Theresa May calls General Election on 8th June.

[backontrack]

I think we should keep the elderly alive as long as we can. Part of that comes from allowing them to live will - so we should recommend that they save up while doing what we can.

Alzheimers and Dementia are absolutely terrifying diseases to cope with. They slowly destroy the human mind. It's our duty as humans to combat them, so I think it is wrong to withdraw their funding. However, we ought to maybe be a bit less generous, because we have so much other stuff to juggle spending on too.

 

[Howardh]

Just a point about the £100k.
You leave a home that you have been caring in, and during that time your savings have vanished, and you are 60.
At the moment of the cared-for's death, you have no money, no job, maybe a car and very shortly no home - but someone gives you £100,000 which you have to rebuild your life on and try to set up a retirement.
That amount also prohibits you from accessing welfare, apart from a short time on JSA.
Where do you start? How would you cope?

I've thought about that in mys situation. Fortunately at 60 a small pension kicks in, so I'm lucky in that (brings in 6k, but most carers will be waiting for the state pension so I'm discounting that.

Rent? What can I afford, a dodgy room above a shop? How far does £4-500 a month go?
Buy? Well, there are some reasonable retirement flats starting at 60-70k, with low power and council tax bills. So that's a start.
£30k left.
Start looking for a job...too old, no references, no modern qualifications. Car becomes too expensive to run...sell it for a minimal sum.
£30k for 6 years is £5000/year, and inflation's looming.
All this after paying years of tax and NI and sacrificing the last few years to save the NHS some cash.
If anyone on here thinks they can survive from scratch on £100k until they get their state pension (I estimate £7k-ish for me) please, please let me know. And I'm quite happy to watch you try!

 

[DynamicSpirit]

I guess the two points that come out of Howardh's posts are that, even if you accept the principle that people with substantial assets should be required to pay for their care costs out of those assets:

• It seems completely wrong for the Government to take somebody's house as payment for care when they die if there are actually other close family members living in the house who would reasonably expect to be able to carry on living there after their relative's death, and that is the wish of the deceased.
• If family members give up time to care for relatives, thus saving the state money, then there needs to be some way of giving credit for that - particularly when it comes to the deceased person being able to pass assets onto those people without having care costs deducted.

If the Government is going to implement the Conservatives' proposed system of paying for care, then adequate arrangements to provide for those situations is going to be essential, otherwise there will be huge injustices. It's not clear to me offhand whether it would be possible to devise a system that makes those allowances without in the process becoming hopelessly complex, and potentially full of loopholes.

 

[dcsprior]

The good news is..there's a discussion.

It's been buried under the pillow for years, and although I hate May and all she stands in the kitten heels for, at least her total cock-up has brought the previously unsaid to No.1 in the conversation rankings, so for that I thank her.

Much as I hate the Tories, their huge lead does give them the freedom to take the debate into difficult but necessary policy areas. This does not mean I like the solution they came up with, but I do actually think it was done with good intentions.

Personally I'd tweak their proposal as follows:

• Instead of 100% of the value of the house going to the state after the first £100k, go with a lower percentage. Perhaps 40% (aligned with IHT) or 20% for the next £100k then 40% after that
• Increase the £100k allowance when the beneficiary/ies of the estate have provided some of the care themselves
• Special arrangements when the family are living in the house - maybe giving them the option of giving the government half the non-reclaimed estate in exchange for the Government taking ownership of the house rather than forcing it's sale, and allowing the child/etc to live in it rent-free for the rest of their lives (perhaps subject to a minimum age)
• Fund the above by introducing a 20% IHT band from the old IHT threshold to the new one. (I've not done the sums on this)

 

[Howardh]

Just as an aside, a friend of mine living in London who had occasional work with periods on the dole, therefore accessing housing benefit as well as JSA, free prescriptions and such, received a totally unexpected sum from the estate of someone she had previously worked for. No idea why..but hey, it was hers and that's that. It was approximately £120k, IIRC maybe £140k....tax free - no worries, and she was over the moon.

However when I met her in London years later she said it was the worst thing that ever happened to her (apart from family deaths etc) - it created more problems than it caused. All her benefits went so when she wasn't working this legacy was simply eaten away. She couldn't spend it all in one go (fancy clothes, world cruise) as her advisers said that would be seen as deliberately reducing assets.

So in reality the £100k+ simply replaced the money she would have got on welfare. I'm not sure, but I don't think there's anything tangible to show for it...maybe a pair of shoes. Ad of course with housing rental in London it wouldn't take long to go.
That was several years ago, so how far would £100k go in London today, even out in the sticks? 2 years?

 

[pemma]

UKIP launch their manifesto today. However, it's not UKIP who are being criticised but John Humphreys, who when interviewing Nuttall this morning said the manifesto launch will be a 'sucide mission.'

 

[Tetchytyke]

A hundred grand sounds like a lot of money, but it is not really that much once you actually try to work out what you can actually do with it.

Gross of tax, it'd take me more than four years to earn it. Net of tax, it'd take me more than five.

I'd quite like five years off work please.

It seems completely wrong for the Government to take somebody's house as payment for care when they die if there are actually other close family members living in the house who would reasonably expect to be able to carry on living there after their relative's death, and that is the wish of the deceased.

In many cases, the value of the house would have to be split amongst more than one child anyway. In my experience, this tend to mean either a) the house is sold and everyone takes their share of the cash or b) the descendant who wants to remain in the house has to buy out the share of the others. In reality, there's nothing stopping someone buying out the council's stake of the equity, assuming they are eligible for a mortgage.

The main tweak I would put in would be to assess the value of the house after deducting the initial purchase price, unless they'd bought the house in the last 15 years. That would reward the initial cost of buying the house.

 

[Tetchytyke]

it created more problems than it caused. All her benefits went so when she wasn't working this legacy was simply eaten away. She couldn't spend it all in one go (fancy clothes, world cruise) as her advisers said that would be seen as deliberately reducing assets.

So in reality the £100k+ simply replaced the money she would have got on welfare.

If you have less than £6k in savings it doesn't affect your benefits, if you have between £6k-£16k then you have a "tariff income" of £1 per week for every £250 over the £6000 limit. If you have more than £16k savings then you are not eligible to claim benefits until you have spent it.

If you deliberately reduce your savings with the intention of claiming benefits, then they will treat you as still having the money, even if you don't.

In this case, a once-in-a-lifetime holiday straight after the windfall would probably be OK, so long as you weren't taking the mickey. But if you had a lovely holiday every six months and spent thousands on clothes you didn't need, and then said you were skint and needed benefits again, it probably wouldn't be. Paying down a mortgage would probably be OK too.

It's sad when a windfall gets spent on life, but again, should welfare benefits be going to people with £100k in the bank?

 

[HSTEd]

Gross of tax, it'd take me more than four years to earn it. Net of tax, it'd take me more than five.

I'd quite like five years off work please.

You just spent most of the last decade trying desperately to help your parents as they slid into the pit that is Alzheimer's - until it got so bad they had to go into social care.

£100k is not really that much in that scenario.

 

[Howardh]

If you have less than £6k in savings it doesn't affect your benefits, if you have between £6k-£16k then you have a "tariff income" of £1 per week for every £250 over the £6000 limit. If you have more than £16k savings then you are not eligible to claim benefits until you have spent it.

If you deliberately reduce your savings with the intention of claiming benefits, then they will treat you as still having the money, even if you don't.

In this case, a once-in-a-lifetime holiday straight after the windfall would probably be OK, so long as you weren't taking the mickey. But if you had a lovely holiday every six months and spent thousands on clothes you didn't need, and then said you were skint and needed benefits again, it probably wouldn't be. Paying down a mortgage would probably be OK too.

It's sad when a windfall gets spent on life, but again, should welfare benefits be going to people with £100k in the bank?

I agree with that, my point being the eleation at the windfall soon became depression that it couldn't be spent!

In that case, would she have been in order to put the whole lot in a trust or an annuity? An annuity in those days could have brought in £2000pa (ish) which may well have put her weekly income below thresholds for benefits and she could carry on with a nice little bit extra. Bank interest up to a point is acceptable for benefits.

I would have taken advice to see what options there were, and as alluded to, may well ahve accepted a small amount for a holiday, let them keep the rest (could she have sent it to a chartiy?) and carry on as normal. Pity All The Stations wasn't around....

On the other hand....she could have found permanent work within weeks of getting the cash, and be able to spend it as she liked.

Would make an interesting TV programme, here's some money you can't spend...

 

[Tetchytyke]

You just spent most of the last decade trying desperately to help your parents as they slid into the pit that is Alzheimer's - until it got so bad they had to go into social care.

£100k is not really that much in that scenario.

It's £100k more than I'll get from my parents in the same situation, because my father had a stroke at 55 not 75 and had to give up work. No help for him, my parents have sold everything. Even his pension is reduced.

The only criticism I have of the idea is that there is a perverse incentive to rely on social care much sooner. If you get to keep £100,000 regardless of how much care you take, then what's the point in doing it yourself? I agree that is a bad incentive to offer.

There is a limited pot of money available. My council tax has gone up by over £100 to pay for the social care precept. That's barely making a dent in the cost. Now I'll gladly pay it for people who need the care and have nothing. But for people who have six figures in the bank and want me to pay for their kids' inheritance? Sorry, but no. I'm barely managing as it is.

 

[HSTEd]

But the only possible way to remove that perverse incentive is to just pay for the entirety of the social care on a perscription basis.


And the state already gets a significant fraction of the inheritance thanks to inheritance tax - the whole point of state intervention in things is to spread risk so that noone has to face catastrophic problems.
The whole social contract basis for spending on this sort of thing is that it might actually benefit them in some way, once you start weakening that by putting means tests all over the place, you start to turn the rich against providing those services in the first place.
And once the rich are against them, they are dead.

 

[AlterEgo]

Now I'll gladly pay it for people who need the care and have nothing. But for people who have six figures in the bank and want me to pay for their kids' inheritance? Sorry, but no. I'm barely managing as it is.

I don't think anyone has properly addressed why people will gladly willingly pay their taxes for universal NHS healthcare, from beggar to billionaire, but not for universal social care.

Can anyone explain why there is a difference?

"Ah well, if you're well off then you should be selling your house and shares to pay for your NHS cancer care. Stuff your family's inheritance. I am barely managing as it is."

Social care is merely a consequence of getting older or sicker, the same as how illness is merely a consequence of, well, being alive.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

But the only possible way to remove that perverse incentive is to just pay for the entirety of the social care.

It's not the only possible way. Another possible way would be to establish some system by which family members who are caring for relatives can register to indicate that they are doing so, and as a result receive either some payment or some other credit from the Government. That would be administratively far more complex than just paying for the entirety of social care, but it's certainly possible. Maybe there are also other ways to remove the perverse incentive that neither of us has thought of.

 

[ainsworth74]

It's not the only possible way. Another possible way would be to establish some system by which family members who are caring for relatives can register to indicate that they are doing so, and as a result receive either some payment or some other credit from the Government. That would be administratively far more complex than just paying for the entirety of social care, but it's certainly possible. Maybe there are also other ways to remove the perverse incentive that neither of us has thought of.

Of course there is a benefit, Carers Allowance, for people (friends or family members) who provide at least 35 hours per week of care to someone who is on a qualifying benefit themselves (i.e. the person who is being cared for must receive Personal Independence Payment, Disability Living Allowance, or similar). Anyone claiming that could get £62.70 per week and a credit on their National Insurance record (to protect their State Pension entitlement).

If anyone is interested the full eligibility criteria are here.

 

[Tetchytyke]

And the state already gets a significant fraction of the inheritance thanks to inheritance tax - the whole point of state intervention in things is to spread risk so that noone has to face catastrophic problems.

Inheritance tax is already easily avoided through sensible estate planning, including the use of Trusts, even before we consider the fact that the threshold for your main property is rising to £1,000,000.

Taking a charge from a dead person's estate is not leaving anyone with "catastrophic problems"; if you think £100,000 is a measly amount of money you need to get into the real world.

I don't think anyone has properly addressed why people will gladly willingly pay their taxes for universal NHS healthcare, from beggar to billionaire, but not for universal social care.

Can anyone explain why there is a difference?

It depends what you mean by "social care". Care related to a health condition is paid for through the NHS. It is the additional care, such as help bathing, cooking, cleaning, that is funded through councils, as well as through welfare benefits payments such as DLA/PIP/Attendance Allowance.

The line is often blurred between the two, and many a person gets caught in a battle between the NHS and the council: each say it's the other's responsibility.

For me, remember a big chunk of residential care costs are hotel costs. And why should someone's ordinary living expenses be funded when they can pay for it themselves?

 

[bramling]

Inheritance tax is already easily avoided through sensible estate planning, including the use of Trusts, even before we consider the fact that the threshold for your main property is rising to £1,000,000.

Is that still happening? I know it was in the last Conservative manifesto.

Taking a charge from a dead person's estate is not leaving anyone with "catastrophic problems"; if you think £100,000 is a measly amount of money you need to get into the real world.

Unfortunately, in the London/South East area, from a housing point of view £100k certainly *is* a measly amount of money, and this is the problem. We have a situation where houses worth £100-200k in the 1990s are now around the million mark. Whatever the cause, one thing a lot of people blame is EU immigration, this unfortunately is the real world.

 

[AlterEgo]

It depends what you mean by "social care". Care related to a health condition is paid for through the NHS. It is the additional care, such as help bathing, cooking, cleaning, that is funded through councils, as well as through welfare benefits payments such as DLA/PIP/Attendance Allowance.

But those are also the consequences of health problems. It isn't just "getting old", some of us will be fully functional and independent at 95 but some will get early onset dementia before 60 and require social care as a result of their health.

For me, remember a big chunk of residential care costs are hotel costs. And why should someone's ordinary living expenses be funded when they can pay for it themselves?

Residential care is not a hotel in the same way that a hospital isn't. And they aren't just ordinary living expenses. Residential care might be being kept on a secure unit (dementia wings). There is 24/7 nursing care at many homes, for those who need it. Staffing costs take up to 60% of a home's operating costs. I don't think you can say that anyone's "ordinary living expenses" include having staff on hand. Having to have staff on hand to give medical or personal care, or security, is a consequence of the resident's health condition and nothing else.

I am more than happy to pay my fair share towards social care. My council tax went up 5%. Fine. Stick 2% on my income tax, not bothered. But don't disincentivise ordinary people from saving, investing, or buying/improving their homes. The burden should not fall disproportionately on those who have organised their lives in that way. It should fall on the wage earner, with each generation paying the cost of the previous one's care.

 

[Tetchytyke]

Unfortunately, in the London/South East area, from a housing point of view £100k certainly *is* a measly amount of money, and this is the problem. We have a situation where houses worth £100-200k in the 1990s are now around the million mark. Whatever the cause, one thing a lot of people blame is EU immigration, this unfortunately is the real world.

Property prices inflation in the south east is largely what I had in mind when I suggested people could keep the original purchase price, not the current value. There we're rewarding people who saved, but not allowing the taxpayer to pick up the burden to protect a significant unearned windfall, which is nothing more than a fluke of fortune.

 

[Howardh]

Property prices inflation in the south east is largely what I had in mind when I suggested people could keep the original purchase price, not the current value. There we're rewarding people who saved, but not allowing the taxpayer to pick up the burden to protect a significant unearned windfall, which is nothing more than a fluke of fortune.

I don't follow, someone could have easily bought a house shortly after the war in London for, what, £10k and still be living in it today (they'd be around 85-90)
I don't think the relatives would be impressed at the thought of a house in London being only worth £10k.
Even in the 60's - a more likely senario - I can't give an actual figure but I'd be surprised if an East End terraced house cost more than £40k. Maybe much less. Any Londoners confirm/correct?

 

[EM2]

Even in the 60's - a more likely senario - I can't give an actual figure but I'd be surprised if an East End terraced house cost more than £40k. Maybe much less. Any Londoners confirm/correct?

The average house price in the UK in 1966 was £3620!
http://www.experian.co.uk/blogs/consumer-advice/how-cost-of-living-has-changed-since-1966/

 

[bramling]

Property prices inflation in the south east is largely what I had in mind when I suggested people could keep the original purchase price, not the current value. There we're rewarding people who saved, but not allowing the taxpayer to pick up the burden to protect a significant unearned windfall, which is nothing more than a fluke of fortune.

For someone wishing to pass on the family property, any talk of a windfall is irrelevant. They just want the house to be able to pass on, regardless of value. This is particularly an issue where many offspring continue to live in the family home, and thus haven't benefited from any windfall from increasing property value.

Outside the south-east isn't quite such an issue, simply because there hasn't been such ridiculous house-price inflation.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Even in the 60's - a more likely senario - I can't give an actual figure but I'd be surprised if an East End terraced house cost more than £40k. Maybe much less. Any Londoners confirm/correct?

I believe that at some point in the 1960s, some relatives of mine turned down the chance to purchase a house in Kentish Town for £750. (You can imagine what a house there would be worth now).

(Those relatives are long since deceased, so are - perhaps thankfully - unaware of how much they probably lost by not buying the house)

 

[Mag_seven]

I thought the behavior of those UKIP supporters towards journalists was a disgrace at the manifesto launch today - just shows what a pathetic ragbag of losers they are.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRGsLwB_TlQ

 

[me123]

Even Paul Nuttell looked embarrassed at the end.

 

[EM2]

A YouGov poll for The Times has the Conservative lead down to five points:
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/...e-points-as-corbyn-closes-in-on-may-rgmckfnpp

Theresa May’s poll lead has fallen to five points a fortnight before the general election — the smallest margin over Labour since she came to power.

A YouGov poll for The Times puts Labour on 38 per cent of the vote, up three points since the end of last week and the party’s best performance since Jeremy Corbyn became leader in September 2015.

The Conservatives are down one point to 43 per cent, the Liberal Democrats up one point to 10 per cent and Ukip up one to 4 per cent.

If the swing is replicated in every constituency Mrs May would lose seats and the Conservatives would have an overall majority of two, down from 17.

 

[chris11256]

It'll be more interesting to see next weeks poll, after the Sky News debate and after Manchester attack news has settled.



Personally I'm still hoping for a conservative win & Corbyn kicked to the grass for good!

 

[Howardh]

The average house price in the UK in 1966 was £3620!
http://www.experian.co.uk/blogs/consumer-advice/how-cost-of-living-has-changed-since-1966/

Blimey! All I was going off was how much my granny's house was bought for in 1970-something, a terraced in Bolton...and knocked a bit off to cover the years.

Way out!!

Mind you, when they bring back Pounds, Shillings and Pence after Brexit...who knows?!!

 

[chris11256]

Article on the BBC about an IFS study into both parties manifesto's.

Neither is being honest, with Labours tax rises not raising anywhere near the amount stated. Plus conservative pledges mean little, with the ditching of the 'triple lock' saving very little.

Link to article.

 

[AM9]

Article on the BBC about an IFS study into both parties manifesto's.

Neither is being honest, with Labours tax rises not raising anywhere near the amount stated. Plus conservative pledges mean little, with the ditching of the 'triple lock' saving very little.

Link to article.

The Conservatives as the party in government for the last seven years have absolutely no excuse for uncosted pledges. Despite their claims that their manifesto has been costed, every clarification, (read u-turn when deceptions have been discovered) has amply illustrated this. The naïvety of some of the opposition's figures should be viewed in the light of the (ex)Government's (and in particular Ms. May's) shilly-shallying since the referendum. Andrew Neill did a good job of cutting through the lies on Monday.
We await his questioning of Jeremy Corbyn.