I see it that, whatever you have or have earned in your life is for the purpose of living in best possible cirucumstance according to ones needs, if I had to spend my money on paying for things that were needed for my welfare, then that is life.

I cannot see why someone either in Spain or any other country who is sitting on a million pound house, should not use their asset to provided for themselves.

If the family wish to keep the asset intact, then they could stump up the money and pay for the care, or carry the burden and be at the sharp end.

I dont see it as such a chest beating, anguished situation, and if my family were against me using my OWN assets for my own comfort, so as to leave them more when I kick the bucket, well MANDA HUEVOS......

Historically, nothing much has changed. I spent my teenage years in a mining community on the outskirts of Glasgow. Most people worked down the pits and came home on Friday nights, washed the soot off, got pissed, and beat the shit out of their wives.

But even then, a few families fiddled the system, never worked, got pissed and beat the shit out of their wives.

I don't think they had any care homes, just an extremely large mental hospital, staffed mainly by Poles, who got pissed and beat the shit out of anyone that moved.

I am not disagreeing with that point, point I am making is you could have done none of that never earned a penny or have earned a load of money and squandered it and end up with if not the same similar treatment for free. However I think we will just have to differ on the matter. Like I say no one says life is fair after all, but who says that is right? it's just a fact

Actually, perhaps we are losing sight of the fact that not all of the people who have no savings to fall back on to fund their own care home fees are wastrels who have contributed nothing to society. In fact, a number of them will be women who sacrificed their own careers to care for an earlier generation and thus were unable to build up occupational pensions of their own.

My aunt, aged 88, is one such. She never married, and gave up her job in her '30s to care for my grandfather who suddenly lost his sight due to a detached retina. By the time he died, she was only able to go back to work for a couple of years before she was forced to retire aged 60 and as a result now has only the basic State Pension topped up by Pension Credit to live on. Should she need residential care at some point in the future (at the moment she lives alone with only minimal help from family members) should she be begrudged a decent standard of care because she hadn't worked to pay for it herself, although she saved the state a fortune in care costs?

And for many reasons, the family providing care themselves is not a viable option for many people today. Cost is one - if one partner in a couple has to give up their job to care for an elderly relative, is it right that their own family's standard of living might suffer greatly as a result (and I don't mean no plasma TVs, etc). What if they want to help their children through higher education, which do they choose? And what about the irreparable damage that will be done to the future pension provision of the person doing the caring? Will they be seen as feckless and irresponsible in years to come, too?

On another website recently, I saw a comment from a man (naturally) who said feminism was to blame for the fact that elderly relatives are often not cared for at home these days. I wonder if we'd see such comments if the caring role fell to men rather than women, in the overwhelming majority of cases. When I was young, my great-grandmother lived with us (or to be more accurate we lived with her in her house) and my mother brought up 3 children whilst caring for her. Grannie was bedridden for almost 10 years before she died. After seeing what my mother's life was like, I have to be honest and say no, I wouldn't want to do that.

Lynn I am not saying that all people who have no funds to pay for care are in the same position of squandering wasters. Thing is though that there are plenty in this category. There are also plenty of lower paid workers that will not have been able to afford an extra pension and will live off the basic state pension. There is no ideal solution.

hello

i am writing from an internet cafe in Spain. I am still looking at the situation and have come across different people in the same situation.

The specialist Alzhimers home my mother is staying in is lovely better than the home my in laws are in back in the UK. Yes it is also cheaper than the UK. The quote above does not understand the situation. It is not possible for families to pay care out of their own pocket unless they have a very large disposable income. They would need at least 36k a year spare and more if my father required more assisted help. That is twice as much as my last working salary. I have 3 children and at least 2 will need assistance for University in the next year.

If I was able to sell the house then care would be covered for about 5 years only. My parents could live for another 15 years or more. They may even outlive me.

My father does not want to sell the house. He may even leave it to an unknown person as he is not close to his family and is not someone you can discuss or reason with but we still need to ensure they are both looked after.

The public care homes are full and there is a 5 year waiting list so I am looking to see if it is possible to ´go on the waiting list but even then that is not guarenteed.

I need to do more research and will have to return to Spain to discuss things. It is too hot to travel around and the little appartment i have rented is hot, noisy and ánd dusty with no aircon and fans.

Expats need to able for spanish residency for spanish health care. Ensure you have all the paperwork and forms and there is a National Health type tax of about 1000 Euros a year-otherwise have some sort of medical health insurance.

UK expats can lose their entitlement to NHS health care after 6 months if they live abroad so it is not a case of just returning to UK for operations or health care.

Inheritance laws mean that capital gains tax is paid on properties above quite low sums-amount depends on area. Husbands and wives still have to pay the tax but the closer the relative the lower the tax. So if you leave to a friend than the tax can be higher. The money has to be paid upfront and before the house is even sold. There is interest on the tax if it is not paid.

Spouses who become senile or have dementia need to have some sort of POA for their assets even if it is to sell their part of their house for care home fees. The spanish courts wont necessarily give it to the spouse if they think they are too old to manage. Everyone should sort this out before they can not as it is costly and time consuming to go through the spanish courts.

Selling a house is not enough to pay for all the care home fees especially for 2 people. I am going to look into care home annuity and other more longterm arrangements. 100000k may buy a 15-20k annual sum which would ensure a person can pay all or part of the care home costs.

An update on the Ley de Dependencia progress.

From my friend:

All the paperwork is done as of last week, and handed in at the PROP office.

Social worker said that a home visit is required, hoping to get that in a day or two.

Then to be referred to Valencia, an assessment will be made in claimants own home, with some sort of "practical" tests, ie washing, preparing food etc.

Then a wait of about 1 year............... for help to be put in place..........OMG.

Same for all nationalities, my friend made a point of asking, (claimant is British) so although help is there in theory, in practice the claimant would be dead if they were wholly dependant on results of LDD.

Yep, my friend's mum (Spanish) was assessed and approved two years ago and they still haven't had a penny! The funds have dried up and the govt have said there is no more money.

This is not for a cash payment, this person does not qualify, due to having a pension over the limit.

This is for assistance in the home (home help) including help with personal care.

So a person who is really alone would just have to rot.

This is an entirely different class of help (Ley de Dependencia). and available, in theory to all, no matter what the income is.

I have an update of this case, which I thought would be of help to members of BE if they found themselves in a similar situation.

Well..............

Sorry to say it has all gone pear shaped.

After the applications had been submitted by the social workers,who would presumable know their job, the "client" received a letter informing that there was a paper or some missing information.

The letter stated that it needed to be received with 10 days from the receipt of the letter, if not, it was presumed that the claimant did not wish to continue with the claim.

The problem was the letter was dated the end of November but not received until middle of Jan.

This scenario seem to happen a lot, so it makes me wonder if letters are being held back before posting so as to pass the deadline, because then the claimant is "at fault" by failing to provide the relevant info.

It could be that I am just being cynical.

Your suspicions are probably grounded, the ACs ran out of money for Dependencia payments ages ago and even some that were approved two years ago are still waiting for the first payment.

Hi, I don't suppose this is much help, but when my mother became totally bedridden in Spain, aged 89/90, and completely refused to moved into any form of residential care or return to the UK, she/we contacted a company in the Costa Blanca called Prestige Nursing. They were absolutely marvellous. All the nurses, male and female, are English and really did above and beyond what they were paid for. My mother wasn't the easiest woman in the world, but they were extremely good to her and surprisingly, she became very fond of all of them!

Even if this information is of no use to the OP, I hope it may be of use to someone, and no, I have no interest in promoting this company save for the fact that they helped my very dignified and rather difficult mother for two years and made her last years as comfortable as was possible under the circumstances.

They came in, initially twice a day, when she was a bit mobile, then came in three times a day, then four, as she became more and more immobile. They often came in to check on her without being paid to do so. I think they even became very fond of her.

My mother died a couple of years ago and I've had to search back through emails to find their name. If anyone wants further details, pm me and I can provide them. I won't pretend they were cheap, but they were relatively inexpensive at the time, compared to other larger organisations and they genuinely did care about their patients and on that level I couldn't fault them.

I hope this info helps someone, at least.

So the only difference would be the pits are closed?