More than 60,000 homeowners are forced to sell up each year to pay for a place in a care home, according to a leading charity.
The figure has been rising fast because of the growing numbers of elderly Britons and the fact that many of those entering old age bought homes during the property booms of the past four decades.
However, an ever-increasing share of the wealth they hoped to leave to their families is being seized by the state to pay for their care in later life.
Last year half of the cost of care for the elderly - £6billion - was taken from the pockets of the middle classes who own their own homes or who have savings.
The 60,000 figure was made public yesterday by the charity Counsel and Care. It is to put forward plans for easing the plight of those who fail the state means test and so have to pay the £500-a-week plus costs of a care home place for themselves.
Counsel and Care’s estimate follows figures put forward by the House of Commons library, which suggested at the weekend that 45,000 people a year sell their homes to pay care home bills, a rise of 5,000 since 2003.
The charity’s estimate is closest to the 70,000 a year level that is widely accepted among advice and pressure groups and local authorities
It has been revealed in a recent report that a mortgage rescue scheme that aims to try and reduce the number of repossessions taking place is to be rolled out across England. The scheme involves social landlords, which are housing associations, buying up homes from homeowners that are struggling to meet the repayments and could otherwise face repossession, and then allowing the former homeowners to continue living in the property on a rented basis.
The scheme is costing the government around £200 million, and it is estimated that around six thousand repossessions could be halted through the scheme. There are similar initiatives in place or planned in Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, according to industry officials. This latest scheme is one of a number of measures that have been put into place to try and reduce the number of repossessions across the country, with some industry groups predicting that repossession numbers could soar as high as 90,000 over the course of the year.
This latest scheme was put into place last year, with an agreement being drawn up by the agency that represents the housing associations in England, the National Housing Federation, and the Council of Mortgage Lenders. So far the scheme has been adopted by around eighty local authorities across the country, but will now be extended across the rest of England. In Scotland a similar scheme has been in place for around five years, and it is thought that so far around seven hundred homeowners have benefited from the program.
Housing associations in England will buy up qualifying homes based on an independently assessed market value, and the homeowners will then either be allowed to stay on at the property as a rent paying tenant or may qualify to receive a loan from the housing association so that they can stay on as owners. The homeowners can then repay the loan in part or in full as their financial circumstances improve.
The scheme will be mainly aimed at more vulnerable households, such as those with children, those with disabled family members living in the household, and pensioners.
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