Financial assessment

[yorkie46]

I am currently in the process of trying to arrange a day centre and possibly a sitter for my husband who has frontal lobe dementia. In addition he is hopefully going for two weeks respite care in September which is expensive. I had a visit from a social worker on Thursday last week who recommended these, so far he's agreed but not yet convinced he will accept it when he comes to it. The social worker asked about our savings which jointly do exceed the upper limit of 46000. She asked how it was held and whether my husband would have more than 23500 in his name. At the time I said I thought he would. However looking at things today I think he is very close to being below this figure.
My questions are:
Can I request that a financial assessment is done on his savings only?
I understand any joint savings is split equally,is this correct?
How is income treated in a financial assessment?
The account my husband's pensions are paid into us a joint account, will that be treated as all his income or will it be split between us?I
Does any of this depend on the rules laid down by an individual local authority or is there a national formula for this?
Is there anywhere I can find out more about this so that I know what my rights are before any assessment is carried out?

 

[northumbrian_k]

Hi @yorkie46 , the short answer is that the financial assessment should be on income and assets that belong to your husband. A good place to start would be to find any guidance that your Local Authority has published, which ought to be on the council's website under the social care section. I can't advise on joint savings or bank accounts as my wife's were always separate from mine, which made the assessment straightforward in our case.

This link has useful information:

Financial assessment for care in England

To help them decide who will pay for a person with dementia’s care, a local authority will carry out a financial assessment. The financial assessment for homecare is slightly different to the assessment for a residential care home.

www.alzheimers.org.uk

 

[thistlejak]

As @northumbrian_k has said assessment is only your husband's money.
Joint accounts are classed as 50:50.
You can have half of your husbands private pensions but not his state pension.
It might be worth splitting any joint accounts and opening single accounts as assessments can be done annually and you might lose out.
For example you have £65000 in joint names - £32500 each. You spend £10000 on care for you husband but nothing on yourself for anything . He would then have £225000 - below the threshold. But if you kept it in a joint account then you would have £27500 each - above the threshold. You would lose out in this case.
We had to do this for parents in law who had joint accounts for 61 years of marriage but it made things easier for everyone.
Hope this helps.

 

[marionq]

I would strongly advise all spouses to separate out their bank accounts at the earliest opportunity. A main account for household expenses and two accounts in your own names are best but it will be common in older couples for everything to be in a joint account. If that is so then at least the spouse who is carer should open up a personal account and have their own pension etc paid in. @thistlejak gives a good explanation as why that should be so.

 

[yorkie46]

Thank you all for your advice. I will look into this further as suggested. Would it not look suspicious of I split our accounts now so close to requesting an assessment. So far all social workers etc have asked about our joint savings. The most recent one did just in passing also ask about the situation regarding just my husband's savings.
We currently have two current accounts, one in my name and one in joint names which has my husband's pensions paid into it. We each have an ISA account, more in mine than his. We have a joint savings account which has the largest amount in but if split 50:50 would be approximately half of the single person allowance. At the moment I don't plan to add more to this account for obvious reasons. I would plan to put future savings into my names accounts only. I realise I need to think very carefully now about where our money goes. I plan to speak to the social worker about getting an assessment done on my husband's savings only.

 

[Bettysue]

I am about to request a financial assessment. Fortunately we have always had separate accounts apart from one in joint names which we both paid into to cover household bills. I have now closed that and pay everything from my own account. I am slightly concerned they may query 2 gifts of £5000 from my partners account to his daughter in the last 18 months. She had time off work and then needed a new car which I arranged as I have power of attorney. Are they likely to deem this as disposal of assets ? That would seem very unfair as any parent helps their child if necessary.

 

[yorkie46]

I'm afraid you are in a similar position to me @Bettysue . Unfortunately it's a real minefield we have to negotiate regarding care and how to pay for it. I'm also a bit concerned about monetary gifts to our daughter. For this reason I have recently been keeping them much smaller but more regular, that way I feel they are less obvious and could be explained away as paying for shopping or things she has ordered for me etc. I also tend to pay these amounts from my account so hopefully that won't be considered in an assessment on my husband's finances! I hope your assessment goes well.