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Living Aboard


Chris Lowe

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1 hour ago, mrsmelly said:

True. Our kids have told us in no uncertain terms, to take all equity possible out of the house and spend it. We did the same with my parents. Problem there though, is amongst other reasons not to do it is, who will pay our care home fees if/when needed? the taxpayer? 

Yes, yes they will, or you can be like my parents and pay £40-50k/year, subsiding the council who pay the exact same home £15-20k for the same care. 

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On 16/04/2022 at 12:35, The Happy Nomad said:

 

Ah he meant the 'save composed post for later' thingy. Yes I'm familiar with it, but it normally has a banner making it obvious it's been saved from earlier. Doesn't always work for me, especially on my tablet for some reason. If I switch to another tab whilst composing something the text I was composing has completely vanished when I switch back.

I am typing this at 1520 hrs on the 16 4 22

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It was in reply to the post about things can sit in the forum for days if you don't send them and next time you go to reply to that thread they appear. I wrote it 2 days ago but didn't hit send. The same thing happens if you have a dodgy internet connection and it doesn't actually go, its not lost, it just sits there until next time you go to reply to the thread.
The same thing happened to the thread about the Atherstone locks, I replied but it didn't go. so was there still today.

I bet you wished you never asked now.

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On 18/04/2022 at 11:13, Slow and Steady said:

Yes, yes they will, or you can be like my parents and pay £40-50k/year, subsiding the council who pay the exact same home £15-20k for the same care. 

 

I was in the same position with my mum, but the cost difference is inevitable given that the fees that the councils pay (because they're strapped for cash, and the social care system is broken) don't cover the costs of running the care homes -- even the few council run homes have similar cost differences, and they're not paying shareholders or executives.

 

If the council fees went up to cover the actual costs then the private fees could come down to the same level, probably around £30k per year.

 

Whether all this is "fair" is of course a matter of opinion; one viewpoint is that it's not fair for private payers to subsidise council ones, another is that they can afford more so should pay it.

 

What is clear is that the UK social care system is comprehensively b*ggered, but fixing it would cost the government a lot of money and they don't want to spend it on old people, preferring vanity projects and crony capitalism... 😞

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1 hour ago, IanD said:

 

I was in the same position with my mum, but the cost difference is inevitable given that the fees that the councils pay (because they're strapped for cash, and the social care system is broken) don't cover the costs of running the care homes -- even the few council run homes have similar cost differences, and they're not paying shareholders or executives.

Someone I knew a few years ago ran a small care home. They took residents nominated by the local council. They commented at the time that the amount the council paid to them per resident was less than they were paying to the council-run care homes, even though as independent providers, they were subject to a raft of regulatory provisions (that cost money to implement) that council-run homes were exempt from. This home was run by a husband and wife team and between them they had to provide 24/7 care for the residents as well as looking after their 2 children - the budget didn't really extend to employing any staff. If they had a full house they could just about manage financially, but if they had a vacancy they struggled.

It was no surprise to me that a few years later, when a developer offered them a tidy sum for the house and its substantial grounds, they upped sticks and left (and there are now half a dozen houses in the grounds).

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1 hour ago, David Mack said:

Someone I knew a few years ago ran a small care home. They took residents nominated by the local council. They commented at the time that the amount the council paid to them per resident was less than they were paying to the council-run care homes, even though as independent providers, they were subject to a raft of regulatory provisions (that cost money to implement) that council-run homes were exempt from. This home was run by a husband and wife team and between them they had to provide 24/7 care for the residents as well as looking after their 2 children - the budget didn't really extend to employing any staff. If they had a full house they could just about manage financially, but if they had a vacancy they struggled.

It was no surprise to me that a few years later, when a developer offered them a tidy sum for the house and its substantial grounds, they upped sticks and left (and there are now half a dozen houses in the grounds).

But its a 2 way thing, If they had said no we can't do it for that price to the Council would have paid more or gone else where in which case they could have taken fee paying residents

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On 18/04/2022 at 09:11, Tracy D'arth said:

Its the childrens' expectation that they will inherit a lump that is the crux of the problem.

Why do we think that the last generation owes us anything?

The problem is within the economy. I bought my first house when I was twenty two using inheritance from mother, I had it paid off by the age of twenty seven, I had loads of options with the price of housing,.

I clearly remember I had been paying £25 a month for a damp flat, and thirteen pounds pcm for a twenty five year mortgage.

House prices then spiralled, the value of my house rose annually and equalled my salary. About £2k per annum!

I knew my father well enough not to bother asking him for help, well I asked him once, and never again.

 

In general terms I do feel the parental generation owe a lot to their offspring, after all they chose to have kids, they should work hard to turn those little people in to responsible adults with a good education, good jobs etc etc.

Not many children will be able to save a deposit at the same age as I did. If the children are grown up they will need good housing and parents are the only folk likely to be able to help. I don't think they all demand a handout, but surely a helping hand is not too much to ask.

In some cultures, the family is an economic unit, forever, not split up when the child allowance stops.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by LadyG
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My recollection is the the spiralling house price era of the early 1970's was at least  partially driven by the building societies changing their former practice of only taking the salary of  one of a couple into account, to taking  their combined salaries into account. 

 

[edit]  Mind you, it was also a time of drastic devaluation of sterling. I recently came across some receipts for changing sterling into Austrian Schillings (AS) from when I used to go skiing in the early 1970s. First year £1 = 53AS . 12 months later, £1 = 37 AS. 12 months later £1 = 26AS.  So the value of sterling had more than halved against the AS (which was linked to the Deutchmark) in 24 months.The next year things were even worse and we went to Italy as Austria was simply too pricy. The prices in Austria had not changed during the 24 month period. 

Edited by Ronaldo47
devaluation comment added, typos
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1 minute ago, Ronaldo47 said:

My recollection is the the spiralling house price era of the early 1970's was at least  partially driven by the building societies changing their former practice of only taking the salary of  one of a couple into account, to taking  their combined salaries. 

Could be chicken and egg situation

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