Financial clarity would be wonderful

[kindred]

hello. Please help. Recently my OH was admitted to a nursing home in his best interests as I could not longer manage him.
He was left £60 000 by his mother and these are his savngs. These are being used for the first year of fees, plus a tiny bit more
Our remaining savings are joint, in both our names. Does anyone know how these are treated?
Has any one any experience of this. Thank you so much.

 

[jaymor]

Half of any joint account savings will be your OH assets along with what is in his sole name.

 

[kindred]

Half of any joint account savings will be your OH assets along with what is in his sole name.

Thank you so much. How do I register this information? when would it be time for a financial assessment?

 

[nitram]

You will be asked for details of joint and OH sole a/cs.
They may ask for a few months of statements, all LAs are different.
Stop putting any of your money into the joint a/c, you will ultimately loose half of it.
Consider any joint expenses now - necessary house repairs,....
They may ask for it back or add it as a notional asset, if they don't you have won.


Tell the LA around 6 months before you calculate assets will be reduced to £23250

 

[jaymor]

When your OHs assets ( sole account and half of joint accounts) are reduced to close to £23,250. This is the level that LA become involved in paying something towards care. It pays to get the assessment done before reaching this level to make sure paperwork is in place.

Once his assets reach around £14,000 then the LA are more involved and they will tell you what their level of support will be. Your husband at this stage will have to use his state pension and half of any private pension to pay towards his care. If receiving Attendance Allowance this will stop. He will be left with approx £25 per week to cover his personal needs.

 

[nitram]

Have a read through
https://www.alzheimers.org.uk/get-support/legal-financial/financial-assessment#content-start

It's one of the documents you can get to by drilling down from the AS list of Legal and Financial documents.
http://alzheimers.org.uk/site/scripts/documents_info.php?documentID=160

 

[kindred]

Thank you so much, I am so grateful.

 

[Baker17]

When your OHs assets ( sole account and half of joint accounts) are reduced to close to £23,250. This is the level that LA become involved in paying something towards care. It pays to get the assessment done before reaching this level to make sure paperwork is in place.

Once his assets reach around £14,000 then the LA are more involved and they will tell you what their level of support will be. Your husband at this stage will have to use his state pension and half of any private pension to pay towards his care. If receiving Attendance Allowance this will stop. He will be left with approx £25 per week to cover his personal needs.

I don’t wish to appear to be butting in your post, but when the PWD’s assets reach the £23500 level the LA will use their state pension and half of any private pension to contribute towards paying from their care leaving them £25 per week for personal spending, at £14250 the LA will fund it apart from any top fees which need come from a third party, in my case this is me as his wife. This is what I was told at my OH’s financial assessment

 

[nitram]

apart from any top fees which need come from a third party,

'Need' is incorrect, any top up is voluntary.

 

[lemonjuice]

Baker17 said: ↑ apart from any top fees which need come from a third party,

'Need' is incorrect, any top up is voluntary.

Quite correct. They would like someone to pay top-up fees and certainly then finding a Home willing to take them on becomes more difficult. However you need to consider you own potential future care needs too. If you drain all your savings, reflect how that will impact on your own ability to fund any care packages as you yourself age.

 

[nitram]

Anybody considering voluntary top ups should bear in mind that the typical care home fees annual % increase is far greater than the typical annual % increase of the lower LA funding rate.
This leads to a relentless increase in the top up required.

 

[lemonjuice]

Anybody considering voluntary top ups should bear in mind that the typical care home fees annual % increase is far greater than the typical annual % increase of the lower LA funding rate.
This leads to a relentless increase in the top up required.

Indeed. our lowest annual price increase was 8% and the largest annual increase was 27% one year. Overall during my mother's nearly 6 years stay at the NH her fees rose by over 60% . Had she not had huge savings to be self-funding there is no way we could have afforded the £30, 000 a year shortfall.

 

[kindred]

Indeed. our lowest annual price increase was 8% and the largest annual increase was 27% one year. Overall during my mother's nearly 6 years stay at the NH her fees rose by over 60% . Had she not had huge savings to be self-funding there is no way we could have afforded the £30, 000 a year shortfall.

OK, I'm getting too frightened to read any more of this.

 

[lemonjuice]

OK, I'm getting too frightened to read any more of this.

Quite understand

It isn't intended to frighten, but hopefully to make people aware of just how financially aware we need to be.