Fair Deal changes might actually happen but...

In your uncles case, the property is simply rent out long term to a local authority. It won't affect your uncle and it won't affect you. When he passes, whomever is left the property will receive the rent. They are irrelevant and not a concern at this point as they own nothing and have no claim over anything.

I know of a man in a similar situation to your uncle. He has been moved to a home. He has some siblings and nieces and nephews. The thing that I thought was very sad, and a sad reflection on them, was that as soon as he went into the home, someone went in and refurbished the house and it was sold. I presume it was the family who organised it.

Reading between the lines, it is unlikely they went via the FD scheme as

1) The expection I heard is that he is not expected to live very long

2) He also has land. None of his nephews or nieces farm. So unless a qualified farmer takes over, the land is also included in the calculation of the 7.5%

So the guess is that the house was sold to pay for his care up front.

Your missing my point. Someone has to take overall responsibility - the council won't do this.

In my uncles case noone has authority to do any deals. All I could do was become a care rep to sign the fair deal - and even that was painful to get organized. It would be complete madness for anyone in a nursing home to enter a 10 year deal. Do the council maintain the house and make sure it's not wrecked. - I very much doubt it

But I signed the fair deal and I do have a responsibility that the HSE will get their money after my uncles death or I can be made personally liable. The house being ready for sale after his death would be important - him dying 2 years into the 10 year contract could be a big problem if there are tenants in situ.

There is no such scheme. Even the conditions posted earlier still have the owner being responsible for things. That's assuming no problems. Good luck with that.

Do you think it's that complicated that nobody would be able to set up a company or a scheme to provide those services?

If you thought really really hard about it for a while, do you think you might be able to come up with an alternative to the existing schemes which contained provisions for the above?

I assure you Flinty boy, service contracts are a real thing and are quite common in many industries i.e. the real world

Out of curiosity, what percentage of your rental income would you be willing to pay to a company who guaranteed to fix and repair any damage to:

5%?, 10%?, 50%?. 95%?

How much of a discount would you be preapred to accept for someone to rent your property from you for the purposes of re-letting it for a legally binding contract that you receive that guaranteed percentage of the rent regardless of whether it is let, and that all maintenance be done and the property be returned to you in today's state at the end of the contract?

Why departments?

Private companies can perform those schemes. Have you never heard of the concept of a property management company?

It's not exactly rocket science now is it?

I also think that the government should definitely stop subsiding the private sector. The best thing that could happen might be for the government to pull all rental support payments in the morning and let the market settle at it's own level.

How many of those house do you think would be rented out overnight if the government brought in a rule that the 80% clawback was gone and that instead any rental income would be tax free to the owner while they remained in care?

I have no idea how many houses could be rented out. I think the money gained may be immaterial - it may be seen as more hassle than its worth to alot of people.

My uncles house is in no way up to rental standards - its still stuck in the 1950's and would need a huge amount spent on it to get it to standard for renting. I expect alot of the properties of the elderly are not up to rental standards and are dated. The government would have to possibly look aswell at lending money for similar houses to be updated. Perhaps the full rent could be paid to the government as loan repayments and property cant be sold until loan is repaid. Families could gain then by having a better standard property to sell down the line.

My own County Council will only take on houses on the 10 year/20 year rental scheme if they are in towns. They aren't interested in houses in rural areas. There's a big chunk of those 8,000 houses gone right there. Good luck sticking a Ukranian family in a rural area with no transport and miles away from suitable support services/education etc.

Why Departments you ask? Someone will have to run these schemes? We've seen that we can't outsource social housing to the private sector. That clearly isn't working. The private sector can't effectively manage all aspects of your proposal from start to finish as it's far more complex than you seem to realise. This means that there will be Government Departments needed to run your (as Michael Healy-Rae would say) 'airy fairy' idea.

I'm guessing you mean HAP etc. as being a subsidy to the private sector. If you pull the likes of that, you are correct, the market will settle at it's own level and we will have far fewer rental properties as even more landlords will flee the market. You'll actually make the problem worse.

I'm curious how they managed to do that? Who owned the bachelor farmer's house? If he owned it, he must have given permission for it to be done up and sold. If so, he mustn't have gone into the nursing home under the fair deal scheme.

I reckon his brother was given power of attorney over his affairs. As I stated above, it would be assumed he didn't go under FD as he owns land.

Land used to be included in the reckoning of the 7.5% but that was removed. However only removed where there is a qualified successor identified.

The man was one of a number of siblings. Actually his parents were not farmers but it was a grandparent's farm. It was originally a very big farm but it was left between him and his siblings and his siblings sold their shares. He was the only one who actually farmed it.

So his nieces and nephews have interest in farming. So the land would presumably come under the 7.5% and I reckon they did a calculation that on the balance of things, it would be better to sell the house and pay up front. I don't know, all I know for certain is the man is on his last legs in a home and his house was sold a few months after he was taken into care.

Even if you've seen a will Ray, that is a living document until death of the testator. It means nothing until that point in time and can be invalidated by the simple act of making a new will.

Just letting ya know