Council housing priority - council advising to wait until Ballifs turn up

I think you might want to have this thread deleted OP.

You have shared a lot, it might not be in your or your mum’s best interest to leave it.

that’s her money and in my mind I think she should have access to her money to buy a house that she needs. So I guess I just need to get some legal advice on challenging the deputyship because I don’t think he’s making decisions for her finances and property that’s within her best interests.

It's good that you're thinking in this way now and don't be put off by your relatives' reactions which seem quite self-interested in one way or another. The bottom line is, your mother has $$$$ so should be adequately housed and cared for with her own money and not have to struggle or be on a council homeless list. Her husband is not paying SIL £1k a month out of his own money. That's your mother's money and you have every right to go after it on her behalf. Course her husband still needs a home but it's clearly wrong for him to be living it up in a huge home while she's pulled into this eviction charade over here. Good luck with getting the proper legal advice and leverage that you/she needs.

I'm guessing that SIL and DB haven't tried to deal with the POA and sorting the finances properly because they're scared to annoy the husband and thereby lose the £1000 a month plus help with rent and bills. If they're low earnings who are bad with money (having already spunked all the inheritance from OPs dad ) it's probably the difference between them being afloat financially and not.

But now their tenancy is ending and they're expecting rehousing, that bullet will have to be bitten. Otherwise they're risking getting assessed by housing as a working age couple who can earn enough for private rent and only need a room in a shared house as temporary accommodation.

If they're burying their heads in the sand about your DMs situation, will the threat of having to re-home the dog motivate them more effectively?

@Agix
She is not pension age. Can’t claim any of that stuff. She also had plenty of assets and money. Her family just haven’t bothered to get legal help to get her money.

How is the set up in America with the home ownership and your mum’s will? She put the down payment into the house, so her will should leave her share to all of her children?

She needs to go into a home. Her husband will be financially responsible for that. When she dies, her will dictates where her share of the assets goes so your brother and sil will then get something and maybe be able to secure housing for themselves.

Plenty of people emigrate and then in later life they get dementia. They don’t then get shipped back home to claim benefits when they’ve got plenty of money. She should have been put into a care home in America. I’ve gone through dementia care. Being there with their accents wouldn’t have made it any worse. Instead, she is here with no access to her own money and her husband keeping it all. You need to put her in a home with him as her husband and next of kin and financially responsible.

It sounds like you might be talking about the past presence test for disability benefits, like Attendence Allowance. These are not public funds but you must have been in the UK to claim them.

"Present in the UK for at least 104 weeks (2 years) out of the last 156 weeks (3 years) before your claim."

Which means even if she wasn't eligible at one point, she will become eligible with time spent in the UK. If its been a while since she tried to claim, check if she's become eligible. Your SIL could get a carers benefit if your mother gets AA.

Pension Credit is of course a public fund. Has she tried to claim this? Is she a British citizen? Does she have a full UK pension or savings? The Habitual Residence Test for Pension Credit is a lot easier for British Citizens than the Past Presence Test - but if your mum has high pension income or savings, she might not get it (not the case for Attendence Allowance, so still keep an eye on that for when she does become eligible to claim).

Benefits will make it easier to access council housing.

Your SIL may want to get carers credits whilst waiting for your mother to get the qualifying benefits, a doctor will need to confirm your SIL is a carer.

To be honest you need casework from someone who knows what they're doing. Go to citizens advice and tell them you need support. If they try to fob you off with links to online info, just tell them it doesn't help - you need practical support to get anything done for your mother. Hopefully they'll take the case on then.

My advice - get yourself off mumsnet now. You’ll get as you have found , a volume of options, some helpful, down rude, some pointless. It sounds like you are going through a hard time and perhaps seeking counselling would help too. From a legal perspective, go to citizens advice and also there is a forum with legal experts called legal beagles. There are also forums and advice from Alzheimer’s charities - they have links - have a look there as what you are going thru is common (perhaps the overseas angle is different). Take care of yourself and hope your mum stays safe & cared for.

Hard as it is, I’d suggest that you don’t have the full story and might be working with incomplete information - if you're only being brought into it when your SIL is looking for an ‘attack dog’. To insert yourself, you should ensure that you’ve got as much information on the situation as you can. IF you want to (try to) change POA to someone in England, who would it be? You really need to get some legal advice. Maybe there’s a way of getting some form of spousal support (🤷🏻‍♀️) but be aware that -from what you’ve said - it would need to be managed by someone other than B/SIL.

I’ve got a lot if empathy for you OP but I’m afraid your SIL may well be sticking her head in the sand here- maybe her friends get council houses because they had children and were prioritised, maybe had disabilities that placed them higher etc- problem is here that on paper your mother has assets albeit she can’t get hold of them and her entitlement to benefits in General is dubious- so relying on getting a council house based on being a couple with no kids is dubious at best- if the H isn’t going to play ball and it looks like divorce is tricky then you need to get social services in to sort out an assessment and look at the residency situation again - in the meantime they really need to be on the register for housing - they don’t need to wait for bailiffs for that

@Blueotter22 i suppose your SIL might want to take her chances but its going to be a bit like playing Russian roulette …in my area there would be no chance as we have such long housing wait lists ,even high priority families are in temporary accommodation for months to years but I know it does vary around the country.

The other possibility is that when they become homeless and no council property is forthcoming social services will have to get involved and conclude that your Mum is vulnerable and it's not in her best interests to go into a travel lodge or equivalent. At this point it would probably be a best interest decision to put her in a care home, at least until stable accommodation is available.

@Blueotter22 if you don’t feel able to ask your relatives directly as to who has which powers, you can search the register via a form https://www.gov.uk/find-someones-attorney-deputy-or-guardian. I really don’t think its in your mums best interests to end up in an eviction/ temporary accommodation situation as this is going to be immensely stressful for everyone involved…I think your brother / SIL and your mums husband need to discuss finding a solution to have a planned move into private rented. Especially when you throw a dog into the mix!

@YourAzureEagle “Having been through this, from what you describe you are probably under 12 months from the end anyway, the decline at the end is surprisingly rapid given the awful time to get there.” unfortunately it doesn’t always work like that for those with younger onset dementia, some people survive for a relatively longer time despite being very cognitively impaired because they can be more physically robust and have fewer co-morbidities. The main positive about this situation is having the SIL prepared to care for someone ,and that it sounds like she is doing a very good job at caring for the OP’s mum….if I were the husband, compared to the costs involved with NH care, I would be thinking I was getting a very good deal. surely he could stump up extra to subsidise the costs for a private rental?

Was the POA done in the UK? If so contact the Office of the Public Guardian for advice because her husband is not acting in her best interests.

https://www.gov.uk/report-concern-about-attorney-deputy-guardian

Having cared for my father through dementia to the end I feel for your position with this, clearly she can't go back. However, due to the advanced stage of her illness it is likely she will have a fall or some other accident that puts her in hospital - at that time she will get assessed and be offered a care package or LA funded care / continuing healthcare. If you say you can't cope then they will be obliged to provide.

Having been through this, from what you describe you are probably under 12 months from the end anyway, the decline at the end is surprisingly rapid given the awful time to get there.

P.s. are you saying her husband has got both financial / housing POA and a health and welfare POA?

I’m not a SW but have another HCP background. Usually if someone is already under a service eg. Mental health team ,there would be a point of contact, if she already known to the service that’s by far the easiest way, could you ask your SIL to give you the details? I appreciate the difficulty you may have when you aren’t the main carer…if you aren’t able to get the rest of the family to agree a sensible plan of action about the housing situation and you are worried about your mum you can report concerns to the adult social work team in her area….all councils have safeguarding teams that you can contact via form/ phone line. I’m confused about how and when your mums partner applied for and managed to get POA? It all seems very mixed up and so reliant on informal arrangements.

@Blueotter22 you’ve still not said whether your mum has had any form of SW assessment? If not ,why not?