As an older adult in my late 50’s, with my Dad in his 80’s, I have become more overwhelmed with the information that I’ve learned over the past 4 years. First, we know that our parents have worked their entire lives paying their mortgages, paying off loans and buying cars to get to work.  Building up retirement income so they could live comfortably when they stopped working full time.  Are they prepared for what could happen to everything they worked so hard for? Unfortunately, most are not.

There is a 65-70% chance that older adults will need some type of assisted living in the future. That is a huge percentage.  The costs are much higher than staying in your home.  There are some adult kids who have the time and resources to actually assist their parents so that they can stay home for a while, but many adult kids have jobs, businesses and or kids that they can not leave or move close to their parents, etc in order to help them.

  Even property taxes, depending on your state, can be so difficult to pay even with a paid off mortgage. There are many thousands of seniors losing their paid off homes to counties that “legally” seized their property due to unpaid property taxes. That is a subject for a different day..

The purpose of this article is to bring to light some information that should be known by all of us that have parents who may need financial assistance now or in the future due to heavy senior community costs or just staying in their mortgage free home and not losing it to unpaid taxes.  It is just not fair in any way for us to live our entire lives working so hard to leave a legacy for our kids and grandkids, only to lose it all in order to live in a senior community that is so very expensive.  I’m not bashing senior communities for their costs. I understand why it is so expensive, but that doesn’t make it easier for seniors to choose transitioning there.

I am not an attorney or financial advisor, but I do partner with them and will refer them to families when necessary to point you in the right direction, while transitioning your senior loved one. This right here is the main reason why we wanted to work with seniors.  We had to figure things out with our own parents and some other family members over the past few years.  Our mission is to advocate for each senior with their family, to assist in any way possible with education and resources.