Any advice on selling the house?

TheCatWantsOut

My Mom has (hopefully) transitioned to Assisted Living. She cannot afford to pay for it just with her income, her home will have to be sold. I am wondering how adult children dealt with the sale of the home when their parent is in the early stages of dementia.

1. How long did you wait after the AL transition to start the process of selling the house? She needs the money so the longer I wait the more difficult the financial situation becomes, but at the same time I have this fear that something will go wrong with my plans and she will need to go back to her home. She still has the capacity to make her own decisions, at least according to a doctor, so there is the possibility that she could end up leaving AL of her own accord or she could get kicked out (for bad behavior, for example).
2. Mom is unlikely to agree to sell the home. In her mind this is a temporary stay at AL and she will go back to her house at some point. I have a financial DPOA so legally I can conduct real estate transactions for her. Obviously it is not possible to make the logical argument with her that she can't afford both AL and the house; even if I could she would choose the house. So do I "fiblet" about the house being sold (that's seems like an awfully big "fiblet")? Tell her and just deal with the fallout?

BassetHoundAnn

When I moved my mom from her house to a sort of quasi-assisted living apartment near my house I was told by folks who managed the senior residence that many children assure their parents that the move is temporary. They will need to live there for only a month or two to try it out, and they can always move back to their house if they want. Some families tell this to the dementia sufferer for years. Since they've lost track of time they accept this whopping fiblet. And the families sell the house as soon as they can.

You need to make the decision that your mom needs AL, she can't live in her old house, there's no going back. And then chart your course from there.

I know people who've had their parents in AL for years before selling the house. But that's often not a financially prudent thing to do.

TheCatWantsOut

@BassetHoundAnn thank you so much for this reply. Even though it doesn't really solve anything, it helps immensely just to know that I'm not alone in this situation, others are struggling with the same issue.

And you are completely correct, it is not financially prudent (or even possible in my mom's case) to keep the house for years before selling.

HopeForPeace

I am in your exact same situation. Mom is in assisted living since March. The house sale is needed to financially support her continued care. I am the only child and completely sick over this. She asks everyday when she can go see her house. When I say not now or some other excuse she gets extremely angry and says she’s going to find someone to take her there. I’m in the process of emptying and putting it on the market. There are no words to express the stress I’m living over this situation.

I hope we can both find a way to get thru these difficult times.

I wish you well!!!

Anonymousjpl123

I’m wishing both of you the best of luck!!!! I know exactly how stressful this can be. This wouldn’t work for everyone but I am renting my moms house. Again, every situation is different and it may not work for you, but it was the best option for my family given our situation. It has given us a year to push off the decision.

You know best what fiblets she’ll accept. I find that as much as I worry about what I tell/don’t tell my mom, she really doesn’t remember it. She will obsess for a time then just stops asking about it - whatever it is.

Is there something new you can focus on to take her mind off things? When my mom moved into AL we got her a bunch of nice clothes. It helped her feel she was moving toward something. In fact for a while she was dressing better than I’d ever seen her!

The key was accentuating things that really were better, like having all her meals prepared. That was the one thing that she really felt good about. It had become extremely hard for her to get meals - cooking and takeout and grocery shopping had all become impossible.

I wish you all the best of luck. It’s not easy, but you are doing the right thing.

Anonymousjpl123

ESkayP

This is my first post on ALZConnected. I have no solutions, but I am in the same situation. I have to get Mom's house ready to sell now that she is in AL. She calls me every day to come get her even on the days I visit. She knows that her house was not safe or comfortable for her anymore, but wanting to "go home" seems to be more a state of mind. I'm still trying to figure out how to talk to her about it. I usually draw her attention to her favorite things, and we look at a memory book of photos I made for her. It calms her down, but she still wants to know how long she has to stay at AL. So far, I can tell her she's been there barely a week and that she has to give it time. I just don't know how long that will pacify her.

tstorm

I'm in the same situation. My dad is convinced he's totally fine and the house is being fumigated or renovated (his idea changes every day). He calls many times a week asking to go home. But we need to sell the house to afford his AL. Just signed the papers with the realtor to list it yesterday. Even if he wants to go home, doesn't want to sell the house, it's just not something that can happen, he can't go back home. So know you're doing the right thing and going back home isn't really an option anyway.

wkelser

My sister and I are contemplating how to handle the house when our mother has to go into 24 hour care. We are going to use it as a rent house to bring in the additional funds, per month, that mom will need to supplement her income and make the fees for the facility. I know that this is not an option for everyone, but wanted to put the idea out there for you, in case it could be useful.

Smilescountry

I agree with others that each situation is different. Both of my parents went to assisted living at the same time. Af first, we just kept the house. However, we used some things from the house to decorate the two adjacent rooms in Assisted Living. We were careful to find a place that would be a good fit for them. They are long-time, serious bird watchers, so the AL place where they are has a beautiful courtyard filled with flowers and birds, and there are also birds outside the picture windows in each room. I have a brother-in-law who does a beautiful job decorating, and he did a wonderful job of arranging the furniture in unique ways and adding lots of personal touches for them. And we were allowed to hang bird photographs that my dad had taken over the years outside their doors. When they walked into their rooms, they saw them beautifully decorated with things that were familiar from their home, and the activity director made a point of planning activities that they would enjoy. Constantly, they want to show people how nice their rooms are! Dad, the one with more advanced Alzheimers, adapted rapidly. He wasn't too far gone to realize what they were doing, and I think that he felt safer in his new "home." However, it took Mom about three months or so to get used to being around "those people." She would not have needed to move with Dad, but they could not stand to be separated from each other. Now, she talks about all the friends that she has there. My parents moved to AL the end of December, and we sold their house in April. I simply created an expense sheet showing how much it cost to keep the house. Mom, the financial planner in the family, immediately said to sell both the house and the car. Of course, now my house has things that we need to "sort through," but that worked for us. I think that it helped that Dad realized that something had to happen, that Mom was able to understand the financial side, that they were able to feel at home in their new apartments, and that they had already moved several times in the past!

TheCatWantsOut

Thanks again for the comforting responses. Mom has been at the Assisted Living facility for 30 days and she seems to be adapting better than I expected. Of course she thinks it is temporary and wants to go home, but it is clear to me that her quality of life is dramatically better at the Assisted Living than it was at home. The only "advantage" home provided to mom was the freedom to smoke an unlimited number of cigarettes.

Selling the house without her knowledge is gut-wrenching but financially it is unavoidable. I looked at renting, but the cash flow from renting won't cover the shortfall between her income and Assisted Living. We need to monetize that asset and starting earning a return on it. I just talked to a realtor.

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Bandorino

Thank you all for this discussion. It has helped me feel less guilty. We moved my mom into Assisted Living/Memory Care in September 2023. There were a few challenging weeks early on, but she has adjusted well. As her POA, I sold her car last month and now must move forward with selling her beloved house, which is the house my sisters and I grew up in. The sale of the car was fairly easy but a couple weeks after it was sold, she started asking where the car was. It's those "fiblets" that we tell to ease her mind that make me feel so guilty, even though we know what we are doing is the right thing. So now I'm feeling some overwhelm at the prospect of selling the house. We are considering hiring an auction/real-estate company to help with the sale of all the stuff and maybe the house as well. The stuff! Any advice on how to manage the emotional side of dealing with all the stuff?

M1

Hi Bandorino...this is an old thread, you'd probably do better and get more responses to start a new discussion. The person for whom this thread was original has died this winter.

CaliforniaGirl-1

https://alzconnected.org/discussion/comment/196794#Comment_196794

We had this same issue recently. Call your local Alzheimer's association and get a few recommendations for local realtors who specialize in working for the elderly. You could also ask if they know any accredited Senior Move Managers people have been happy with. The Realtor should be able to handle finding someone who will do an estate sale/tag sale and donation, getting the house cleaned and even any minor repairs needed. Look for someone who will handle the whole thing and take the costs out of their end and not your mother's. Also don't be afraid to ask for a reduction in their percentage.

You can also look at the NASMM (National Association of Senior Move Managers). They can offer either an end to end service or just the ones you need to take care of the downsizing. If you get the right realtor you may not need their help. And unlike the realtor, they cost money but if there is something you need help with they are a resource.

The task of going through and cleaning out a parent's home, finding all the financial documents, family photos and sensitive items as well as keepsakes and belongings can be gut wrenching, time consuming and difficult.

Get help.

Bandorino

https://alzconnected.org/discussion/comment/196796#Comment_196796

Oh, thank you for the update and my sympathies to the family

Bandorino

https://alzconnected.org/discussion/comment/196834#Comment_196834

Thank you so much!