Should the family home be sold to pay for care?

HOW sad that 17,000 elderly people have been forced to sell their homes to pay for their care (Mail). Our family home for nearly 100 years has been sold for £100,000 to pay for my 103-year-old mother’s care. She is disabled and 80 per cent blind. When she was living at home, Derbyshire County Council paid for carers four times daily, for which my mother contributed £40 per week. The care home where she’s lived for 13 months charges £3,500 per month, of which £2,700 is paid from her house sale. My wife and I are in our 80s, and after my mother had been in and out of hospital for a year, we brought her to live with us until we found a suitable care home. Once we informed the Department for Work and Pensions, she lost £150 of her weekly income because she has assets over £23,000.

R. BACK, Swadlincote, Derbys. I CAN understand why people are unhappy when the family home is sold to meet care home costs. But I can’t agree with the Age UK spokesperson who supports the idea that everyone should fork out a National Insurance-type payment to prevent this from happening. That would penalise renters who have been priced out of the property market. And it doesn’t solve the inequity of people being penalised because they require institutionalised care on health grounds.

TIM MICKLEBURGH, Grimsby, Lincs. OUR MOTHER spent her last years in an excellent care home. Her children were glad we sold her home to pay for this. We were not shallow or greedy.