Need some advice please... MIL gone into hospital,then going into Care Home. Has been

lilacben

Registered User
Jan 22, 2013
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at home until she was taken in on sunday.
The help my husband and I need are regards Money and Court of Protection....My husband is her Court of Protection deputy as well as her eldest son.
Briefly I will try to explain...Up until sunday my brother in Law has been living at home with his mother and was classed as her carer. He didnt go home to care for her but was already living at home.
My husband was given Court of Protection and has been in charge of her money. Every month he was been paying half of all the household bills..plus mothers own items and personal things in full..She has been getting attendence allowance which helped pay plus her pension...She is 90.
Now what we need help with is ..
We have phoned about her attendence allowence and they have told us we will still get it for a month. then it will be stopped.
Then mum will only get her pension....
Now this has all happened will the Court of Protection expect the money to be stopped to brother in law regards Household Bills?
I say it has to stop now as she is not living there anymore.? Am I correct.?
My sister in law seems to think we should carry on paying him so he can stay in the house as with out his mothers money he couldnt cope.
Really would like some help as we are coming out as monsters to them both for taking the money away?
Sorry this is so long. many thanks
 

Beate

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May 21, 2014
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London
There is no way he should be allowed to use his mother's money to pay bills for a house she is no longer living in, even if she would have wanted that, as it would be classed as deprivation of her assets. They have to be very careful with her money and use it for her in her best interest. He will have to apply for his own benefits if he is eligible for any as his carers allowance will also be stopped if she goes in a home, assuming she is not self-funding.
 

kenaidog

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Apr 8, 2013
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Yes i think they will soon stop anything that is being paid as it will be taken to pay for her at the home, he will have to apply for benefits if he needs too, i assume there will be no mortgage on her house at the age . And there is no way you should have to pay, im sure you couldnt afford to pay for your brother to stay there, i think that actually he may be forced out as he is not under age or her husband.unless he has some disablity, im sure thats what i read about yesterday.
 

meme

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Aug 29, 2011
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London
The mother had her son living at home (his home too) and kept him safe and one can safely assume she would want her money to carry on keeping him so. It is so easy to say well he can get benefits now etc etc not necessarily so ...have some compassion for those less able to swim in the big sea.
 
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Pickles53

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Feb 25, 2014
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Radcliffe on Trent
A deputy or attorney has to act in the person's best financial interests, which is not necessarily what he/she would have chosen to do. This means that the mother's assets must be spent on her and not be used to subsidise the son. It may seem harsh, but that is how the law sees it. Doing anything else runs the risk of being a breach of fiduciary duty. (I think Nitram posted about this previously but not sure in which thread.) if the son is unable to work then presumably he will be entitled to the same benefits as anyone else.

If the house belongs solely to the mother, I presume that this will also be treated as an asset which has to be used to pay for her care unless one of the exemptions applies. So either it would have to be sold or rented out.
 
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lilacben

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Jan 22, 2013
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A deputy or attorney has to act in the person's best financial interests, which is not necessarily what he/she would have chosen to do. This means that the mother's assets must be spent on her and not be used to subsidise the son. It may seem harsh, but that is how the law sees it. Doing anything else runs the risk of being a breach of fiduciary duty. (I think Nitram posted about this previously but not sure in which thread.) if the son is unable to work then presumably he will be entitled to the same benefits as anyone else.

If the house belongs solely to the mother, I presume that this will also be treated as an asset which has to be used to pay for her care unless one of the exemptions applies. So either it would have to be sold or rented out.



Yes it is mums house.... Brother in law went back there to live when his second marriage broke down..at first it was only while he got somewhere to live and then it changed and says he wasnt moving out..So when mum became ill he was already there.
Now he is over 60 they cannot make him move out to sell the house. Until mum passes.
We had trouble last year when my husband was made Court of Protection Deputy because brother wasnt allowed to do it...Then we found out he had been using her bank account as his own. Which my husband stopped straight away and made him get his own bank account. Since then he has had half of all the house expensives and food ect a month..only.
Now he says he cannot live there and pay the bills on his own..He thinks we should still pay him the half..we keep telling him mum cannot do that anymore..Her Attendence Allowence will stop next month and her pension will go towards a care .
The whole thing is a mess.!
 

Jessbow

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Mar 1, 2013
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Midlands
In Effect, it isn't really your problem, its his.
If he shared with anyone else, he'd have to pay his way, if they moved on he wouldn't expect them to cough up, would he?

Advise him to get onto the local council about accommodation he CAN afford. God time to do it - he has reason to be rehoused so get his focus that way
 

Pickles53

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Feb 25, 2014
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Radcliffe on Trent
In Effect, it isn't really your problem, its his.
If he shared with anyone else, he'd have to pay his way, if they moved on he wouldn't expect them to cough up, would he?

Advise him to get onto the local council about accommodation he CAN afford. God time to do it - he has reason to be rehoused so get his focus that way

That seems very sensible advice. If the house is protected because of his age, Jessbow's comment also prompts me to wonder whether it would be possible for him to find a 'lodger' to share the house and bills with? One year quite recently when I was working away from home I rented a room from a retired gentleman just from Monday-Friday and that worked very well. Not all lodgers are students or other young folk.

In any event, it does seem that he needs to make some longer-term plans for his future which don't depend on him staying in the house for ever.

Jessbow is absolutely right too that this is not your problem to solve. I'm sure you want to support him as you would any family member, but your legal duty to your mother has to take precedence.
 
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Moonflower

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Mar 28, 2012
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Hmm, if the house is mum's the rent from the lodger would be hers too.

On the other hand, if she owns the house she may be "allowed" to use her pension to pay some necessary household expenses - for example insurance on the property.
 

lilacben

Registered User
Jan 22, 2013
39
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Hmm, if the house is mum's the rent from the lodger would be hers too.

On the other hand, if she owns the house she may be "allowed" to use her pension to pay some necessary household expenses - for example insurance on the property.



That is what I have said to my brother in law .... we will still carry on with the house ins
from her money...if we are allowed to.
 

Saffie

Registered User
Mar 26, 2011
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Near Southampton
That is what I have said to my brother in law .... we will still carry on with the house ins
from her money...if we are allowed to.
Yes you can. Even the LA, should they ever be involved in contributing towards the Care home fees, will accept that as your MIL owns the house, she will be liable for the buildings insurance. I had no problem with the LA accepting my husband paying half this on a house we both owned. The contents might be debatable and I didn't take that from my husband's money.

As a matter of interest, when my husband's capital reduced to near the upper threshold on LA involvement and I was told by them that I should not have continued to use our joint account to pay the household bills as the majority of the money held in the account was from my husband. I hadn't even thought to change the custom of a lifetime especially as he was self-funding.

I rang the OPG as I was worried that I had committed some dreadful sin as my husband's Deputy. However, to my surprise, they said that I was permitted to do this and could carry on paying not just half but all these bills from my husband's account.

Of course I didn't as the LA wouldn't allow anything to be paid from his account except essential building repair. They even took £5k of his remaining capital although the bills only amounted to a few hundred.

If you have any queries, I would ring the OPG for guidance.
 

Pickles53

Registered User
Feb 25, 2014
2,474
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Radcliffe on Trent
Hmm, if the house is mum's the rent from the lodger would be hers too.

On the other hand, if she owns the house she may be "allowed" to use her pension to pay some necessary household expenses - for example insurance on the property.

That's true but if the rent was separate from the utility bills I was thinking the lodger could share those?