Tory Social Care Plan - Why did I bother buying a house?

[The Zee]

My wife and I like many others bought our house for our old age security. We have also like many others little savings – but a small emergency fund. Coming up to retirement we have paid our taxes and National Insurance for nearly fifty years in the belief that if we ever need any state help it will be there for us. Not anymore. We have been fortunate that we have never had the need to use any hospital services and only occasionally needed a doctor. As I understand it the government proposes that they can take a charge on our property for any long term old age care leaving just a floor of £100.000 left in the value of our house for us. Lets assume that I need long term care, I am twelve years older than my wife and statistically she will live longer than I will. By the time I die all that will be left of the propertys value will be £100k. Roll forward a few years after I have fallen off of the perch, and my wife finds she can no longer cope with the stairs and needs to move into sheltered accommodation. She needs to sell the house, and this is when the charge in taken by the government against our house. They take what “is due to them” and my wife is left with £100k. You cannot even buy a beach hut in the South East for that, so she cannot sell as there is not enough left for her to buy another place. She will have to struggle on. All her options have been taken away by the government.

If we had been reckless in our lives, instead of being prudent, and stayed in rented accommodation and spent all our money on partying and holidays, the state would have to pick up the cost as we would have no assets. But no… we did what we thought was the correct thing by trying to look out for ourselves – what fools we have been.

What is the difference between some young person needing long term care and the elderly. The young will get it but the oldies will not – age discrimination !

If I need long term care and wish my wife to retain the full security of a roof over her head the only honourable thing I can do is kill myself before the thieving government take away our hard earned security.

[Auric Goldfinger]

What happens to social care if you own a house in an area of the UK where you can by a house for less than £100K ?

[The Zee]

4 minutes ago, Auric Goldfinger said:

What happens to social care if you own a house in an area of the UK where you can by a house for less than £100K ?

If the value is less than £100k it won't be touched, but if it is worth £105k the government will take the £5k to bring your asset down to $100k.

[Auric Goldfinger]

30 minutes ago, The Zee said:

If the value is less than £100k it won't be touched, but if it is worth £105k the government will take the £5k to bring your asset down to $100k.

 

Time to down size then me thinks   

[Ootohere]

Lets be correct,  it is the Conservative & Unionist Party / Tory 'Social Care Plan' for England.  

Maybe also the Social Care Plan  that the 'Scottish Conservative & Unionist Party' want for Scotland.

[StevesTruck]

If you're complaining about "only" being left with £100k, you really need to stand back and look at your lifestyle in relation to a hell of a lot of hard working people in this country who will never have a quarter of what you have then come back and tell us all what a terrible life you think you really have.

 

Out of interest - what did you pay for the house?

[VRS Mike]

1 hour ago, StevesTruck said:

If you're complaining about "only" being left with £100k, you really need to stand back and look at your lifestyle in relation to a hell of a lot of hard working people in this country who will never have a quarter of what you have then come back and tell us all what a terrible life you think you really have.

 

Out of interest - what did you pay for the house?

 

I hope you are joking here, do you not think it's unfair that someone who has worked hard all their life and purchased their house should then have to sell it to fund their care, when there are others who sponge of the system never work and then get the same level of care for free? My mother worked three jobs whilst raising three kids on her own to buy her house, others would have sat back and claimed benefits and lived in a council house, why should she have to pay for her care if others don't? Down by me you could not buy a park home for £100k

 

this is something that really riles me. It seems to me like they keep you alive to drain your funds! If I was older and was looking at being forced into a home, I think I'd take a dive off the white cliffs! I'm buying my house to help my kids and their kids, not to pay into keeping me alive just for the sake of it!

 

 

[The Zee]

1 hour ago, StevesTruck said:

If you're complaining about "only" being left with £100k, you really need to stand back and look at your lifestyle in relation to a hell of a lot of hard working people in this country who will never have a quarter of what you have then come back and tell us all what a terrible life you think you really have.

 

Out of interest - what did you pay for the house?

What I paid for the house is irrelevant, it's now worth about £270k

and if you are interested:

1) I have worked and paid in for 50 years

2) Never taken anything out - not even child benefit

3) I leave the house about 5:30 am for work and don't usually get back until about 7:30 pm, six days a week - it's the price I pay for wanting my own home.

4) Why should I have the government taking more of what I have worked for over my life - they have already had enough from me

5) I am not one of the country's scroungers, it's my taxes and others that keep many people sitting around all day doing nothing and taking everything, I am just an honest person trying to provide for my family during my life and after my death

6) I have worked bloody hard for what I have got, to give my wife the best security I can give her. Is that too much to ask?

[SurreyJohn]

I also don't like the if you are prudent we will fleece you, but if you spent all the money on foreign holidays, thus not benefitting the UK, and no have no money left when old, then we are happy to give you taxpayers money.

 

Policy is all topsy turvy to me

 

Even more daft is it encourages you to pass your property assets to your children or grandchildren early, where you then rent or lease it back in your lifetime, and providing you do it at least 7 years before you die, might reduce your inheritance tax bill.   So basically Policy encourages tax avoidance planning, and not being prudent and saving for old age.

 

Bonkers !

[Clunkclick]

Isn't this way of paying for Social Care just deferred deficit financing in private individual form ?

 

Politicians of today have virtually no choice in what they are offering.

 

Current price £900 a week for residential care in a care home and probably at least £450 a week for care in your own home.

 

What were they to do, to even make it look as if they were half-addressing the problem ?

 

These are the solutions you get, when the mass of the electorate are too disinterested or dim to look ahead.

 

You wouldn't have paid the increased National Insurance contribution or Income Tax starting 40 years ago which would have enabled the Exchequer to build an actuarially sound sinking fund from which Social Care today could have been funded. The Tories didn't want a  saving scheme because that would have reduced the amount of money coming out of the national pot that they creamed off for their own essential indulgences i.e. Rolls-Royce Celestials, country piles and multiple mansion, the plastic boats in the Aeagan - hence the anti-taxation rhetoric there has been since the 1980s - from recollection,  the argument put forward at the time was that larger N.I. contributions would have made our industry uncompetitive - a complete lie, as we now know, its lack of investment in UK industry and running the economy as a low-wage sweatshop that has done for the UK.

 

You spend large portions of your uncommitted disposable incomes on ultra expensive, carriageway blocking, depreciating 4 - wheel identity bracelets and foreign holidays. You can't get a quart out of a pint GNP !

 

The Donald would like it, he'd say its "Beautiful", and I'd have to agree with him . . . a beautiful, long-term con, exquisitely executed.

 

Nick

Edited 1 June, 2017 by gadgetman

[Ootohere]

Those that jumped ship & took their pension or benefits income and proceeds from sale or let of their homes off to Continental Europe 

while still getting Winter Fuel Payment , Xmas £10 Bonus etc and free bus travel when back visiting are now all worried about having to return to BREXIT UK that they never paid taxes to in some cases for many years now.

 

Worried the NHS will not be able to cope because migrant workers that came to work, earn and pay taxes in the UK will be leaving and the NHS will not cope.

Nothing as queer or as contrary  as folk.

 Ex Pats or as i call them Immigrants that left the UK and settled in the bright new life.

Edited 1 June, 2017 by Awayoffski

[StevesTruck]

OK, work this one through.

 

Say you bought your house for £70k (hypothetical), paid for it, plus the interest on the mortgage. Now it's worth £270k. Where did the £200k come from? The answer is, it didn't, it doesn't exist until you sell the house. You still own something you paid the hypothetical £70k for. OK, you might have put a new bathroom in or something, but that doesn't account for the missing money. What you are essentially looking to do is acquire £200k by doing nothing except owning a house, now, no one's going to blme you for that, because that's what any good citizen in a capitalist society would want to do. So over your 50 years working, you're looking for the equivalent of £4k a year benefit to your circumstances paid for by the improvement in the economy that has increased the paper value of your home. Bad news, the economy hasn't done that well, and prospects ain't that great either. 

 

But, expand the picture. Where does the £200k come from? It comes from the fact that someone thinks the house is worth £200k more than you paid for it. Why would that be so? Because market prices have risen in that time. Which has made the cost of home ownership massively more expensive, and has had the trickle down to rental prices. 

 

Wages haven't gone up by the same proportion as house prices in the 50 years since you've started out. Put it into context, if you started out aged 18 today, and went into the same trade, would you ever be able to buy a 270k house? Due to this, the social state has to go further, but as well as supporting the people that aren't earning enough to get by (not only the ones who aren't doing anything for themselves, the ones who are doing a minimum wage job, wishing for the amount of hours you and me work, and having to pay to travel to work and back), it also has to provide free social care to the aging population. 

 

Now sadly, there's a finite amount of money in the pot, and there will get to be less and less. Newsflash - bluntly, the economy is utterly screwed. 

 

If you look at the work this and the previous government have done to minimise benefits paid to the lower end of society (there's as many cases of this in the Guardian as there is wealthy chavs ****ting out kids in the Mail), and consider that that hasn't begun to reduce the companies debt, then there's a choice of who you get to pay a bit more in next. The guy at the bottom can't, because he's got utterly nothing and the government are already trying to take that off him. The guy in the middle can't because he's just getting by. The ultra wealthy guy at the top is untouchable, so, sadly, it's the one who's sitting on a £200k paper profit that he didn't earn, that just appeared due to economic trends. 

 

The other slight problem is, although you may not have claimed JSA, Family Allowance, Married Persons Allowance, etc at any point in your life (and that is something I genuinely respect), you have had the benefit of better public services (a less stretched NHS, less crowded schools, roads that are in better condition) as a result of the taxes you paid. Now the current generation can't afford to pay for all that, plus the increased social state budget, which does, sadly, include your social care. 

 

Essentially, you've not had a bad life so far, and the outlook is far from dim, but the party is starting to wind down a bit. Now if you want to go and chuck yourself off the cliffs over a sum of money that never existed, then that's pretty much your choice. 

Edited 1 June, 2017 by StevesTruck

[Ootohere]

It was great decades ago.

Free Education including further education and grants paid by Tax Payers.

Then Mortgage Tax Relief and Married Person Tax Relief, and even co-habiting persons, child tax relief etc.

Council Tax Relief etc etc.

Buying houses including ex Council Houses and buy to let and this was all Tax Payer funded really and the Tax System was advantages.

 

2 People or Hard Working Families maybe worked equally as hard, some spent spent spent and bought properties, 

some bought just properties, some never bought and only rented.

 

RBS, Lloyds, Halifax, etc etc are those that came out best, employees of those, the PPI sellers, the Endowment Policy Sellers etc.

The people not paying back anything from mis-selling.

So many made money from property and finance and insurance.

One house that someone owns and has as their pension and then 2nd, 3rd and more homes is a whole different matter.

 

Time to chase those 'Passing properties onto their children', to avoid taxes, Care payments etc.

Lets not go back just 7 years, now go back to Tony Blair / Gordon Browns time and then into David Cameron becoming Prime Minister.

Lets look at Alistair Darlings properties and other MP's then move onto Peers  then the general public.

[StevesTruck]

That's the potted version of it!

 

Sadly, that generation are starting to suffer a bit of remorse for the missed deal when they realise the money was in selling the house, taking the profit and getting the heck out of this country for somewhere nicer. 

 

Personally, I should have bought £2k of BitCoin last month, I'd have made £1200 profit by now. Surely the economy will repay that for me right?

Edited 1 June, 2017 by StevesTruck

[skomaz]

to be honest it's not that different to the system as at present...   when my day went into care 7 years ago because of long-term Parkinsons disease (amongst other things) it was a similar set up with the Local Authority trying to recoup the cost of his care from his 'estate'...   and the same for my brother-in-laws mother when she was in a similar situation - when she died and the house was ultimately sold and the money went to the Local Authority to cover her care bill.

[The Zee]

39 minutes ago, StevesTruck said:

OK, work this one through.

 

Say you bought your house for £70k (hypothetical), paid for it, plus the interest on the mortgage. Now it's worth £270k. Where did the £200k come from? The answer is, it didn't, it doesn't exist until you sell the house. You still own something you paid the hypothetical £70k for. OK, you might have put a new bathroom in or something, but that doesn't account for the missing money. What you are essentially looking to do is acquire £200k by doing nothing except owning a house, now, no one's going to blme you for that, because that's what any good citizen in a capitalist society would want to do. So over your 50 years working, you're looking for the equivalent of £4k a year benefit to your circumstances paid for by the improvement in the economy that has increased the paper value of your home. Bad news, the economy hasn't done that well, and prospects ain't that great either. 

 

But, expand the picture. Where does the £200k come from? It comes from the fact that someone thinks the house is worth £200k more than you paid for it. Why would that be so? Because market prices have risen in that time. Which has made the cost of home ownership massively more expensive, and has had the trickle down to rental prices. 

 

Wages haven't gone up by the same proportion as house prices in the 50 years since you've started out. Put it into context, if you started out aged 18 today, and went into the same trade, would you ever be able to buy a 270k house? Due to this, the social state has to go further, but as well as supporting the people that aren't earning enough to get by (not only the ones who aren't doing anything for themselves, the ones who are doing a minimum wage job, wishing for the amount of hours you and me work, and having to pay to travel to work and back), it also has to provide free social care to the aging population. 

 

Now sadly, there's a finite amount of money in the pot, and there will get to be less and less. Newsflash - bluntly, the economy is utterly screwed. 

 

If you look at the work this and the previous government have done to minimise benefits paid to the lower end of society (there's as many cases of this in the Guardian as there is wealthy chavs ****ting out kids in the Mail), and consider that that hasn't begun to reduce the companies debt, then there's a choice of who you get to pay a bit more in next. The guy at the bottom can't, because he's got utterly nothing and the government are already trying to take that off him. The guy in the middle can't because he's just getting by. The ultra wealthy guy at the top is untouchable, so, sadly, it's the one who's sitting on a £200k paper profit that he didn't earn, that just appeared due to economic trends. 

 

The other slight problem is, although you may not have claimed JSA, Family Allowance, Married Persons Allowance, etc at any point in your life (and that is something I genuinely respect), you have had the benefit of better public services (a less stretched NHS, less crowded schools, roads that are in better condition) as a result of the taxes you paid. Now the current generation can't afford to pay for all that, plus the increased social state budget, which does, sadly, include your social care. 

 

Essentially, you've not had a bad life so far, and the outlook is far from dim, but the party is over. Now if you want to go and chuck yourself off the cliffs over a sum of money that never existed, then that's pretty much your choice. 

I hear what you say but the paper value affects all property, not just mine, yours as well.

 

Lets say you bought your house for 100k and it is now worth 150k (all other properties around you will probably have gone up by the same percentage, approximately) and you now want to buy something bigger as your family is growing. So you are effectively, because of circumstances, being forced to move and have 150k available to facilitate a move. Then the government says to you “we are going to take the 50k paper profit because it never existed and you have not earned it”, thus reducing the value of your property back down to 100k but not reduce the price of property around you by the same amount. You are then back to having 100k instead of 150k and have a gap you cannot fill, so you can’t move.

 

That is effectively what they are proposing to do to the ageing population.

 

[The Zee]

I have just thought of a possible way around this.

We take out an Equity Release loan for the maximum we can which would only be re-payable upon death of both of us as we are joint owners of the property.

Go and buy an Aston Martin and become “Saga Louts”.

My wife could still move if necessary providing the property she moves to has a value to cover the loan. Not diificult as we would still “own” the full value of the house. This only requires approval of the lender.

There would not be enough equity left in the property which was ours for the government to raid so would have to pay for my care if or when the time comes.

I am sure this is what they want, spend in my winter years rather than when I was younger.

[kevberlin]

15 minutes ago, The Zee said:

I have just thought of a possible way around this.

 

We take out an Equity Release loan for the maximum we can which would only be re-payable upon death of both of us as we are joint owners of the property.

 

Go and buy an Aston Martin and become “Saga Louts”.

 

My wife could still move if necessary providing the property she moves to has a value to cover the loan. Not diificult as we would still “own” the full value of the house. This only requires approval of the lender.

 

There would not be enough equity left in the property which was ours for the government to raid so would have to pay for my care if or when the time comes.

 

I am sure this is what they want, spend in my winter years rather than when I was younger.

 

Change from joint tenancy to tenants in common. 

[The Zee]

8 minutes ago, kevberlin said:

Change from joint tenancy to tenants in common. 

Just had a quick look at the Land Registry site about this. I will look into the more deeply, sounds interesting. Thanks for the 'heads up'.

[Aspman]

Lets be honest the Government is actually really very keen that you work for 60-70yr, not get too ill and then, pretty please, die quickly.

 

Preferably while having lived your life on a subscription model never owning anything only renting from a party donor.

[Clunkclick]

1 hour ago, Awayoffski said:

Those that jumped ship & took their pension or benefits income and proceeds from sale or let of their homes off to Continental Europe 

while still getting Winter Fuel Payment , Xmas £10 Bonus etc and free bus travel when back visiting are now all worried about having to return to BREXIT UK that they never paid taxes to in some cases for many years now.

 

Worried the NHS will not be able to cope because migrant workers that came to work, earn and pay taxes in the UK will be leaving and the NHS will not cope.

Nothing as queer or as contrary  as folk.

 Ex Pats or as i call them Immigrants that left the UK and settled in the bright new life.

Come back here for your NHS treatment . . . . . I should coco. I'd stay in France/Germany/Spain and pay . At least you be guaranteed treatment fitted to your needs rather than something tailored to the various economic agendas (Undisclosed of course) of HM Treasury.

 

N

[Ootohere]

People in the media keep speaking about poor pensioners, can not afford the heating, need grants for insulation of their homes etc.

 

Bloody hell, anyone 70 years old now was 40 back in 1977. 

They knew their pension age came in 1997, or 2002 depending on being Male or Female.

Have they not watched the adverts for the past 30 years, paid attention to sorting out living someplace they can afford to.

 

I feel for those that were working and looking forward to retirement in the past decade and then are getting stuffed to keep those that have been doing well for the past decades of retirement and want to keep on getting it.

Even help keep their children and grandchildren in a nice lifestyle, while the actual needy keep being needy.

 

 

 

[kevberlin]

2 hours ago, The Zee said:

Just had a quick look at the Land Registry site about this. I will look into the more deeply, sounds interesting. Thanks for the 'heads up'.

It basically changes the ownership of the property so that each tenant owns a specific share of the property (50/50 or 60/40 etc). Each owner can leave their part of the estate as they wish on the written understanding in a deed of trust that the surviving partner cannot be removed from the property. It protects the property in a number of scenarios. My main home is protected in this way.

Best to take advice from an estate manager or solicitor.

The change is simple and not costly.

[Ootohere]

Clunkclick, Ex Pats / Migrants from the UK paying for Health Care in EU countries is the way to go.  Great Idea.

[old newbie2]

3 hours ago, Awayoffski said:

People in the media keep speaking about poor pensioners, can not afford the heating, need grants for insulation of their homes etc.

 

Bloody hell, anyone 70 years old now was 40 back in 1977. 

They knew their pension age came in 1997, or 2002 depending on being Male or Female.

Have they not watched the adverts for the past 30 years, paid attention to sorting out living someplace they can afford to.

 

I feel for those that were working and looking forward to retirement in the past decade and then are getting stuffed to keep those that have been doing well for the past decades of retirement and want to keep on getting it.

Even help keep their children and grandchildren in a nice lifestyle, while the actual needy keep being needy.

to take some

 

 

You need to review your calculations...........

 

I'm 70 this month, so born in '47 & therefore 30 in '77, not 40!

State pension arrived in 2012, +  some private pensions, my current house was bought in '85 & paid off in 2005 after my 1st wife passed away (life assurance / endowment mortgage) = tiny income (when compared to Nat. Avge), wage) but enough for my needs.

 

If I had any kids they would inherit the house, but since I'll probably need to take some cash out of the house to pay for my home-care sometime soon'ish

rather than give it away to the needy..... FWIW, it won't be too long before I'm needy.... 

 

DC