Aged Care with Anthony Sultana transcript

Kylie – Host (00:08):

Welcome back Wealthers to another episode of The Money Brew. I am Kylie Sultana, your host. Today I have a special guest. I had to twist his arm to come on. I have my husband of 25 years, Anthony Sultana joining me today. It’s actually the first time I’ve actually been able to pin him down. I was almost going to say tie him down, pin him down to get him to come in and be interviewed. I do want to give him an intro, but I do need to have a disclaimer. I do need to have a disclaimer first that anything that we do discuss today is general information only and we haven’t taken anybody’s personal circumstances into consideration. So seek professional advice from an authorized professional, registered professional.

Anthony (01:03):

That’s me.

Kylie – Host (01:03):

Hello Anthony. Creo Wealth. Happy to take any of your questions if you want to give us a call, but yes, this is not advice, it’s a general discussion. So Anthony, you have been an advisor for a long time.

Anthony (01:20):

Yeah. Just over 20 years been advising.

Kylie – Host (01:22):

I know but I want you to tell people. Just over 20 years.

Anthony (01:24):

I know. Just over 20 years. Yes, that’s right, Kylie.

Kylie – Host (01:27):

Yes, I remember. I’m going to give a little fun fact here. When I came in you were working, was it NRMA Financial Planning in Parramatta?

Anthony (01:35):

In Parramatta, yes it was.

Kylie – Host (01:35):

And Ben was a baby. So Ben’s our oldest, he is 23 now and he was a little baby and I remember he threw up everywhere and I brought him in and you were in at a meeting, so that was fun.

Anthony (01:45):

Nice.

Kylie – Host (01:47):

But you are actually a CFP, which is a Certified Financial Planner.

Anthony (01:51):

That’s correct.

Kylie – Host (01:51):

What does CFP mean?

Anthony (01:53):

It means that we’ve met all the educational requirements and gone beyond and above the standard minimum graduate deployment of financial planning course.

Kylie – Host (02:03):

Awesome. And why did you get into planning?

Anthony (02:08):

Into financial planning? Yeah, it’s funny because my dad had retired and he needed to get some financial advice and he asked me to come along because I was working in finance, I was actually an accountant. That’s my background. I went with him to, actually, it was in the same building where I started working within NRMA.

Kylie – Host (02:25):

Really?

Anthony (02:25):

At the Octagon building in Parramatta. Yeah. We went there and I remember my dad was sitting right beside me right here and I was here and the gentleman was across the desk there and he was going through all these things and I thought to myself, wow, this guy knows so much and all this stuff was just interesting. I thought one day I love to do what he’s doing. And then many, many years later, here I am.

Kylie – Host (02:49):

Here you are. And did he change the life for your parents? Did he-

Anthony (02:54):

Yeah, he did. He gave him peace of mind. Dad didn’t have to worry about going to work and just gave him an income that they will be able to maintain a comfortable retirement. Mum still worked, but obviously just didn’t have to have that money worries.

Kylie – Host (03:09):

Yeah, yeah, that’s good. That’s good. So you have a few specialties, so kind of like doctors and other professionals, you have areas that you prefer to specialize in. So you are pre-retirees. Retirees.

Anthony (03:25):

That’s correct, yes.

Kylie – Host (03:27):

Specifically what we’re going to talk about today is the age care because there seems to be a lot of questions and a lot of people don’t understand what you do in that area. So I really wanted to touch on that and to just give the listeners the basics and what to look out for and the difference that it can make in the lives of the people that you talk to. So when we talk about aged care advice, so what does that mean and why is it important?

Anthony (03:58):

Well, aged care advice, as we know, we’ve got an aging population and there’s a lot of demand of that, not enough places available. So what it really comes down to is funding and accommodating premises. It could be over your home, which I’ll talk to you about in a moment. But most importantly is how are we going to fund mum or dad’s care? That’s the biggest concern because it is not cheap and we’ve got to make sure that it is affordable. And a lot of people get shocked from all this is a very emotional time, Kylie.

Kylie – Host (04:35):

And we do see that a lot. There’s generally a lot of tears because you’re dealing with the families of the elderly parents and it’s mostly unfortunately because they either have Alzheimer’s or dementia or they just can’t care for themselves in the family home anymore. And it gets a bit complicated, doesn’t it, when there’s more than one family member who has power of attorney and those sort of things. So the key factors that people should consider when they’re-

Anthony (05:02):

Well the key factors is twofold. One is find out, okay, well can your parents stay at home? So there is home care and you can’t beat anywhere but your own home, your own bed, your own pillow. Everybody loves their own pillows. So staying at home is the best option there is. And unfortunately not for everybody, it can be done for that matter. So there is assistance in home care, but for those who can’t stay at home who need permanent care and that permanent care means extra services care where they need to be watched over 24 hours where their family can’t do that.

And that’s pretty much all. They use the term nursing homes or aged care. They use that term these days. So there is two different types. So obviously home care, there is a cost to that, but it’s not as expensive as going into a permanent care.

Kylie – Host (06:02):

So home care would be more if they’re still slightly independent and can still do a few things for themselves or?

Anthony (06:09):

That’s correct. Yeah, most they can do things independently themselves. They don’t need to be watched over, but they were slowing down and might have some health issues. So they can get somebody to come and help them with their shopping, take them to doctors or specialists. They could also obviously have their family help them, which most of them try to do that. It’s just a bit of extra. And also do the things around the garden, home maintenance. So you need to register for that. For the home care to get that. Yeah. So if you are able to do that yourself and there’s not a lot of demand, you don’t need extra help… Well, what I mean by extra help is that you’ve got to depend on somebody to do everything for you.

Kylie – Host (06:50):

And it’s a really hard time for a lot of families, especially for the person that needs the care because they may be realizing that they’re losing-

Anthony (06:59):

Independence.

Kylie – Host (07:00):

Their independence and-

Anthony (07:00):

Very much so.

Kylie – Host (07:01):

We see it with your mom a little bit now.

Anthony (07:03):

Yes.

Kylie – Host (07:04):

She’s forgetful and things like that. And it’s really hard to watch when it’s somebody that was once so active and sprightly and to see them sort of struggle with just basic tasks of where they left their bank book. Your mom and her bank book, oh my God. Constantly misplacing it. But we have a bit of a laugh about that. That’s funny. So the potential costs that are associated, so say somebody needs to go into, what do they call it? Residential? Age care?

Anthony (07:37):

Yes.

Kylie – Host (07:37):

If somebody needs to go into permanent care, what are some of the things that need to be considered? So if somebody came to see you, somebody rings and says, “Mom needs to go into a nursing home.” What are the first things that you-

Anthony (07:50):

Well, the first things that I come back, obviously they’ve done the research, have gone to see a couple nursing homes. There’s two types of costs, the one’s the care costs and the other one’s the accommodation costs. So the care costs is having to stay where you can get the care from the nursing, you get food on a daily basis. So with the care costs, there is the basic daily fee, which everybody pays no matter who they are, whether they’re on the pension, full pension or not. Everybody pays that. And at the moment it’s just close to $59 per day. And then on top of that, depending on the residential age care premises, they might charge you an extra services fee generally.

Kylie – Host (08:39):

Is that for the hairdresser and thing or whatever? Facility? What’s that?

Anthony (08:40):

No, that that’s extra. Extra services are for, especially if the accommodations of the residential care is a newer place, they will charge a residential of their major refurbishments, but also sometimes includes that you might want to have a glass of wine or a beer with dinner, or you’ve got access to Foxtel or any of their paid TV services or even having a hydro pool in there. So every premise is different and they can range from $20 a day upwards and it really comes down. So when you go to these permanent care residence, you need to ask them what’s included?

Kylie – Host (09:22):

So that’s really important to ask what’s included? Generally, are these fees, can you negotiate on those or are they fixed?

Anthony (09:30):

With the basic data for you can’t, it’s fixed. The extra services, at times you can, but we’re finding it’s becoming less likely now you can negotiate it. But it really comes down onto the residence or premises itself. So yeah, so they’re the care costs and then obviously there’s the accommodation costs.

Kylie – Host (09:52):

So is this where we get into all those acronyms, the RADS and-

Anthony (09:54):

Oh yes, thank Scott. You remember them? Yes, the Rad dap.

Kylie – Host (09:58):

Oh, I love a good acronym. Yeah. So are you going to break that down for us?

Anthony (10:01):

Yeah. So effectively, think of it as when you looking for a house, you either want to buy a property, a house, or you’re wanting to rent. So when you buy something, you actually buy the room. So that’s called the refundable accommodation deposit, which is RAD. Correct. Yep. So the RAD, when you pay for that room, that is 100% refundable to you if you leave or to the estate.

Kylie – Host (10:29):

Okay.

Anthony (10:31):

Okay. So the only exception is if you decide to have the ongoing cost deducted from the RAD, then obviously it’s going to be a lesser amount.

Kylie – Host (10:40):

And you can do that?

Anthony (10:41):

You can do that. Yep. So you just need to speak to the facility in regards to that. So if you’ve got the funds, then that’s good. How much are the funds? How much is the bond or the RAD? Well, that does vary. I’ve seen as low as $350,000. It averages around about 500, 600, but I’ve seen up to a million dollars. So it really depends on the location. So it really comes down to it. And each home has their different prices. Obviously they’ve all got a set amount, but if they want to charge over and above the standard, they need to get approval from the government to do that.

Kylie – Host (11:22):

So they’re capped at what they can charge for their-

Anthony (11:26):

There is, but generally the government, what I’ve seen, they’ve allowed most of it to go up higher. So it’s really important to understand that with the RAD. Now obviously not everybody can afford to pay the RAD. The deposit. That’s just the biggest issue.

So then they’ve got to pay a dap. Sorry. D-A-P. Daily accommodation payment. So what that in turns is basically paying rent [inaudible 00:11:55] into rent. So whatever money you pay, it’s gone. You don’t get any of it that back at all. So how it works is that it’s calculated on an interest rate based on the RAD amount and calculated on a daily basis.

Kylie – Host (12:11):

You might lose me here.

Anthony (12:12):

Yeah. So you can pay, some people say, “Well, I’ve got some money to pay the rent, but not all of it.” What happens there? Well, the portion you do not pay is then charged at the interest rate.

Kylie – Host (12:26):

Okay, okay. So they charge you interest. So say if you’re on a full pension, you would just pay that daily, but you’d pay a higher, is that what you’re saying?

Anthony (12:34):

No, no. Pensions don’t to do it.

Kylie – Host (12:35):

Did you lose me?

Anthony (12:37):

Say for example-

Kylie – Host (12:39):

Just quietly. This is kind of what it’s like when we budget at home, he loses me all the time. Then he starts talking about the shoe budget and I’m back in.

Anthony (12:47):

Okay. There you are. Okay. Say if it’s $500,000, they can pay $250,000 as a RAD, and therefore it leaves a balance of $250,000, which would then be when they’ll charge interest on that amount there.

Kylie – Host (12:59):

Okay.

Anthony (13:00):

So yeah.

Kylie – Host (13:00):

Okay.

Anthony (13:00):

Got that, Kylie? Yep.

Kylie – Host (13:04):

Got it. I’m really glad that you do this and not me. I’m better at this stuff so stay in your lane, right? That’s what you’re saying?

Anthony (13:11):

That’s right.

Kylie – Host (13:11):

That’s why I’m interviewing you so that you can explain it for everyone.

Anthony (13:18):

So that’s the accommodation cost, but then also also-

Kylie – Host (13:18):

But there’s more costs, right?

Anthony (13:18):

That’s right. There’s also more costs. So this is where they come in. The government subsidizes most of the aged care costing. However, they’ll look at individual circumstances. Now they’ll look at your financial situation and then if you have quite a bit of assets, which is made up of your bank account, own your own home, then they’re saying that they apply income and assets test and there’s a means tested fee. Now that means tested fee. They work out their formula and then they say, “Well, you are in a position to help contribute towards your care costs.” And that’s calculated on a quarterly basis. It can vary.

Kylie – Host (13:58):

Do they include the family home in that?

Anthony (14:01):

Well, the family home, yes. But there is a cap to the value of the family home, and I think I wrote it down here somewhere, I can’t find it now. Yeah, here it’s capped at $193,210. So it doesn’t matter what the value of the home is worth-

Kylie – Host (14:18):

It’s capped at that amount.

Anthony (14:19):

So it’s capped at that amount as long as you own it. If you sell it, then that’s a different story altogether.

Kylie – Host (14:26):

Oh, okay. What happens if you sell it?

Anthony (14:28):

Well then it becomes an asset because you’ve got money and therefore what we’ve seen, when that does happen, the means system fee goes up quite substantially.

Kylie – Host (14:37):

Okay. So in terms of everything you’ve just explained to me, how do you help people get the most out of the system? What do you look at? How do you work your numbers for the best possible financial situation?

Anthony (14:56):

Yeah. Well the reason why people come and see us in the first place is can we afford the cost? So what we do is we look at their situation, the financial situation where they’re now, and give them a scenario where what it means if they don’t do nothing, this is outcome, which most of the times is not going to be viable. So then they’ll come and ask me, “Okay, what can we do to help make sure we can fund the care costs?”

Because most importantly, it’s for their parent.They want to make sure that the parent’s getting the best care and sometimes they want a particular place. So they’re going to say, okay, we want mum or dad to be there, how can we afford it? So we’ll look at their situation and at times it may mean that they are the home’s, the biggest thing, which is their castle.

Kylie – Host (15:43):

It’s a big thing. There’s so much emotion around a family home.

Anthony (15:47):

Absolutely, yes. It’s very emotionally driven and most of our family home, their kids have grown up there since they were kids.

Kylie – Host (15:52):

Yeah, the mom and dad could have been immigrants. They worked hard to just get that piece of land. So they don’t want to sell it.

Anthony (15:58):

They didn’t want to sell it and give it away. Everybody that I’ve noticed try to hold onto it and rare occasion it can be held on, but sometimes it’s a bit difficult. So we look at, okay, well if you want to hold onto the home, okay, let’s look at what rent you can derive from it. Because that could help pay towards the cost.

So we look at that, we look at the option that maybe the children want to help with the cashflow. If the children or family are in a position they can do that, that’s all in good. But the question is, how long is mom or dad going to live for? That’s the biggest thing. No one knows our expiry date. We don’t have one.

So we’ve got to make sure. Yeah, sometimes people say “Mom’s not going to live for too long.” Then they end up being in a home for three years plus. Where somebody else would say, “Mom and dad’s great, they’ll live forever.” And a few months later they passed away. So we don’t know. So what we do is say “Okay, well with the home, what happens if we sell it?” What does it mean? How’s it going to affect our age pension? That’s another thing that people forget because when you go into aged care, you’re dealing with two different government departments, aged care and also CentreLink. And they’ve got their own different rules.

Kylie – Host (17:23):

Dealing with ones enough, isn’t it?

Anthony (17:24):

So there are different rules. So whatever, what works with one with the aged care doesn’t mean it’s the same as for the age pension as well. So the biggest thing is just to know, okay, can we afford it? How long does it last for? That’s pretty much the biggest concern everybody has.

Kylie – Host (17:43):

Yeah. So can you give me an example of somebody you’ve helped and how much you’ve potentially saved them? Or if it was a particularly favorable outcome? Change names of course.

Anthony (18:00):

I won’t use the name, obviously. I can’t give you the exact dollars, but I could tell you the summary of it is.

Kylie – Host (18:06):

Just a general idea of the situation.

Anthony (18:10):

I had a daughter come to see me, she had enduring powers of attorney for her mom. So it’s really important to get that in place first.

Kylie – Host (18:15):

So I’m going to touch on that whole estate planning partners.

Anthony (18:19):

So she had enduring power of attorney to her mom. Her mom, she was in a nursing home, and at that time she just sold her house and found out that mom, she had no pension. The costs of the nursing home were quite expensive and she had all the money in a bank account. But that’s what she knew. A lot of people-

Kylie – Host (18:44):

She sold the home, the money was just sitting in a bank account?

Anthony (18:45):

Bank account because she wanted to a safe.

Kylie – Host (18:47):

And so she lost her pension?

Anthony (18:48):

She lost her pension, she sold her home. They tried-

Kylie – Host (18:50):

This is before they came to see you.

Anthony (18:52):

This is before they came to see me. And her daughter was saying to me, “We’re running out of money. Money’s going down very fast. What can we do?” So I looked at this situation, so realized, I said, the main reason I had the money in the bank account because they want security, they want a guarantee and they want a bit of certainty, but that certainly wasn’t given them enough income to cover the cost of the age care cost because they were pretty much self funded.

So when I looked at their situation, I looked at it and looked at numbers and I thought, here’s the situation. I told her that we just need to rearrange your investments, which will still have the same security guarantee. However, what we would do, two things. One, it would help reduce the means tested fee. So the aged care cost will start to come down. And two, and the most importantly thing is, which the daughter wanted, to see if we can get a part pension or pension for a mom.

Kylie – Host (19:51):

Because that gives them the discount on their medication and the health card, is that-

Anthony (19:55):

Well, those two get the discount on the medication. So pretty much they get that it’s more just getting additional income from somewhere else. And with older people, they’ve worked hard, they depend on the pension.

Kylie – Host (20:07):

They want their bit of pension. Yeah.

Anthony (20:07):

So what we did was we able to rearrange the investment. So as I said, we reduced the money assisted fee, but also also got a part H pension. So overall between the reduction of the aged care costs plus the increase or recommencing of the age pension was given her an extra about $5,000 cashflow positive.

Kylie – Host (20:33):

From being self-funded and money going down, you turned it into her being positive cash five thousand dollars.

Anthony (20:40):

Pretty much. Yeah. Positive. So I started receiving an age pension plus a reducer costs. So the net between those two was a $5,000 financial gain for the mum. So she was ecstatic. She couldn’t believe it.

Kylie – Host (20:52):

Yeah And I guess they don’t know what they don’t know. They just kind of think that that’s how it is until they come to see you.

Anthony (20:57):

That’s right, because as you mentioned before, it’s a very emotional timeframe because no one plans to go to permanent care or nursing home. Of course not. It’s just your mom or dad could be in hospital all of a sudden specialist says Mom and dad can’t go back home. And that has a big impact. I know that personally with my dad many years ago, and it is very emotional.

So I understand when clients come to see me, where I’ve walked that track so I know what it’s like. And you need to have the head space because all of a sudden everything has to be done urgently. It’s not like you’ve got three months to decide. It’s do it right now.

Kylie – Host (21:38):

It’s all of a sudden.

Anthony (21:40):

Decisions now. That’s the hardest part.

Kylie – Host (21:41):

Yeah. Back to the estate planning. What are some things that you should get in place now? So really needs to be done. You need to speak to your lawyer before?

Anthony (21:52):

Well, yeah, everybody should have a will.

Kylie – Host (21:57):

As anyone of any age?

Anthony (21:59):

Yeah.

Kylie – Host (21:59):

Yeah. Agreed.

Anthony (22:02):

Also we find that people should look at implementing enduring powers of attorneys. Now, I’m not a legal person here, but an enduring power of attorney will basically let you give somebody else the authority to act on your behalf.

So it’s really important because if you don’t have that and you get diagnosed with dementia, unfortunately the family can’t act on your behalf and therefore you’ll need to get the public trustee to step in and to make the decisions, which-

Kylie – Host (22:32):

Good luck with that.

Anthony (22:33):

Then that drags on because you can’t get an answer straight away.

Kylie – Host (22:36):

Yeah. No, good luck with that.

For you to see somebody, do they need to have the enduring power of attorney?

Anthony (22:47):

If they’re talking on behalf of the parent? Yes, we do. Because due to privacy, we can’t discuss their financial matters because there’s a lot of things we need to gather, such as their bank accounts, savings, all the financial. So we can’t get that if they don’t have endured power of attorneys. So it makes it difficult.

Kylie – Host (23:04):

So just to backtrack a little bit, so we’ve just talked about residential aged care. So if somebody’s dementia or they can’t care for themselves, does anybody come to see you that is moving into a retirement village? Like partners and they’re moving into a retirement village? Yeah.

Anthony (23:23):

Yeah. We do have retirement villages where people, their home is too big for them to maintain. They want to downsize in regards to, not to the value, but just the size of the property and less maintenance. So they come and ask us about going into a retirement village. Each retirement villages have different costs, upfront costs, but then they also have different exit costs as well. So to put it very simply, the more you pay, the less you pay as an exit fee.

The less you pay, the higher the exit fee. And because retirement villages are owned by different organizations, could be the church groups, could be private-

Kylie – Host (24:11):

And you have all the care and all the different and-

Anthony (24:13):

And the Salvation Army, even. RSLs. So every retirement village have their different set of rules. It’s really important that if you go to look at a retirement village, you’re actually going into a contract. So it’s really important to seek legal advice.

Kylie – Host (24:30):

I was just going to say make sure you get-

Anthony (24:32):

And most importantly is get your children involved because that’s where the problem arises at the end is that the parents don’t talk to their children about it and then once they pass away, they realize that if think they’re going to get the value of the home and realize they’re going to, they’re going to get a much less portion of it.

Kylie – Host (24:50):

Got it. So what advice would you give to someone who’s just starting out on this journey of looking for aged care for their loved ones or family members?

Anthony (25:01):

I would say to go onto the My Aged Care website, register your parent, because it is important to start that process. It has a lot of information on there. It also shows the nursing homes, even retirement villages are in your area. And also they do advertise, excuse me, their RAD, their accommodation costs. So you have an idea. It also applies for home care. So if you want to get some home care, it’s good to register for that because there is, just because you register doesn’t mean you get an answer straight away. It can take as long as six months, even longer now to get assessed. So the earlier you do it, the better.

And that way this helps that process for you. So you’ve just got to look at location. And then I think what I would suggest is to the family, to think about the family home. Because that’s the biggest concern a lot people have. If you want to keep the family home, how are you going to manage to fund it? So we’ve got to look at that because they’ll go on My Aged Care website, they’ll know which nursing home they want to have their parent to go into. They advertise their costs. You go, okay, what do we do here? Okay, so how are we going to fund it? So we’ll look at that and then obviously if they can retain it, that’s even better. But if not, then that’s when we come in afterwards is how to minimize costs, how to get the maximum benefit, how to retain the age pension where we can.

Kylie – Host (26:32):

So how can somebody start the conversation? Have you had any experience with that? Well I guess you would’ve with your dad starting the conversation of-

Anthony (26:43):

Well, no, not really. We were thrown at that-

Kylie – Host (26:45):

Actually, I think your dad was forced to go in there. Was he?

Anthony (26:49):

Well, he was forced. He had no choice in a matter of this, especially when they said you can’t go home anymore. And that’s, I’ve got to say, as I said, it’s a very emotional time and everything happens so fast. You’re thinking, hold a second, let’s just go back. Where did this come from? Well, it just happens sometimes and you can only plan for so much, but when it happens, it happens. The thing is what we have to do, we start going to overdrive thinking, okay, where can we find nursing home close by? So mom-

Kylie – Host (27:23):

Because your mom doesn’t drive. Yeah. So you need to think of those things.

Anthony (27:23):

She doesn’t drive. Yeah. You look at public transport location, you’ve got other family members where we want to be central.That’s what I’m saying, you’ve got to go on My Aged Care website to see what nurse homes are in the area. And the issue is they might not have any vacancies because an aging population is growing at a faster rate than they can build the nursing homes. That’s another challenge. So yeah.

Kylie – Host (27:50):

Crazy.

Anthony (27:50):

It’s planning. You can put your name down there and register for it. That’s probably what you can do. There’s a lot of people do that. I did that many, many years ago, but didn’t need it. But then five years later happened that need it for dad.

Kylie – Host (28:05):

I thought you were talking about it for yourself then. I’m like what?

Anthony (28:06):

No, I’m not going to [inaudible 00:28:11].

Kylie – Host (28:12):

You’re leaving me? Geez. Who’s going to mow the lawn and take the bins out?

Anthony (28:15):

We’ve got boys.

Kylie – Host (28:21):

Okay, so some misconceptions. What are some misconceptions about this space?

Anthony (28:28):

Oh, why do I need to see a financial advisor? They can’t help me. They’re going to charge me a big fee. Well, there was one time where somebody asked me what our costs were, explained to them, and then they said, “No, don’t, it’s too expensive.” And I knew from my calculations that I’d worked out for them that they were going to invest in my specialty and my expertise was going to save them a lot, a lot of money in the long term. Anyway, that was their choice.

Kylie – Host (28:57):

And that’s okay. That’s their choice.

Anthony (28:57):

That’s their choice. The thing is, it’s really important, because as we said, it’s a very emotional, you get caught up with emotions and everything becomes a burden on the person, on the children. And it’s just a hard decision for the children to make. And it’s good to get advice because to see whether we cannot. There’s been occasions where for some people we haven’t been able to do anything to solve their circumstances. But I would say probably more than 75% of the time, even higher, that we’ve been able to save people and save them a lot of money over time because the longer their parent stays in nursing home, it can add up quite substantially.

Kylie – Host (29:39):

Yeah. It’s not cheap, right?

Anthony (29:41):

Yeah.

Kylie – Host (29:42):

Again, it depends on where you want to stay and where mom or dad want to go to. So there’s a really nice place down the road from us in Bella Vista. That’s quite nice. I wouldn’t mind going there. I think that’s the million dollar one that-

Anthony (29:52):

That’s close to a million dollars.

Kylie – Host (29:53):

Are we tracking-

Anthony (29:54):

It’s $750,000 bond I think they want.

Kylie – Host (29:56):

Doing alright with a nice movie room and it’s out on the lake.

Anthony (29:59):

It is. That’s very nice. Yes.

Kylie – Host (30:00):

I think they’ve got a tennis score too. We’re tracking all right to go there? Doing the number. Anyway. So Anthony, I want to wrap it up. What would be your top three tips for someone considering aged care for themselves or loved one?

Anthony (30:18):

Consider the type of care you may need. So whether it’s home, as I said, going back to registering for my age care, Whether it will be home care, hopefully that’s what we all aim for is stay in our own home. If not, start looking at other options in regards to care. Consider whether maybe if the children have room in the backyard, they could build granny flats. That’s another option where they help.

But by doing that, you’ve got to be very careful is that the children have their own family to worry about too. So I’m sure parents don’t want to put a burden on their own child. No one wants that. So some children decide that they want that, then they realize down the track a couple of years later it’s a lot of hard work. And then their health gets impacted too. So I say to clients, don’t be a hero, just do the best thing for your parent and for yourself. Because if you get sick, you’re not going to be good for anybody.

Kylie – Host (31:14):

That’s exactly right.

Anthony (31:16):

So it’s really important to look at that.

Kylie – Host (31:19):

And their family needs them too, right?

Anthony (31:23):

With my mum, she doesn’t like talking about nursing homes, but my brother and my sister, we are aware of it and we are just conscious about it. I think that’s the most important thing is don’t ignore it because it could happen. It may not happen, but if it does, at least you’re prepared. It’s not a shock to the system.

Kylie – Host (31:43):

So yeah, Anthony’s mom that he’s talking about is four foot nothing. Little Maltese, tiny lady. And you mention the word “You’ll be carrying me out of here in a box.”

Anthony (31:55):

That’s her common commentary.

Kylie – Host (31:56):

She doesn’t want to hear it. “I’m not going nowhere. I’m leaving here in a box.” Conversations like that. But anyway, yeah.

Anthony (32:04):

So we’re aware of it. So it’s important. But also another thing to consider about is the family home. Because one of the things that people, where they’ve sold a home has taken them six months plus. The reason for that because their parents have been living there for 40, 50 years. Imagine the accumulated wealth or wealth of nothing.

Kylie – Host (32:28):

Wealth of objects, yes.

Anthony (32:29):

Objects. So trying to sort all that out, it’s important. And also looking at preparing it to sell if we need to do that. So I tell the clients start thinking about cleaning some of the rubbish, I suppose, around the home so that way it won’t be a big chore.

Kylie – Host (32:47):

A massive task. Yeah, exactly. And another one would be go and speak to a lawyer before anything to talk about powers of attorneys, enduring guardianships, things like that. Making sure wills and everything’s up-to-date. Yeah,

Anthony (33:00):

Yeah. That’s really important to make sure those things are covered before mom or dad become of unsound mind because once it happens, it’s too late and it’s going to be a very difficult process for the children to handle as well.

Kylie – Host (33:12):

Yeah. I think you’ve had a couple of instances where homeownership and things like kids assume that both parents own the home but then find out it was just that home was in the dad’s name, particularly if they’re older. Because I think especially-

Anthony (33:28):

Especially the older generations.

Kylie – Host (33:30):

Yes. They’re kind of getting all those things organized.

Anthony (33:36):

Because most times before many years ago it was only the male, the husband went to work, the banks wouldn’t deal with the wife because they didn’t earn an income. So most times houses are in a husband’s name, but they should look at reviewing that to have it in joint ownership, make it a little bit easier. But again, best to seek legal advice. I’m not an expert on that.

Kylie – Host (33:55):

What I really mean is getting everything in order because if the person passes who the house is in the name of, then it causes problems. So sort of just starting the process.

Anthony (34:07):

Make sure they’ve got the will available, make sure it’s available at all times. And also during power return, make sure everything’s in place.

Kylie – Host (34:14):

Before anything drastic happens. Because if it happens, it’s too late.

Anthony (34:19):

And there’s one more thing before-

Kylie – Host (34:22):

Tell us.

Anthony (34:26):

Especially if we’re getting an age pension part H pension particularly is make sure that their parents’ financial details are up-to-date with selling because that will be the driving point that will work out what the means tested fee is. So if the assets are overstated, that means your means tested fee will be even higher. So it’s really important to get to review that at least once a year and make sure all the details, financial assets that Centrelink have got are up-to-date.

Kylie – Host (34:57):

Yes. And when dealing with Centrelink, you always, what do we do? We get the name of the person, a reference number, and what’s the other one? The date and time if were in there. And the reference. Got to get that reference number.

Anthony (35:09):

Correct. Yeah.

Kylie – Host (35:10):

Because if you don’t have that, it didn’t happen, right?

Anthony (35:12):

Correct. Because even though you might go to their office and supply the information to them, it does not mean it’s going to be processed. And I’ve said way too many times where it hasn’t happened and then they come back and try to claim money back from you as overpayment. But if you’ve got that evidence, then they will waive it or they won’t chase you for it. So it’s really important to get those details.

Kylie – Host (35:42):

It is. Yes. So Anthony, thank you so much for chatting to us about age care. A bit of a serious topic for our first interview. We’ll try and make the next one a bit more fun, but it’s really important and it’s something that you really need to have in place and really need to think about. And it just shows the value of financial advice, which obviously we’re in the industry, we really believe in that advice, but we get to see it every day and how we help people. And I love that you’re so passionate about helping the retirees and the aging population because they really are the ones that worked hard and helped build up the country.

Anthony (36:19):

We help everybody who wants our help.

Kylie – Host (36:20):

We do help everybody, but this is what your specialty is.

Anthony (36:23):

Yeah. That’s what I do.

Kylie – Host (36:24):

So thank you again for coming and have an awesome day. And what’s for dinner? Did you get something out of the freezer this morning?

Anthony (36:33):

We did. We did.

Kylie – Host (36:33):

Yeah, we did. I think we’re having sausages. So thank you for listening in watching another episode of The Money Brew and my beautiful husband Anthony Sultana. Thank you.

Anthony (36:44):

Thank you.