Joyceydaughter said:
but reckon at least £200,000 has gone to pay care fees in 4.5 years.
This seems quite high.....
In our area homes range from around £500 - £1100 pw. Mum is in a nice home specialising in dementure, costing £730 pw or £36,000 PA. £16000 of this covered by her state pension, attendance allowance, and small private pension, so the debt against her property should only accrue at about £21k PA.
I can only assume you have chosen a very expensive home. Could it be worth looking at a cheaper home? Have you been claiming Attendance allowance?
I do empathise with your situation, and to be honest, if we sold Mum's property and the money was in the bank, and things ever got desperate, then I know what Mum would want me to do. I would worry about the consequences if and when they occurred.
The whole thing is a minefield and to a degree subjective. There is not a list of what a PoA can buy or can not buy.... you just have to be able to justify it if ever challenged.
For example, if Mum regularly came out of the home every fortnight to spend the day at our home, and our boiler broke down and we could not afford to fix it, and by having no heating Mum would be deprived of her visits, then it would be in Mum's interest for the boiler to be fixed.
Another example could be spending £3000 on state of the art electric wheelchair so we could take Mum out. Then after Mum passes, we could sell the wheelchair for £1500. That would be £1500 that may otherwise have been used in home fees.
How about spending £15,000 on a van with a tail lift so we could take Mum out for the day? This would be spending Mum's money for her benefit.
I appreciate some or all of the above may seem absurd but just to illustrate how subjective the PoA process can be.
With regard finding out how many residents are self funded / council funded, I would not consider it to be a breach of data protection to advise how many of each type are resident in the home. It would only be a breach of data protection if each residents circumstances were divulged.