Getting Your Elderly Parents’ Finances Organised

Elderly parents and finances. It’s not an easy topic to talk about with them, but it’s so important.

In this article, Jessica Silver at Elwell and Shaw Gibbs explain what you need to know about later life planning for elderly relatives. This article is part of a more comprehensive guide which is available to read here.

The number of sandwich generation caregivers (aka you) is rising. With the older generation living for longer, more and more of us are caring for ageing parents. Their changing needs (for example from a dementia diagnosis or not being as mobile), means that they may well need care which will likely need to be paid for either partly or in full.

Only 5% of care self-funders take proper financial advice and it’s so important to help plan for the here and now or the future. So in this article, whilst we can’t give individual finance advice, we have outlined key things you need to consider when later life planning and protecting elderly parents’ finances.

Talk To Your Parents About Later Life Planning

These might not be the easiest conversations to have but the earlier you can talk to your parents about what they want in later life, and how they could afford it, the better.

Ask them about their savings, pension, income and investments. Find out about their home ownership and mortgage status and look into house sale and rental values. Care home or home care? Understand the type of care they want, so you can see if it’s realistic (based on their finances as well as your own commitments). If their income doesn’t cover the care fees, this is called the ‘care fees gap’.

The more information you have, the more it will help with care fees planning.

Talking to your parents about later life planning while they still have capacity will make your decisions so much easier.

Elderly parents can be suspicious when their grown up children start taking an interest in their finances, so tact and diplomacy are of utmost importance in making it clear that their welfare is your primary concern. In a future article, we’ll share Jessica’s advice about how to best communicate with aging parents.

This article was originally written by Jessica and Nancy at ElWell and Shaw Gibbs, you can view the original article and read more advice from them here.

Jessica Silver knows a thing or two about caregiving. Having helped her grandpa stay at home for his last years, she joined forces with elderly rehabilitation physiotherapist Nancy Farmer to create ElWell. A caregiving hub, ElWell (www.el-well.com) is full of information and inspiration for people looking after their parents as they get older.

Shaw Gibbs accountants and business advisers with offices in Oxford and Marylebone, London. shawgibbs.com