sold

Mum's apartment has finally... finally sold.

I haven't wanted to jinx the process by posting about it before, but we found a buyer in October and it has taken this long to process, despite it being a cash purchase.

The buyer was a woman looking to relocate closer to her Son. I can see the wisdom in that, having myself undergone so much stress coping with Mum's deterioration over a distance of 250 miles.

The apartment cost Mum £195,000 back in 2002 and would doubtlessly have fetched well over £200,000 if I'd put it up for sale in 2007. While I concentrated on getting Mum settled, and fretted over my responsibility for the dismantling of her life, the market slumped. When I put the place on the market in last June, the agent suggested that I ask for just £175,000. I held out for £185,000 and we achieved a figure halfway between the two. After Estate Agent and Solicitor fees and a last-minute nasty surprise, I'm left with £172,000.

Not having a copy of the Lease, I was pretty disgusted to find out that we would lose a further 2% of the proceeds as fees to the Managing Agents for the property. These jokers really gouge the residents and provide a minimum of service in return and these 'transfer' and 'contingency' fees are outrageous. I'm tempted to remind them that their representative at this block is currently in court, accused of a massive theft from a couple of residents. I've been grateful that there was no publicity about this whilst I was trying to sell Mum's flat, but I've a lot less to lose by going to the papers now. I wonder if they might let these charges go?

Up until this week, I had been intending to use the proceeds of the sale to buy another property and then rent that out to cover the shortfall in Mum's Care Home fees. Specifically, I had decided to purchase the house I am living in, enabling me to be free to relocate whilst also keeping the asset in our family (this house is set to appreciate in value due to a nearby development). I was getting quite giddy exploring my options. However, I've taken advice from a Financial Advisor and concluded that the best place for Mum's money is an Insurance Bond (a "with-profits bond with income"). If I invest the full amount, we will be able to take up to 5% interest out each year as income. What's more, the money will be tax-free and not counted towards any future Revenue means-testing. At the moment, 4% just about covers the shortfall.

So, that's the end of that. Even though it was not our family home, it feels odd to let the place go, and I still feel a vestige of guilt whenever I act on Mum's behalf in financial dealings. It's a similar feeling to when I'm in an airport and walking through the "nothing to declare" Customs channel. Although I've never had anything to hide, I still always feel guilty and end up forgetting how to walk casually, and I probably look shifty as hell whilst attempting to broadcast my innocence. I found myself doing a similar thing with the Financial Advisor.

spare me your charity

A couple of weeks back, our relative D rang. She and her Husband are briefly back in the country from one of their long trips (I think this one was South Africa again). Anyway, they'd been over to see Mum and D had noticed that Mum's wardrobe was pretty depleted. I told her that I was well aware of the situation and that I'd bought clothes for Mum at Christmas which had also quickly wandered.

"Well that's not good enough, Greg! Just not good enough!" she said.

I told her that I knew the Home would always dress Mum and that, at the moment, it didn't seem a good idea for me to go and spend any more money on clothes when I was really struggling to make Mum's monthly payments just to keep her there. Mum's pension income falls short of her Care payment by about £600 per month. I've successfully applied for a Government allowance that covers a little more of the ground but there's still a shortfall and, until I've sold Mum's old apartment we're down to our last couple of thousand pounds.

D absorbed this and said, "Well, what if I were to buy your Mum some clothes?"

I told her that I'd be very grateful because we could use the help and, particularly since she would have a better idea of what to look for in skirts etc. I thanked her over and over for her generosity.

D rang me today to say that she was heading back to see Mum on Sunday and that she'd been shopping. She listed a few items that all sounded good. She kept mentioning how much she'd spent (£107) and how well she'd done to get this or that discount. It's no coincidence, I thought to myself, that the wealthy have a zest for a bargain. Finally, she told me that she'd bought some perfume for Mum, too, and said "I mean I bought it - that's from me."

I got a sinking feeling.

She asked me how I planned to "settle up" with her for the clothes.

[pause for breath]

I'm lucky it was a relatively small amount, I suppose. I counted to 5 in my head and told her that I'd send her a cheque right away and I asked her please NOT to buy any more stuff for Mum as neither Mum nor I can really afford it.

I'm thinking of writing a parable where someone's "help" ends up putting the benefactee out onto the street.

money, money, money

I drove down to Sussex again last weekend, determined to tackle the last of the jobs that stood in the way of disposing of Mum's old apartment. The place has been empty now since I cleared it of furniture last Summer, and I've been slack in tackling these last few issues. Of course, I wish I'd been able to get things moving with a sale last year, before the credit crisis and subsequent slide in the housing market. It galls me to think that, for the sake of a few cosmetic touches prior to sale, I've watched the value of the place slide by probably £40,000 (possibly more).

Anyway, it's all done now. My biggest concern was the bathroom, which looked tired and unhealthy, with a badly-stained carpet and flaky and swollen MDF cabinetry. Over the course of Sunday and Monday, I sanded and painted the woodwork and cut and fitted a new carpet, whilst clearing the cupboards of the million things that I'd actually left behind the last time I thought I'd "emptied" the place. I worked into the early hours, cleaning every surface as I went (not bad going for someone on 700 calories per day at the moment!) I think the bathroom is acceptable now, and hopefully won't put off any prospective purchasers. Still, those are expensive repairs, when I think about it.

It was one of those "my life is guided" weekends. If I hadn't been at the apartment, I might never have known, but I chose to go on the spur of the moment and ended up witnessing a dramatic event. The Warden/House Manager there, who has been wonderfully supportive over the past 4 years, was arrested for stealing blank cheques to write out for himself. The aggrieved parties had copies of cheques retrieved from their Banks, and I saw them written out in his unmistakeable handwriting for figures in thousands. One Lady, since deceased, had lost £92,000 to him. The place was in uproar. The Police held a meeting in the Lounge to inform us of the progress of their investigation and to exhort us to check our Bank records.

I feared that Mum would have been a victim, given her extreme disfunction with money, which I'd often discussed with the House Manager, but I've since had a look at her records and can't see any suspicious large cheques, thankfully. It still feels quite unreal. I don't think I should upset Mum by telling her about all this and spoiling her fond memories of the man, but at the same time she is the only person I know that I could discuss this with and I'm still reeling with the shock of it all.

The flat is now listed and it's a question of waiting to see if there's any interest out there.

one from the vaults

I was tidying up my study again last night (the clutter only makes me worry I've already started with the 'brain diabetes'), and I found a piece of Mum's correspondence from July '07 in a box I was emptying. It was a letter giving Mum permission to go ahead and remodel her bathroom at her old apartment, with the Leaseholders waiving the fee of £41.12 [story here]. Her returned cheque was attached.

As I prepared to shred the cheque, I noticed something odd about the numbers. Why had Mum put two decimal points? She had written "41.12.0". Looking over to the written side of the cheque, I realised with a shock that here was evidence that Mum was already 'time travelling'. 

Mum had written the cheque out in pounds, shillings and pence. UK currency went decimal in 1971.

If I'd seen this at the time I think I'd have felt a mixture of panic and victory: panic that things were indeed heading downhill and victory that I had some proof to take to Mum's Doctor. Nowadays, with Mum blissfully detached from worldly affairs, I can look at this as a curiosity and smile: Mum's in a good place.

incomprehension

Mum's still a bit croaky and on anti-biotics, so here's another letter from last year. When I registered my Power of Attorney over her affairs, I was surprised to find a new account in her portfolio: a telephone account, requiring a password to operate. I was surprised, as this wasn't Mum's sort of thing, so I closed it and moved the balance back into her savings. My guess is that someone from the Bank's marketing department had rung Mum and persuaded her to open this account.

Anyway, amongst all the scraps of paper that were piled on her table or her desk was this letter from the Bank, listing the details of the new account:


Notice that Mum has written: "This offer not taken up" at the bottom of the page. She didn't understand what the letter was about. She thought it was an offer which she decided not to accept when in fact she had already accepted it and this was a confirmation of that decision.

I find that note poignant, a little bit of administration where Mum is trying to demonstrate herself in control of her own affairs but simultaneously showcasing her incomprehension.

finances

When I first realised that Mum needed more sheltered/assisted accommodation, I worried how we were going to pay for it. True, Mum had a reasonably generous pension coming in each month from my Dad's old firm which topped up her finances nicely. But it seemed that every home I looked at charged almost double her income... and most of them were places I wasn't happy to show Mum anyway. I realised that I was going to have to sell her apartment and use the proceeds to pay for the shortfall each month. After a few selfish moments where I lamented my vanishing inheritance, I set to finding the best place for Mum at whatever the cost.

As my entries from last year show, I was lucky to find a place that not only surpassed all the other 'standard' and corporate homes I looked at but was also a little cheaper. We're still losing around £160 per week on top of Mum's pension, but that's a whole lot better than losing another £350 every week. Okay, I'll stop dancing around it - the place costs £560 per week and Mum's income is around £400.

Since December, I've calculated that the proceeds from selling Mum's apartment ought to see her alright for another 20 years. Of course, if her money runs out sooner, the State would step in to make up the difference (this is where you start commenting bitterly, those of you from the US). It's a comfortable situation for Mum and that's all that is important, but I'm aware of the irony that she'd get the same level of care if she had nothing (6 out of the 8 people in her household don't pay a penny) and that's all my Dad's hard-earned cash disappearing down the drain.

So I believed for the last 5 months. But then a couple of weeks ago I fell to chatting with a distant relative about Mum's situation.

"You need to buy a flat or a house with the money and the rent will pay for the shortfall," she said.

I'm such an idiot. Why didn't I think of that? I rent out a house myself, so it should have been obvious. The rent raised could cover the shortfall and we would still have the asset at the end!

I'm posting this not just to how dense I can be, but as an option for those in my situation. It's currently my intention to do something like this when I get around to clearing Mum's apartment and selling it (falling market permitting!)

It could be that there's a flaw in the plan. Judging by my past performance, I ought to see it by August.