downsize ?

[joany]

hello, could anyone advise me accuratly please. my husband is in a care home with a.d. we have council funding to pay the care fees. we own our own home, however i need to downsize. i would then have money leftover, would i then have to start paying for his care untill it runs out and then claim again for full assistance ???
thakyou

[jenniferpa]

The way the strict interpretation of the rules says it should work is:

You sell the house, and after all fees etc are paid, the remaining profit is shared between the two of you. If that would take your husband over the self funding level then yes, he would be paying his care fees for a period of time. However the problem is that unless you have a fairly substantial property with no mortgage and you're downsizing to something very small, 50% of the profit from a house may not be enough to buy what you want to buy.

Local Authorities have the discretion to allow you to retain more than 50% of profits but it is at their discretion. I would strongly suggest that you get an agreement in writing from them if you intend to go this route.

[joany]

hello and thanks for responding, that was very usefull,

The way the strict interpretation of the rules says it should work is:

You sell the house, and after all fees etc are paid, the remaining profit is shared between the two of you. If that would take your husband over the self funding level then yes, he would be paying his care fees for a period of time. However the problem is that unless you have a fairly substantial property with no mortgage and you're downsizing to something very small, 50% of the profit from a house may not be enough to buy what you want to buy.

Local Authorities have the discretion to allow you to retain more than 50% of profits but it is at their discretion. I would strongly suggest that you get an agreement in writing from them if you intend to go this route.

[TinaT]

I wonder if you could answer this for me Jennifer please? I own outright my own home which I live in. My husband owns none of the property. He is getting continuing care funding. If I downsize would the Local Authority be able claim anything from the sale of the house?

Hope you can answer this for any future downsizing thoughts I may have.

xxTinaT

[jenniferpa]

You mean in a situation where for some reason NHS CC was not being paid? Because it would then all come down to "does he have an interest in the property?" And if he doesn't then it's just as if it was my house - the LA would have no claim on it. As it stands though, with full funding from the NHS, this would never come up. Further, is this not 117 aftercare funding? Because if so, that's extremely unlikely to ever be rescinded. NHS CC can and does get taken away, but so far, if you get 117 aftercare where there is a progressive illness like dementia, where recovery isn't possible unfortunately, they cannot say "oh you no longer need this care".

The one thing that concerns me though is that when you have been married a long time, finances do get very tangled. I suppose what I am concerned about (and please don't tell us on the forum, it's your business) is could the LA make a claim that in fact some of his assets were used to purchase the house? In which case he could be deemed to have a beneficial interest in the property although I think they'd have to go to court to prove that and I suspect that would cost more (probably way more) than they could hope to recoup.

This last paragraph is really just my musings based on my reading of CRAG rather than any superior knowledge. I really do not think you have anything to worry about in any case. If you for some reason felt that CC could be withdrawn I would advise you to contact a legal professional to ensure that he had no beneficial interest in your house. It could only become an issue if the LA as opposed to the NHS or PCT was paying for his care.

It is established that only the assets of the ill person can be used to pay for care.