Help with Local Authority & Care fees

[NathaliedD]

My grandmother has dementia and I am her only relative in the country so am responsible for her welfare but do not have POA. Three years ago she fell at home and broke her arm which resulted in a hospital stay. Whilst there, the nurses forgot to lift her bed rail and she fell from bed breaking her hip. This resulted in a long hospital stay followed by rehab and she is now in a care home which is funded by the LA and she gives up her pension towards this. About 6 months after the fall I started to receive bills for her stay in rehab as she was only funded for the first few weeks. I paid these bills but more came with altered figures and changing dates and none of it made any sense. Repeated emails to the LA either went unanswered or were responded to with totally different figures. I initially paid £2000 towards these bills but asked for clarification about the amounts being requested as for 14 months of this time, when she was either in hospital or rehab, I was unable to surrender her council flat as without POA they argued I would be making her homeless. Eventually, a sensible and very helpful social worker dealt with the case and I was able to clear her flat and hand back the keys. 50 years of hoarding made this extremely difficult and stressful but that's another story.
Until this happened, her costs for having the flat (standing charges, water rates etc) still had to be paid.
I moved her to a care home close to me where she has been for 18 months, funded by the LA.
I have now received a demand for over £3000 which the LA are saying is still owed for the period before she moved to the home she is now in.
The only money she has is for her funeral and personal needs so I don't know what to do.
As the LA have been inconsistant and have constantly changed the figures, I'm not convinced any calculations they have made are correct. Apologies for lengthy post.

 

[My Mum's Daughter]

You could apply for deputyship and take over management of her money or as there's very little money involved you could leave this to the LA. I'm not legally minded enough to advise.

If there's money owed, the debt belongs to your granny not you so don't stress and certainly don't pay out of your own money.

@nitram is our expert in these matters so please wait for a better reply from the.

 

[Jessbow]

has she had a formal financial assessment?

 

[nitram]

Assume you have been paying everything out of grandmother's funds.
As said the debt is not yours, it's grandmothers, you don't have to pay it.

You could email LA head of finance (CEO if you have already tried finance with no luck) saying you are confused by the varying requests for payments and would like a detailed explanation of total debt.

Regarding financial assessment even if she has had one ask for another to include payment of cost of keeping flat and settling debt to council.