Care Home Fees

[Clive]

I think there has been an assumption (by Brookies solicitor) that the assets have been transferred to the children.

The authorities can go to court to retrieve assets that have been proved to be disposed of with the intention that Care Home fees will be paid by Social Services.

In my opinion if the children have not received the assets then they cannot be made to pay.

If the children have received the assets knowing that the intention is that the parents will not abide by the law (however wrong the law may be) then it is only right that Social Services retrieve the money, and those who deliberately break the law are punished. Otherwise why should anybody observe any law.

At the end of the day the whole Benefits system has so many flaws init that it cannot work perfectly and there will always be losers… and I always seem to be one of the biggest losers.

Clive

 

[KatieM]

Try citizens advice first - they're free!!!!

K x

 

[jenniferpa]

Rules for self payment of residential care fees are all very confusing and it doesn't help that different local authorities set the threshold themselves. There isn't a single threshold for the whole country.

Can I clarify something? In fact there is a national (in this case English) threshold. If your neigbouring borough are truly setting a lower limit then they are actually breaking the law. What does happen, though, and I think this causes confusion, is that between the upper and lower savings limits (currently £23000 and £14000) tarrif income applies.

The bible for this is CRAG.
http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/Publication...tions/PublicationsPolicyAndGuidance/DH_097578

 

[Brookie]

I think there has been an assumption (by Brookies solicitor) that the assets have been transferred to the children.

The authorities can go to court to retrieve assets that have been proved to be disposed of with the intention that Care Home fees will be paid by Social Services.

In my opinion if the children have not received the assets then they cannot be made to pay.

If the children have received the assets knowing that the intention is that the parents will not abide by the law (however wrong the law may be) then it is only right that Social Services retrieve the money, and those who deliberately break the law are punished. Otherwise why should anybody observe any law.

At the end of the day the whole Benefits system has so many flaws init that it cannot work perfectly and there will always be losers… and I always seem to be one of the biggest losers.

Clive

Clive this is exactly what I was trying to say/explain. Thanks for claryfing.
P.S. Your not a loser.

 

[nocturne]

Jennifer is right that there is a national threshold for savings in England and this should not vary from authority to authority. What is variable is how much each authoriy is prepared to contribute to the czre home fees. Certainly my LA sets a figure nearly £100 a week less than any EMI home I have found save one awful one. My experience is that dementia care costs more than ordinary care home places - anything from £30 a week to £50 a week more. This is because it demands more intensive staffing However the Local Authority does not take this into account in assessing what they will pay and sets a fixed limit for any kind of care other than nursing care.

I am in the same position as Margaret W. Mum is now in a care home and I am grateful that she had some savings and the house as otherwise she would have had to go to the awful smelly home where elderly dementia are mixed in with people with other mental disorders. Alternatively, she could have gone to a home which, as I don't drive due to a medical condition, would mean 3 buses and a 2 hour journey. Because she is self funding I have got her into a really good home very near to me. However when her money runs out the Local Authority will not pay for her there. She will have to move to the awful home or the distant home unless I can find about £150 a week to pay for her. I will be a pensioner myself then but having an occupational pension I can just about do it if I am very careful about what I spend. It will mean my retirement will be rather less comfortable than I had hoped. As Margaret points out, we children who are forced to pay top up fees if we don't want our parents to suffer, will face a bleak future if we need care as our savings will have gone our parents.
Jan

 

[Bristolbelle]

The "tier" system

My Mum has fractionally over the 23,000, and so has to pay £640+ a week for her respite care. But if she had less than 23,000 she owyld only have to pay £174 per week. So I have sorted out a prepaid funeral plan and a few other things to try and get her under the threshold. The people at the home could not beleive she ws self funding as there are others who are clearly better. I guess it's my fault for being totally honest when I sorted out her financial assessment.

 

[BeverleyY]

My Mum has fractionally over the 23,000, and so has to pay £640+ a week for her respite care. But if she had less than 23,000 she owyld only have to pay £174 per week. So I have sorted out a prepaid funeral plan and a few other things to try and get her under the threshold. The people at the home could not beleive she ws self funding as there are others who are clearly better. I guess it's my fault for being totally honest when I sorted out her financial assessment.

Ah, yes a pre-paid funeral plan. I'd forgotten about that one! I must put that on my list to do (although it feels morbid).

 

[Margaret W]

I apologise to Worried Girl. I missed your first post. I was so tied up with my soap box. I didn't twig that your annuity was the same thing as my Care Fees Plan that I paid £55,000 for and never saw a penny of. As it happened a "waste of money", but I paid it to give me peace of mind. Also as it happened, we took one out that didn't kick in for 3 years (cheaper). But the annual increase in the payout had already fallen short of the increase in care home fees.

Yes, it is cheaper the worse physical state that your parent is in. My mum had no obvious physical illness, so hers was quite pricey (though quite how she died 14 months later from emphysema if she wasn't suffering from it at the time, is a bit of a mystery, but probably nothing I can do about it now).

Despite the fact that I never claimed on it, and it cost a lot, it did give me some peace of mind that at least a large part of her fees would be paid. Yes, it turned out to be a waste of money, if that is how it can be described, and I could now be £55,000 richer than I am. I took the risk. I'm glad I did.

If anyone goes down this route, do get several quotes for different scenarios. For a delayed 3 year plan we were quoted between £55,000 and £85,000.

I am not recommending a particular provider of these plans, and a Moderator will probably come along and tell me I mustn't, but I did find Help the Aged to be very professional, kind, sympathetic, understandable, and the chap who dealt with us had done similar for his own mother.

Good luck anyone who considers this.

Oh, and yes, the income from such a plan is tax free on the recipient providing it is paid direct to the care home.

Margaret

 

[Margaret W]

A prepaid funeral plan is a good idea. Mum and Dad did them years ago, and when they both passed (2004 and 2008) everything was dealt with with the minimum of fuss and paperwork. It was almost as if I were a "loyal customer". I only had to pay extra for flowers.

Margaret

PS Off to do my own and hubby's now!

 

[Clive]

The idea of purchasing a Funeral plan reminds me of another possibility that was written into my will.


I understand that for a married couple there may be advantages in putting some of the family wealth into a Discretionary Trust on the first death (if you have Trustees you trust ).


It is generally thought that this was a device for avoiding Death Duty and became redundant when the Government announced that each partner’s IHT allowance could be added together.


Hopefully Jennifer will agree that CRAG paragraph 10.020 appears to suggests that family money lodged in a Discretionary Trust is safe from Social Services.


This is a very complex area, which requires a solicitor’s advice, and the added effort of running a Trust is something that many people would not wish to bother with.


Clive

 

[DozyDoris]

Jointly owned home

Hi all, I am really interested in this thread, we have been considering purchasing a house together, me and my mum and dad,to have an annex so my boyfriend and I can be closer to make it easier to care for them both. The split would be about 50 40 with them being the higher contributor. We are purely doing this for care issues as none of us really want to move but I too am concerned that we could end up homeless if Mum or Dad (or both) had to go into care. I am proposing that we become tenants in common to protect my parents interests.
Any views welcome...

 

[Bristolbelle]

Doris...

You say you are thining about this on the g trounds of car issues, sorry who needs care? I assume one of you parents has dementia? If so you may already befacing some hurdles with consent etc. The other aspect that come to mnd is if you are plannnig a totally seperate annexe with it's own address, utilities etc then the sort ot planning permission you needs, and building regs are much tougher and it is therefore a LOT more expensive. For example if the two properties were concerned self contained then the noise insulation would need to be of a higher standard, and you would have to pay for seperat meters etc. That was our original intention but it was both legally and financially complicated and beyond our means. Besdies which we were only allowed to build out a certain distance whioch would not give sufficient room for Mu to have her own w.c/shower.
Another issue I have concerns over is that you talk about your boyfriend and yourself.... would children be part of you longterm plan. I can assure you teens and OAPS are not always the best house comapanions. I have been very lucky but I put that down to the fact my children both have disbaliities so have a different perspective to a lot of them. You might also find that if children come along you will find your role as carer very stretched whoich could put a strain on relationships all round.
I'm not saying don't do this, but make sure you think therough all the scenarios, including something really terrible like if the children themselves had disbalities as in my case.
Then of course the legal side, costly as it is it will protect you all in the future, and even in the best houses relationships can change.
We made the move when my daughter was 18 and son 16 everyone was given information on alzeimehrs and what it could be like to live with. We lived nest door to the neighbours form hell at the time, and also in a BISF (steel house) so wanted to get inot a traditional built home with decent neighbours. For us that was a large part of the decision.
Go in with your eyes open wide..... good luck!

 

[Clive]

Hi Beverley

Would you mind if I am awfully inquisitive and ask why you say in Post Number 6 “Obviously, with Mum now gone the Will [of my dad] is no longer valid”.

Just a little concerned because I had never thought there could be a reason for my Will to become invalid if my wife dies before me.

Thanks

Clive

 

[jenniferpa]

Clive - I believe you are correct about the Discretionary Trust, at least as the law stands today - who knows what the future will bring?

The problem is, of course, that such a trust requires someone to put their assets under the control of someone else with no guarantee of return. It's not something that most people would consider, unless it was an unexpected windfall. Personally, one would like to think that one could trust ones immediate family with such a thing, but the truth is, I've read to many horror stories in the forum to be comfortable suggesting such a plan to anyone.

 

[Splat88]

Saga are very helpful with giving advice on these sort of matters. I wanted to know what would happen in our situation ( we sold our house and MIL's house 7 years ago to buy a house for all of us, in which she has no name on the deeds on the advice of her solicitor, it was not advisable to do tenants in common, not sure why )

We used £150,000 of her money to buy the house, and in her will it states it is an interest free loan voided on her death. Other than that, I wanted to know if she needed care, would we have to sell the house? according to SAGA, the LA would defer the payments until her death and we would have to pay it after that.

She did have a fair amount of personal cash, but I have been using that over the years to make things easier for all of us, after all, we aren't getting any younger either!!

I do have an enduring P O A, and I don't think with the way things are nnow, we could get an LPA.

 

[daisydays]

Three and a half years ago myself, hubby and my father decided to sell our house and my dad's second floor flat to jointly buy our present home. Dad is on the deeds (tenants in common) and owns a third share of the property.

At the time dad's mental health and memory was fine although his body was failing him. In fact we felt he was an accident waiting to happen, due to vascular disease (PVD) to his legs. He was very independent, but with no lift in the block, he was finding great difficulty climbing the steps to his second floor flat. Dad was so happy about this move and almost every day he would say how much he loved living in this house. Everything seemed perfect.

During the last couple of years dad’s physical health further declined and he also now has a diagnosis of Vascular Dementia. For the last two years I have cared for him 24/7.

Unfortunately after two weeks respite care last year he returned home with a chest infection UTI and C Diff and was admitted to hospital. Once clear of the infections dad was assessed but not granted CHC. I was told many times at the hospital that dad should go into nursing home care due to his worsening and challenging dementia.

I took advice from our local authority finance dept and was told to look at this document from direct gov.

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/CaringForSomeone/CareHomes/DG_10031523

Particularly the following (taken from the web page).

Assessing care home fees for home owners

If you move into a care home permanently, the local council may count your home as capital from 12 weeks after you arrive there. However, your home won't be counted as capital if any of the following people still live there:

• your husband, wife, civil partner or someone you live with as a partner
• a close relative who is 60 or over, or incapacitated
• one of your children (including adopted children) who is under 18
• your ex-husband, ex-wife, ex-civil partner or ex-partner if they are a single parent

Your local council may choose not to count your home as capital if your carer lives there.

Hubby and I are under 60. Hubby has had open heart surgery five times during the last fifteen years however he chooses to work for as long as he can and not claim benefits.

I have been dad’s full time carer for two and a half years however this is only grounds for appeal.

I was told that unless we satisfied the criteria above, dad’s equity in this house would have to be used to fund his care after his savings decline to 14,000. The local authority would place a charge on the house at the land registry. None of our equity would be used to fund his care. If/when we sold the house this charge would have to be paid off. If we choose to continue living in our house after dad passes away, from the 57th day after his passing interest will be charged on the debt. The interest is variable according to the base lending rate at the time....she quoted lots of figures that completely baffled me, so I asked what that meant in actual cash – At the moment it would mean 4p per thousand per day but that is variable and subject to change.

I have dad home now and will continue to care for him for as long as I can. He has improved immensely since coming home and needs a smaller care package than was originally planned by the social worker.

I am glad we bought this house with dad as I am sure it improved his quality of life initially and also enabled me to be on hand to give him the love and care that he will continue to need.

 

[BeverleyY]

Hi Beverley

Would you mind if I am awfully inquisitive and ask why you say in Post Number 6 “Obviously, with Mum now gone the Will [of my dad] is no longer valid”.

Just a little concerned because I had never thought there could be a reason for my Will to become invalid if my wife dies before me.

Thanks

Clive

Well, their Wills were actually done ages ago so there are many many changes - i.e no house to sell etc. Also, originally, it made provision to give money to me and my sister predominantely, with a portion then split between the grandchildren.

When they moved in with me, their house was sold and the money split between me and my sister more or less. All their cash assets then put aside for the grandchildren (i.e. me and my sister get no more money).

So, it is not so much about the death, but all the other changes.

I know the way my Will is written, even if my husband dies, it just makes provision that everything goes to my children. It depends how you have written it.

Sorry if I confused you.

Beverley