Elderly Sell Homes to Cover Care Bills (UK)

Elderly sell homes to cover care bills
By Sarah Womack, Social Affairs Correspondent
Last Updated: 1:52am GMT 17/11/2007

Nearly one in five people has to sell all their assets, including the family home, to fund their place in a care home, according to new research.

Amid the ongoing scandal of people who have worked and saved all their lives giving up everything when they go into a home, it found a chronic lack of awareness of the cost of care.

Six in 10 adults over the age of 50 have no idea how much care homes charge until they are faced with the reality - which is around £25,000 to £30,000 a year.

The research by Partnership, a financial company which offers care fees annuities, says that more than a third (37 per cent) of British adults over 50 have had to put someone into residential care.


The report follows years of concern over the means-test system that makes those who have saved all their lives sacrifice everything when they go into a home - while someone who has never worked or saved gets the same help free.

Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister, has hinted that a Government inquiry next year will examine ways of easing the burden on elderly people with savings.

But at the moment, anyone with capital - which includes savings, investments and, in some cases, the value of the person's home - worth more than £21,500, they must pay their own care home bills.


Abridged
SOURCE: theTelegraphUk
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