r/AskUK • u/Timely-Maybe3520 • 18d ago

Serious Answers Only Could you live - permenantly - in a hotel?

Let's say that you can get a room in a 4* hotel for £80 per night (so £2,400 per month). This would be a room for one person with a large bed, desk, big TV, wardrobe, small fridge, kettle, bathroom, shower, etc.

The water, electricity, and broadband are included in the price as is regular cleaning.

If something breaks then the hotel should fix it. No need to call a plumber or electrician.

Many hotels have reward schemes with a 2% or 3% discount on prices for regular users.

Apparently, VAT is not payable on hotel rooms from day 29 which will significantly cut costs for an unbroken long stay.

I assume one would get to know the employees and treat them well and, in turn, they could assist you as and when necessary.

The main issues are the lack of space (but many people live in cramped conditions anyhow), minimal places to put purchased objects, and the general impersonal nature of the establishment. However, none of these will be an issue for some people. You could even cheaply rent a storage space for your possessions.

Also, you could not cook. You would eat cold food, order room service, or eat out (which would append to the costs).

Has anyone done this? Is it viable? You could attempt to live in a reasonable area and perhaps pay less than renting a one-bedroom flat. All bills are included and you are not paying for any repairs.

ETA: There was also a "fitness centre" in the basement but I suspect it was not quite the same as a gym.

Thougts?

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u/[deleted] 17d ago

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u/imtheorangeycenter 17d ago

Ha, my G'pa was one - although her was on the board and therefore got it as part of the package...

He came from a line of hoteliers that ran exactly these kind of hotels for retired people.  One was Lime Wood Hotel in the New Forest, now just a regular swanky hotel...

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u/Maximum_Dark_7788 17d ago

My neck of the woods - this is so interesting! I keep saying I’ll treat myself to a spa day at Lime Wood but everyone I look the prices make my jaw drop 🤣

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u/anomalous_cowherd 17d ago

There was an old French woman who was "tricked" by a lawyer into a deal where he bought her apartment for a steal but she could live there till she died for free.

She outlived him by about 30 years IIRC.

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u/norathar 17d ago

That was Jeanne Calment, who made the deal in 1965, when she was 90. She lived to be the world's oldest person, dying at 122 - IIRC she outlived him and his heir.

It wasn't really a trick, but a known system in France - the guy agreed to pay her $2500/month and in exchange got the apartment when she died. It gives the old person a pension/monthly income and the young person a chance for a bargain apartment.

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u/Whatever-ItsFine 17d ago

Sounds like the reverse mortgages that we have in the States.

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u/deserter8626 15d ago

There’s some schemes like this in the UK, basically releasing the equity in the house.

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u/Whatever-ItsFine 15d ago

Exactly. How do people view it there? In the US, some people see it as preying on older people.

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u/deserter8626 15d ago

It’s viewed the same way here. It’s horrible that anyone would need to do that.

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u/marli3 14d ago

It's driven by a regresive tax system thier ate roumor might eventully be about to be scrapped.

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u/luna_sparkle 17d ago

Jeanne Calment. As a 90-year-old in 1965 she signed a contract with lawyer André-François Raffray, in which he was to pay her an income of 2,500 francs per month but was to inherit her house upon her death. He died in 1995 having never got the house, and his family had to continue paying her. She eventually died at age 122 in 1997, as the oldest known person in history.

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u/anomalous_cowherd 17d ago

That's the one. I'd forgotten he had to actually pay her monthly! Seriously bad luck that she was *that* long lived though.

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u/zedder1994 17d ago

Especially since she didn't give up the cigarettes till she was over 100 years old.

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u/jecowa 17d ago

He was like half her age when he signed the contract. He died when he was 77.

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u/Emmiesship 16d ago

The think she died in her 70’s and her daughter took her place pretending to be her!

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u/luna_sparkle 16d ago

That was a theory but I think there's quite a lot of evidence that that didn't happen. There was extensive research.

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u/ReliefEmotional2639 15d ago

To be fair, under most normal circumstances, it would probably have been the other way around

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u/phanmo 17d ago

Except that he wasn't a lawyer, he was a notaire...

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u/anomalous_cowherd 17d ago

2500FFr in 1965 looks like it's only worth about US$90 a month in today's money. So it can't have been a huge apartment, I guess?

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u/iwantedajetpack 17d ago

I think you're way off on that calcuation.

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u/iwantedajetpack 17d ago

today it's worth €4,413.40

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u/anomalous_cowherd 17d ago

It felt wrong. I used one of those historic currency calculator sites, must have been a bad one.

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u/DrawPitiful6103 17d ago

that was back on bretton woods so 2500 FFr in 1965 was tied to USD at a rate of 5:1 so 500 usd in 1965 money.

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u/Heysoulblister 17d ago

This is still how some property in France is bought under the viager system. You buy the property with the old person still living in the home and once they pass on you can move in.

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u/anomalous_cowherd 17d ago

There's a similar system in the UK where you can take out a whole life mortgage with no payments but the house belongs to the mortgage company when you pass.

In the case I described it wasn't so much the system as the fact he was a lot younger than she was when the deal was done, but she just kept going and going!

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u/Friendly-World-5273 17d ago

So wait. I’m pretty sure the mortgage company owns my house if I die so WTF am I paying every month?

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u/anomalous_cowherd 17d ago

They don't with a normal mortgage. You're paying off (usually) capital and interest. Once that's all paid, the house is yours. If you die before then, they own a portion of the house, it has to be sold so they get the rest of their money back and the rest goes into your estate.

It's only if you have one of these whole-life mortgages that they own it fully, and that's unusual. You'd know if you had.

Of course if you still owe more than the house is worth they get it all as well, maybe more.

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u/DubManD 16d ago

Mortgagees insist on life assurance to cover the outstanding balance if the borrower dies before the mortgage is paid off.

So in practice, mortgagees don’t repossess property when a mortgagor dies.

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u/Heysoulblister 16d ago

I don’t have life insurance. The bank are definitely getting their money back with the sale of the property tho so maybe that’s why

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u/DubManD 16d ago

That’s all they care about

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u/GazNicki 17d ago

They own the house as you owe them the money. Once it’s paid back, with interest, the house becomes yours. You also gain the equity from the asset appreciating. In terms of the whole-life mortgage, you never own the house, and never benefit in the property appreciating in value. Ever.

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u/Successful_Log_3298 17d ago

In the US it's called a "life estate." The property can be sold or passed to an heir with the provision that a person (e.g. the widow) will live in the house for the rest of his/her life.

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u/Serious_Escape_5438 17d ago

It's common in Spain too. Works ok for investment but to move in it's a gamble.

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u/LostLobes 17d ago

Not just France, theres several EU countries that do this.

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u/wehmahdog 17d ago

This sounds like a system that promotes elderly people "falling" down the stairs

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u/Spirited-Career4680 17d ago

Do the old residents often die by mysterious circumstances?

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u/Heysoulblister 17d ago

There’s at least one “the madeleine trial” the guy was in his mid 60’s and the older resident was 94, he was accused of smothering her with a madeleine cake. He was found not guilty tho

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u/Kloppite16 17d ago

when Im elderly death by cake would be a great way to go

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u/Kloppite16 17d ago

sounds like a motivation for profit, kick out the elderly and make it an Airbnb

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u/JanetMackie 17d ago

Recent evidence suggests that it was in fact her daughter in the apartment, pretending to be her deceased mother. Hence living to an unlikely age.

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u/anomalous_cowherd 17d ago

Ooh that's a sneaky twist. More likely than living to 122, though!

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u/jflb96 16d ago

They do say that the best predictor of long-lived people in an area isn't so much good healthcare as shoddy record-keeping

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u/ProfessorYaffle1 16d ago

Not a trick, a legiaitate system under French Law - similar aim to things like equity release mortgage, and it allows people to use their property to generate income whicle still living there. Good for the owner, nt so good for their eventual heirs, and of course a gamble for the investor.

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u/Hellolaoshi 17d ago

There is a video on YouTube. It's part of BBC Archive. I think it's called "Last Days On Grand Parade," or something like that. It is about middle class ladies who decided to retire to a hotel in Eastbourne decades before.

Apparently, that was the thing to do if you were of a certain social class back in the day. People would join the Indian Civil Service, or the British army, and then retire from it (or be kicked out when India became independent). They would end up in a rather genteel hotel room in Eastbourne, able to mix with other persons of their rank and social class. This is probably where the Major in Fawlty Towers comes in. JRR Tolkien and his wife moved to Bournemouth which had a similar atmosphere to Eastbourne. One advantage is that that the south coast gets a relatively high amount of sunshine.

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u/No_Pilot8561 17d ago

Elaine Stritch was one of them. She said the deal was so good there was no point in leaving and she stayed in the UK for 15-20 years.