unfair.
think the think that erks people is that if they do save for their old age and work hard to get a house, they get it all taken off them to pay for care, but someone who squanders it and saves nothing (enjoying it all in the time before old age) gets the same treatment. These could be two identical people on identical wages, just one was more cautious with money
In a nutshell...
If you have saved its really hard to hide it. But probably not impossible.