Hi all.
Serious topic. Mum is now in Aged Care and they want $500,000 Bond. Her house has to be sold to fund this.

Civil War has broken out between the siblings.

Has anyone experienced this? Can anyone offer comment?

I found a way to save the house for Mum. My brother agreed to forward my research to the Power of Attorney, then he bailed on me.

Just learnt about this stuff even existing. World will be very different when I retire but the minuscule protection for aged care in Germany will see facilities charging massive fees and the state and even private coverage not covering it. Oh wait that's now.... What a horrible world. 

This is part and parcel of my job. Are you in Australia on New Zealand?

Aged care in this country is a fucking scam

-PB

You're not wrong.

You know they investigated the banks with a Royal Commission.  This thing is a thousand times worse.  

A huge topic never discussed in the open enough.
I'm lucky my old parents are still quite mobile/healthy and looking after themselves still, late 80's But my wife's parents are similar age but in the poop.
Mother inlaw suffers dementia and the father inlaw has come to the point of not coping.
They have 8kids, 3 that do the most they can to help incl aged care turning up at home but my wife is breaking down from it now.
Father inlaw had to be in hospital for a week or so and the decision was to bring mum inlaw over for the weekend making life easier for the wife.
Could she talk her into it ? not a chance, had to stay over the weekend and worse cop abuse most of the time.
So the wife having had enough has told siblings enough is enough she can't do it anymore her vote is within 6mths they need to be in a home.
One elder sister went to visit the Dad in hospital crying and making out my wife and others are ganging up to ship them out and putting on the big cry about it all and there it was this sis inlaw and the mum and dad crying in hospital, OMFG !
The eldest sister being cashed up thinks everyone should put in and hire a person to live with them and take care of them ?!
Like WTF.
The silly ol stubburn ol father inlaw should have sold out long ago and got themselves set up in a home but he thinks the kids should look after them till he dies the selfish P.
A few other siblings just do nothing so this is a massive problem coming up.
My wife who does work 4days a week, looks after our fam obviously and her Wednesday day off is at the oldies cleaning up, cooking food for future meals etcetc then take them to appointments etcetc....
Its drained her now and its effecting her/our home life that she is not seeing as yet but I am.
I'm trying to keep my lips shut but I'm starting to come close giving to the other siblings to get their act together and get a plan going before this all goes POP.
So then besides the personal aspect the whole Aged Care/retirement home dealing are a complete joke from what I hear and such a rip off.
Don't know where this is going to end but I'm not looking forward to it.

It's horrible.  Long story short my Mum and her sister (and others) had to more or less trick my Aunty and Uncle into a care facility.  They then sold the house out from under them to help fund the costs.

They had to as my Aunty needed constant care and my Uncle who was looking after her was slowly losing his mind (dementia, he’s 88) and not giving her her medication.  They tried getting them a nurse that would come around and visit each day but the situation just deteriorated until the doctors called my mum and her sister in and said they need to move into a facility.  Of course my uncle, who is fiercely independent wouldn’t countenance that, which, if he were somewhat still capable, wouldn’t have been a problem.  The thing was he was a danger to himself and his wife.

So they took them on a ‘visit’ to a facility and left them there, sold the house and virtually all of their possessions they'd accumulated over decades.  (They were post-war refugees too who couldn't bring themselves to throw anything out so they had shitloads of stuff.  90% of it worthless but shitloads nonetheless.)

Of course my Uncle (who despite his slight dementia in the afternoons is still sharp as a tack) now hates everybody in the family with a passion because they ‘stole’ his house and ‘ruined his life’.  He’s also become very nasty and spiteful.  (Understandable from his point of view.)

My mum’s sister, that is now in the facility, first accepted the situation, has now also become extremely resentful and is now quite vocal about how they all ‘betrayed’ them.

My mum is understandably devastated because her sister, who is 15 years her senior and more or less raised her as a child, now have a relationship that is fractured. (And her brother-in-law hates her.)

The best bit...... 

My mum, who has had a stroke and is now almost 70 is becoming more frail and more forgetful all the time, is headed down exactly the same path.

My Dad died a few years ago so it’s just her in the house dad built.   Even when my dad was alive he tried to get both of them into a retirement village of sorts but mum wouldn’t have a bar of it.  Now dad is gone the only way she’ll be crowbarred out of there is in a box.

To make matters more difficult I live about 800kms away from mum.

So here’s what’s going to happen.  One day (probably within 5 years) I’ll get a phone call from my cousin or one of mum’s friends or a doctor and they’ll say she has to move into a facility.  Mum of course will refuse point blank to go.  I’ll have to go down there, move her in there more or less against her will and sell the house from under her.  She then will resent me for the rest of her life.

I could put her in a care facility up where I live but she has lived in the same town for 65 years.  If I were to bring her up to live in my town she would have not a single friend or family member anywhere within cooee so that’ll be a nightmare for her.

So in the ‘autumn’ years of my mum’s life she’ll be sitting in an aged care facility waiting to die.    




Alternatively, and this is the ‘nuclear option’, I build her a granny flat or she moves in with us and my wife and I get a divorce.

Seems that wasn’t a 'long story short' after all.

Damn, thats a mad breif as well Muz.
One of thousands I expect around the country good bad and even worse.
Such a shame at the late stages of so many good people turns out this way.

Cheers.  It's hard to know whether to laugh or cry.

Thanks for reading.

The state of aged care seems to be deteriorating on a daily basis.  There just doesn't seem to be a viable affordable option and it will only get worse.

yer no worries Muz, just got to deal with it the best you can all the best.

aok, yep and yep.

It is. Twas at my grandads  one and the nurses instead of trying to help him go to the toilet As he was annoying them to go every couple of minutes gave him endone  and morphine. 😡😡😡😡😡 makes it worse since he is dying 

Australia. Article 17 of the UN 1948 Charter of Human Rights Article 17 states that 'no man or woman can be arbitrarily depraved of their property'. The Magna Carta also talks about how the King can't seize one's property. The AU's Aged Care Act 1997 breaches those Rights.

The issue is Human Rights related and a breach of One's Emotional Rights.

I'm not sure in regards to UN Charter of Human Rights or Magna Carta but you are right in your (implied) assertion that the government cannot force your mother to sell her assets.
I do know that the Australian government subsidises Aged Care in Australia and you are only ever asked to pay what you can afford. Unfortunately, the value and income from your mothers former home is taken into consideration when calculating your mothers ongoing Aged Care cost. This is unless your mother has a spouse who resides in the home or had a carer who still resides in the home.
Normally, your mother will need to pay a bond to move into an Aged Care facility. If your mother or the POA decide not to pay the bond and to keep your mothers former home, she will likely incur an increase in her daily care fees and this could be substantial and leave you and your family costs you cannot cover. And that is if the Aged Care facility decide to accept your mothers application for residency without the bond.
I am assuming your mother receives the Age Pension and her home will be exempt from the Age Pension asset test for two years after moving into Aged Care, so your mother will be able to collect rent from the property and receive her Age Pension.
Most people that I talk to in regards to their parents former home come to the conclusion that selling the home is the best way to go.
In Australia, everyone has a right to live in accommodation. but we don't have a right to multiple accommodations.
I see it that you have a number of basic choices that can be made:
1. You can quit your job and take over as the full time carer of your mother.
2. You can hire someone to live with your mother and take care of her full time.
3. You can purchase you mothers home (at market value) allowing her to move into an Aged Care facility and you to retain the property.
4. You can accept that all things come to an end and, although you have an emotional attachment to your mothers home, it would be best if your mother received the best care she can afford which will likely prolong her life and your time with her.

https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/health/health-problems/i-loved-caring-for-people-thats-why-i-left-the-aged-care-sector/news-story/7f9525e1fe9b0c448e4d637475f41005

FFS. I don't know much about the system but it seems just so profit driven now and the goverment would be the last interested in cleaning the industry up. Can't we have new, strict legislation or regulation on standards? Is it too socialist for the state to own and invest in these facilities? Surely the centres would have black figures giving the state some kind of revenue with that still not being its central focus?

Same with all these overpriced, empty apartments. Can't the goverment purchase them and rent them at a fairer rate or is this the exact ideals of socialism or communism? I'm not so knowledgeable here so happy to hear views.

On a side note. What place these days doesn't seem understaffed? FFS greed has just grown insanely since I've entered the workforce but I guess it was always this way, right? Would be very refreshing to see a place probably managed, staffed and working efficiently as set out in theory.

That whole understaffed thing. 
When theres a workplace review and everyone is told they can do more, or get more jobs placed on them... year after year after year. And everyone's told the same thing,  then no one hits performance targets because you're understaffed. 

It kills me when one person leaves, they don't get replaced and their work gets divided amongst the team for a saving of a salary. The spiral keeps going and soon you have 50% of the workforce doing all of the work and everything is late or messed up.