Almost 50,000 people living in residential homes this year have been forced to sell their homes to pay for care, figures have suggested.
Some 48,000 people in care homes in 2009 were estimated to have sold their homes to pay for care - equivalent to eight homes every day, according to research released by the Liberal Democrats.
This is up from 45,000 in 2008 and up 23% on the 39,000 in 2005.
The percentage of all care home residents forced to sell their homes has also risen since 2005, from an estimated 11% to 13% in 2009.
An estimated 155,000 - or 41% of people in private and voluntary sector care homes - self-funded their care, according to the UK snapshot data for April 2009.
Almost a third (31%) of those sold their homes to cover the costs, according to the analysis carried out by the House of Commons Library.
Lib Dem health spokesman Norman Lamb said: "This Government's treatment of older people is its shameful legacy. Ministers have turned their backs on thousands of older people who are forced to sell their homes each year to pay for the costs of care.
"The recent Social Care Green Paper was the perfect opportunity to sort this problem out, but yet again Labour has kicked this issue into the long grass. We need a complete overhaul of the current unfair system so that people's homes are no longer considered fair game to cover care bills."
The Government has set out plans to create a National Care Service with the aim of simplifying the funding structure.
Ministers have promised to ensure needs are assessed using a national scale, to prevent people being categorised under different criteria. They have been consulting on ways to pay for social care, including allowing people to insure themselves for the costs the Government will not cover.
