This is a follow on from my two previous blogs.

The key issue is “Who pays ?”

The starting point is to acknowledge that later life can be expensive, especially if you need care and support.

The second thing is that living longer is a great blessing, but we, none of us has saved enough to cover the cost. Nor has the Government.

The NHS ideal of health care being free for all is an illusion which is becoming more and more obvious and elderly people are at the back of the queue. Social care has also been starved of Government funds for years. Leading to bed blocking in hospitals. It has been a familiar story for years.

Politicians are paralysed to take action for fear of upsetting elderly voters.

At the same time elderly people don’t want to hear that they will have to pay for themselves.

STALEMATE.

There is however a trillion £ pot of gold tied up in homeowners property which they accumulated through house price inflation, rather than hard work.

So the KEY to the future of ageing retirement communities is to unlock home owners housing equity and trade it for care and support.

However that is not a simple answer.

Current equity release schemes could facilitate this approach, but, they are expensive and only release maybe a third of the value of your home. Nor would they work easily in a retirement village where the lease is tied to service charges and restricts resale options.

Village landlords could offer a reverse staircasing model of ownership which would allow residents to sell back shares in their homes for care and support. Rent could be charged on the share of the property not owned, which would offset some of the cost of raising finance for the buyback.

This would be a start, but it doesn’t explore the full picture.

My next blog will attempt to do this.