I have read this thread and am confused and yes, I will say horrified. My own circumstances are that I am the next of kin and sole beneficiary of my 92 year old aunt who has advanced dementia. She presently lives in retirement accommodation which she owns and I am her main carer and the only family member she knows. It may be that in the months to come she will need to move to full time residential care. While this is not what we want, it may be what has to happen. She is self funding and I’m very hopeful that her investments are such that we will be able to fund her care for several years to come without having to sell her home. I wondered whether, rather than leave her property empty, I could live there , not necessarily permanently, in order to do whatever is necessary in the future (years and years of rubbish to clear). I understand that if the property needs to be sold, so be it. The property is paid for outright and will be mine whenever she passes away. I will be responsible for dealing with everything.

However, I’m exceedingly alarmed at the responses to @Sarahbox which seemed to suggest that while my aunt is alive, it isn’t permissible to do any of this without actually having a tenancy agreement and paying rent. Apart from the tax consequences for my aunt, who does not need or indeed want any rent from me at all, I will be massively complicating my own life which is bad enough already. I may have misunderstood the legal implications here, so I do hope that someone can set me straight if thats the case.

I understand that laws and procedures need to be in place to protect our vulnerable old people, but sometimes it seems that everyone assumes that full time carers are out to ‘fleece’ their PWD, when in fact all we are trying to do is trying our best to stay alive ourselves.