Inheritance and care home fees

I’m pretty much reconciled to paying for my care as my parents did before me. I think you’re grasping and greedy. Why should taxpayers pay when the person needing care can afford to pay for it?

The final £26k (I think) isn't used, so that would pay for some lovely meals out and theatre trips.

No, he wants to pocket the money for himself. Otherwise he would have asked - ‘when my wife receives her inheritance is there a way of placing it into some sort of trust so that her care home fees will be covered’

If your MIL chooses to leave her money in a way which avoids it paying towards your wife's care, that is up to her. She needs to research the options, without any pressure from other parties. If I was MIL I'd want it to go towards my daughter's care, but it's her choice.

That supposes that she has any money left by the time of her death, given she is in a care home herself and is presumably paying her own fees if she has a large amount sitting around to leave as an inheritance.

My mother used all her money for care fees. I was completely happy about that as (a) it's her money and (b) it meant I could buy the best care for her.

It's like Disney Dad, but the Husband Edition.

If she is able to visit nice restaurants, London shows and theatres plus have day trips, then why is she in a home? Do you not have enough of your own money to take her out?

It's your MIL's money and it's up to her to choose what happens with it. If she wants to leave it to her daughter, with the understanding that it will contribute to funding her daughter's care, that's her right. If she wants to leave all to an animal charity, that's her right too. Nobody else should be interfering with her choice.

If your MIL is the one who is looking for ways to avoid the money contributing to care costs, then she needs to seek professional financial advice. If she wants to ensure some goes to grandchildren, for example, she could leave it directly to them. Although with care costs as they are, there may not be much left in the inheritance pot.

As an aside, you might want to ask for this thread to be deleted or removed after a short time. There probably aren't that many people in Essex who have their MIL and wife in this situation, so you may be fairly easily identified, and I suspect the council wouldn't be thrilled at the attempt to get out of financial contributions to care.

I agree. It does depend though whether the DMIL is on agreement and has capacity.

Because the welfare state was never funded to do this. Like state pensions it was funded on the premise that most people would die long before they needed social care. I believe the age for working men was averaged out at 60. Clearly people are living longer, and are therefore more prey to the illnesses of old age like cancer , osteoporosis, heart disease, strokes, various dementias. We can just about cope with funding these medical needs, but social care needs for an increasingly elderly population is outside the scope of the current system unless the way it is paid for is re organised. I believe in some countries an extra layer of income tax is both levied and ringfenced to cover social care needs.

Until then people with funds available will be expected to pay for their social care.

1. its not YOUR money.
2. if I were in your position I would be very relieved that I had enough savings to pay for a lovely care home for my spouse
3. expecting every other council tax payer in your area to fund your wife’s care whilst you swan off with her inheritance is a shitty thing to do
4. there are 2 vulnerable women in this situation and you want to shaft them both. Well done!

Wow you lot are nasty!
And this is also not fraud. Financial planning is a wise thing to do particularly when considering financial planning involving passing on wealth to disabled family members.

His wife is in a home at a lot younger age than most of us would want to be.
It's common practice for families with disabled family members to put funds in trust and for a monthly amount to be paid to them.

This is not the OP's decision tho. This is for his MiL to take advice from a solicitor and to decide what she wants to do with any £££ she has left after her own care is paid for. Particularly if she would like her wealth to benefit any grandchildren.

And that is perfectly legal and as it should be.

What a ridiculous, spiteful and over the top thing to do. Better hope there's no such thing as karma, eh?

Hahaha this is crazy. As someone who works for Adult Social Care they will have a great laugh at this before doing absolutely nothing 🤣🤣🤣

@Hateam can I PM you please?

Also look into the cap that the government were going to introduce. It may mean you don’t lose the whole lot to her care costs.

Labour have reversed plans for this cap unfortunately.

You are quite right. People are quick to judge when it doesn't effect them. They would do the same.

If I were you I'd get professional legal advice - have a meeting with a solicitor and your MIL to ensure everything is above board. But essentially yes, if the inheritance goes to you and not your wife this can't be made to be used for her fees.

I work to enjoy my life in the here and now, loads of expensive hobbies, nice house, nice car, amazing holidays.

If that means I have to pay for my own care in later life so be it.

Either way, I will leave this earth with nothing but will have had a much better journey on the way.

Well thats a stupid thing to Do! Op is just asking the question, hasn't done anything yet. Plus nothing OP has suggested is illegal - so not fraud.

Agree with PPs that you must seek specialist advice on this. Many solicitors have people who specialise in care costs as it is quite a complex area now, and you really need someone who knows the ropes. It will realistically cost around a thousand pounds, but may worth a lot more than that to your family in the long run.

It is not cheating the system, you will not get anything more than you are entitled to. One of the first thing Labour has done is kick this can of worms further down the road, governments of all kinds are happy for families to struggle on themselves and keep on dodging the issue.

It might also be worth posting on the elderly parents forum as many people there have more knowledge.

Nothing has happened or are you wanting him prosecuted for a thought crime?

There are some horrible cruel comments on here. I don’t know the answer to your question but I’m sorry you are in this position it must be very hard. I hope you are able to give your wife the best life possible together through whatever means that will be.

You’re aware people like me pay for your wife’s care? I don’t particularly want to pay for that so you can sit on hundreds of thousands either.

So you have offloaded your wife's care to a care home and this is paid by Essex County Council.

You want the taxpayer to pay for her care home bill while you pocket her £180,000.

What a prince.

If you're aware of deprivation of assets then you'll already know that the only way you can avoid assets not being taken into account in a means test is by never having those assets in the first place. So if you and your MiL wants to ensure her money is not used to pay towards the services the state provides to people without assets, she needs to leave her money to someone not dependent on state services. Ie, not you or your wife. That said, if your wife is having her care funded for medical purposes this could remain free of charge anyway under a different funding stream. However where medical stops and care starts is often a huge battle and there is no guarantee your wife's inheritance would not need to go towards it. The only certain way to avoid this is to not inherit the money.