[user104658]

Originally Posted by DemolitionRed

If you are a well off pensioner you are expected to pay for your own nursing home care, if you ever need it and lets face it, none of us know if we are going to get dementia and need years of nursing home care.

What is considered 'well off'? Is it owning their own home and therefore having releasable assets? Is it having a £100k savings? is it millionaires? what's the figure?

Private nursing homes are often over £1K a week, so that's £56K a year without any extras.

The current situation with this seems to be that they will take every penny that is considered "yours". My wife's grandmother is in a care home now, as of January this year. Her grandad had something like £300k savings and they own their house and basically what happens is, half of that is considered hers and half his, and they will expect all of her grandmother's half to be used before the state will pay for care. So £150k. The house is exempt because her grandfather still lives in it, and they can't touch "his half" of the savings pot they have.

However if it's a single old person and there's no living spouse, they will take the lot. All of the savings, sell off the house and use the money from that, every last penny before state help is available.

The short story is...... ... If you want to leave your house and savings to your children, gift those assets to them long before it becomes an issue. Past 70 start transferring everything you can out of your name and into theirs.