Buying a house with an elderly parent

A parent may want to be close to family without giving up their independence, and an adult child may want help with the price of a bigger house. A house with an annexe can do both. This guide is part of our wider look at care at home or a care home, and it sits alongside the guides on finding a house with a granny annexe for sale and what day-to-day life looks like when you live with an elderly parent.

The four routes below set out the usual choices.

Routes A and B fit when both of you put money in. Route C suits a parent who wants to help and does not need a share back, though it leaves them with nothing to show for the money. Route D suits a parent buying with the proceeds of their old home.

GOV.UK's guide to joint property ownership sets out both. For a parent and an adult child, the choice usually comes down to two questions. Did you each put in a similar amount? And does each of you want your part to go to someone else when you die, such as your parent's other children, or your own partner and children?

If your parent is contributing the proceeds of their own home and you are adding a mortgage, the amounts are unlikely to be equal. Tenants in common, with the shares written down, keeps the arrangement fair to your parent and to any brothers or sisters who expect to inherit from them. Joint tenancy is simpler, but if your parent dies first the house becomes yours outright, which may leave a sibling with nothing from the family home.

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Joint tenants can change to tenants in common at any time. HM Land Registry calls this severance, and there is no fee. One owner can do it without the others agreeing, by serving a written notice on them and sending form SEV to the Land Registry. Going the other way, from tenants in common to joint tenants, needs every owner to agree. HM Land Registry's blog on how to tell which kind of joint ownership you have explains what to look for on your title.

The Land Registry title shows whose names are on the house. HM Land Registry says it does not always hold information on the specific shares, and trust deeds are usually held by conveyancers, so the declaration of trust is the clear record of your parent's share.

GOV.UK has separate guidance on selling a jointly owned house when one owner has lost mental capacity, and it involves extra steps. A lasting power of attorney for property and financial affairs, made while your parent is well, avoids most of them. If your parent has a diagnosis of dementia, the guide to lasting power of attorney and dementia explains when it can still be made.

In England and Northern Ireland, buyers pay Stamp Duty Land Tax. GOV.UK says you will usually pay 5% on top of the normal rates if buying a new home means you will own more than one. On a joint purchase, HMRC's guidance on additional properties is clear that if any one of the buyers would have to pay the higher rates, the higher rates apply to the transaction as a whole. Scotland and Wales have their own taxes, Land and Buildings Transaction Tax and Land Transaction Tax, with their own rules.

Keeping your parent's name off the deeds does not always keep them out of the stamp duty calculation. HMRC's manual says that where a house is held on a bare trust, the person who owns the share is treated as the buyer for the higher rates. If you plan to give your parent a share under a declaration of trust rather than putting them on the title, ask your conveyancer to check the stamp duty before you exchange.

When one of the buyers is retired, a lender will want to know whose income is paying and whether your parent's pension counts. Lenders set their own age limits for the end of the term, so it is worth asking several before you settle on a house.

A lender's gift letter may ask your parent to confirm they will have no interest in the house. If your parent is meant to own part of it, the money should be shown as their contribution instead. Tell your solicitor and your broker what you intend, so the paperwork agrees.

If the annexe has a planning condition tying it to the main house, the lender and your conveyancer will both want to see it. The guide on whether you need planning permission for a granny annexe explains those conditions, and the council tax guide for annexes covers the discounts and exemptions that can apply when a relative lives in one.

The council's means test for care in England follows the Care and Support Statutory Guidance, Annex B, which covers how capital is treated. For 2026/27 the upper capital limit is £23,250 and the lower limit is £14,250. Above the upper limit a person pays the full cost of their care. Whether the house counts towards those figures changes over time, as below.

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Paragraph 34(c) of Annex B says the home must still be ignored if it is occupied, in part or whole, as the main or only home of certain people, and has been continuously since before your parent went into the care home. Those people are your parent's partner, former partner or civil partner (unless estranged), or a relative who is aged 60 or over, is incapacitated, or is a child of your parent aged under 18.

Paragraph 35 lists who counts as a relative, and it includes a son, a daughter, a son-in-law, a daughter-in-law, a brother, a sister and a grandchild. Paragraph 34 says "in part or whole", so a relative living in the main house while your parent had the annexe, or the other way round, can still qualify.

For a parent in their late eighties, the son or daughter who lives with them may well be 60 or over. If so, and the house has been your main home since before your parent moved into a care home, the council must ignore your parent's share. If you are under 60 and not incapacitated, paragraph 42 lets the council use its discretion, for example for someone who gave up their own home to care for the person. It weighs that against keeping assets from being maintained at public expense, so it is not guaranteed.

If your parent's share does count and they do not want the house sold, a deferred payment agreement lets the council pay the care home and recover the money later from the house. The care funding guide sets out the rest of the means test, and self-funding your care covers paying privately in the meantime.

While your parent is still living with you, help at home costs the same as anywhere else. Carers on PrimeCarers charge £18 to £25 an hour for visits, with our fee included, against £28 to £35 an hour at an agency, and live-in care starts at £1,050 a week. Our pricing page shows how those figures are made up, and care in a granny annexe explains how visits, nights and live-in care work when a parent lives at the end of the garden.

Annex E of the statutory guidance covers deprivation of assets: a person deliberately reducing their assets to reduce what they are charged for care. Among the examples it gives are a lump sum given away as a gift, the deeds of a property transferred to someone else, and money turned into a form that the means test ignores. If a council decides this has happened, it can assess your parent as though they still had the money or the share.

The guidance does not set a fixed number of years to look back. Paragraph 11 asks whether avoiding care charges was a significant reason for the timing, and whether your parent could reasonably have expected to need care when they parted with the money. Paragraph 12 says it would be unreasonable to find deprivation if the person was fit and healthy and could not have foreseen needing care. Where money was passed to someone else to avoid charges, paragraph 21 says that person can be asked to pay the difference, up to what they received.

Annex E also says people should be able to spend the money they have saved as they wish, and that deprivation should not be assumed. A council will look at the reasons and the timing, so it helps to have both on paper. Before any large gift, the guide on will writing and protecting assets is a place to start before seeing a solicitor.

1. 1

   Talk it through as a family

   Before you look

   Agree what each of you is putting in and what happens if the house is sold or your parent's health changes. Include brothers and sisters who are not buying.
2. 2

   Speak to a mortgage adviser and a solicitor

   Before you offer

   Ask the adviser about lenders who lend to older borrowers and on houses with annexes. Ask the solicitor whether your parent should have separate advice.
3. 3

   Work out the stamp duty with each buyer's position

   Before you offer

   Check whether either of you will own another home after completion, and whether an annexe is worth more than a third of the price.
4. 4

   Choose how you will own it and sign the declaration of trust

   Before exchange

   Joint tenants or tenants in common, with the shares written down. Make wills that match, and lasting powers of attorney for each owner.
5. 5

   Keep the paper trail

   At completion

   File the completion statement, the declaration of trust and the bank statements showing who paid what.
6. 6

   Plan the help your parent will need day to day

   Before they move in

   Living closer does not cover every hour. Look at what help with mornings or evenings would cost near the new house.

When you are ready to look at the care side, you can search for carers near the new house and compare their rates. Carers on PrimeCarers are self-employed. Before a carer appears on PrimeCarers, their identity and right to work are checked, they need an enhanced DBS check (PVG in Scotland, Access NI in Northern Ireland) issued within the last 2 years, and they have an online interview. For visits booked through PrimeCarers, insurance covers the carer while they work, subject to the policy terms. We do not check qualifications, training or references; references and reviews appear on profiles unverified, so you check skills and training with the carer. The granny annexes guide brings together the planning, cost and tax questions if you are still deciding which house to buy.