Will You Sell Your Home Or Stay In It?

In new research released today by insurer NFU Mutual and featured in the Telegraph, there have been more than a million families, over the last 5 years, who have been forced to sell their family homes, just to pay residential care fees.

With average care home fees of £28,000 per annum for a standard care home room and around £40,000 for a nursing home place it is easy to see how the average retiree wouldn’t have the funds available to pay such high figures.  It would make sense then to consider ways and means to stay safe at home, rather than face the exorbitant costs of a place in a care home.

Image:Flickr-ImagesofMoney

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Naturally we have helped many people with a stairlift to solve their mobility issues on their stairs.  By putting in place some basic telecare monitoring together with daily carer visits for dressing and undressing or preparing meals a person with basic care needs can manage at home for far less a cost.

“Under the reforms anyone faced with selling their home to pay for care will instead be able to defer the payments by effectively mortgaging their house to the state until their death…”

Mr Hunt said: “This Government’s ambitious cap on care costs will make England one of the first countries in the world where people do not end up having to sell their homes to pay for care.”

Source:telegraph.co.uk

 

So in effect by saying you won’t have to sell your home to pay for care is a bit of a smoke screen. You wouldn’t be selling it strictly speaking, but it’s equity may well have eroded to nil after many years in a care home to the point where the government just gets the house at the persons death.

The ambitious cap on care costs is also not very ambitious to my mind.  The cap is proposed to be £72,000 a year.  With the current average house price value in the UK being £238,000 (according to the BBC) so then the government would own your house a little after 3 years in a home. Wouldn’t it be better to manage your care yourself at home? Certainly cheaper to buy-in set hours of care rather than pay for 24 hour residential care.

As it is in the UK if you have assets, which include your home, that are worth more than £23,500 then you get no assistance from the state.  A lot of people think that the state will take care of them from cradle to grave and that when they are old, if they cannot live with family or a friend, then they will go into a home – not realising that it won’t be free.  If you want advice on a stairlift so you can stay free living in your own home, then call or contact us for a no obligation chat about your options.  Visit this page for a callback at a time to suit you.