How much of the income goes to it?
If both partners are already living in a retirement home, they have to use their regular income, such as annuities or pensions, entirely to cover the increased home costs, as Kröll explains. Savings must also be used. The protective ability remains untouched. If only one of the spouses or life partners comes to the home while the other stays at home, the obligation to support each other financially applies. Those who stay behind must then contribute to the home costs. But: Those who stay at home must have enough money left over to continue paying their costs, such as rent and meals. The social welfare office always checks on a case-by-case basis how much of the joint income is appropriate for financing the home. Withdrawing money quickly beforehand and counting your partner “poorer” is not a good idea. That usually flies up.
What about your own property?
If necessary, the owner-occupied apartment or house must be used if income and assets are not sufficient to cover the home costs permanently. A sale usually becomes unavoidable when both partners move into the home. Kröll warns that it is not advisable to quickly transfer a property to the children or relatives before going to the social welfare office. In the case of care, the office checks whether donations have been made from the existing assets in the past ten years. If so, the action will boomerang. The office will reclaim the donation. The situation is different when one moves into the home but the other stays behind. The owner-occupied property then remains untouched – provided it is appropriately large, not a luxury property and not of above-average value. “There are certainly cases where a partner had to leave the house they lived in to sell it to care for the other because it was disproportionately large,” says Kröll.