Own Nothing and Be Happy Is Already Starting
How many times have you seen the phrase “you will own nothing and be happy”?
So many of us have seen it on various social media accounts and in traditional news media reports. What we don’t seem to have noticed is how developed the idea already is and how much it is happening here in the UK.
Many of the older generations in the UK managed to buy their own property. This was seen as something to aspire to and meant that the family would have a guaranteed roof over their head for generations to come.
Sadly this is now not always the case as property of the elderly is now susceptible to a number of situations where they can be left with little or nothing.
Residential and/or nursing care costs a considerable amount of money. Since local authorities have sold off their care homes and contracted out to private companies, the costs of residential care has increased dramatically. So much so that local authorities can no longer afford to pay the prices being asked. This has resulted in legislation being passed to force the sale of property owned by anyone needing care to meet costs. Only when someone has less than £30k in assets will the local authority pay for care needs in full. That is of course if they can find a care home willing to welcome a resident for whom they are paid less than their normal fees.
Even if residential care is not required, some retirement properties can also cause families to be left out of pocket.
Many retirement developments have a myriad of terms and conditions regarding ongoing service costs and percentages of sales prices if the property has to be sold. For many who inherit these properties on the death of a family member, there is great difficulty in selling on and great cost involved whilst trying to find a buyer.
Once you start to look at the above, you realise that for our aging population, many of them will very shortly own nothing. Even after decades of working and paying into the system, they will be left with nothing to pass to their families except maybe some costs to be met.
If we accept it for one section of our population, how long until such things start to reach others?
