Fed up of reading threads asking how they can get out of paying care home fees.

My SIL is friends with two doctors, multimillionaires from the care homes they own, Ballantyne, made his millions in care home ownership…
There is no reason for £1000+ costs per week.

I can vaguely remember a media furore in the 90s about people having to sell their homes to pay for care. But I was very young then. What was the system before that?

We don’t make people liquidate their assets to pay for heart surgery and cancer treatment, so why is dementia care so different?

You don’t know what extortion means, do you?

The argument shouldn’t be about paying the fees, it should be a fair amount charged for the fees.
Too many private companies are making millions for substandard basic care.
The staff aren’t very well paid, the money goes to the owners.

Wasn’t Theresa May considering implementing a cap for care fees when she was PM? And had to drop it?

Yes, then Jeremy Corbyn named it a Dementia Tax and it nearly lost her the GE.

Labour dropped it I believe. It was supposed to be capped at £85k.

It does feel unfair to me. Why other necessary care such as cancer treatment covered by the NHS, but not elderly care? It’s a lottery (to some extent) who will need it and who will manage without. It should all be factored in to social care.

Wasn’t Theresa May considering implementing a cap for care fees when she was PM? And had to drop it?

Exactly! This is what happened in the past. Don’t get me wrong, I’m very glad that I’ve had an education and now a job as in the past it’s women who cared for the elderly without question.
My mother left school early to care for her mother and the other children after her mother became ill.This was the norm. She was expected to give up her life.
Society has changed for the better but we need to decide if we want
1 unpaid family labour ( probably women )
2 the state to care for the elderly ( at huge cost to government )
3 private care ( huge cost to the individual)

The 7 year rule is for inheritance tax only. Local authorities can go back further than that when looking for deprivation of assets.

This. It’s the same as rich people paying accountants to hide their money to avoid taxes - yet they would go nuts about someone claiming benefits they weren’t entitled to. It’s so hypocritical.

If care home fees were not going towards subsidising someone else in the care home who can’t pay and profit to the owner, I’m sure less people would have a problem with it.

^ This. I think it's fine that my MIL is paying the full cost of HER care but it's bloody annoying that she's also paying for some of the care for other residents. Plus as council tax payers we're paying for the care of other residents at other homes.

So no way of premature gifting to children then

The bits that get me are the really rich with liquid assets will pass thousands on to their kids in the way of gifts, pay uni fees, buy cars, gift house deposits etc etc.

It's the low earners who's entire wealth is in their ex council house that they scrimped and saved to buy that end up loosing out.

It's a system designed to keep working classes down.
The £16k allowed savings hasn't gone up for about 20 years either.

It’s annoying to see people ask how they can dodge paying their care fees.
But that’s not the same as people wanting the system to change so that they wouldn’t have to.

I think the system is very unfair and that there should be a basic national care service similar to the NHS (with taxes on the wealthy to pay for it). This could come in stages with gradual increases in the minimum residual savings amount after which care is free.

I also think IHT needs abolishing and replacing with a tax on recipients akin to it being earned income.

You can want the system to change, that’s fine. But you can’t just look to craftily avoid the law by cheating somehow.

Thank you, feel I should have known this but didn’t

Nope. You’re thinking of inheritance tax, not deprivation of assets. When it comes to a potential case of deprivation of assets, the local authority have a team who will go through every aspect of that person’s official life (bank statements, medical records etc) and can go back as many years as they want.

On the one hand it is great people are becoming more aware of the fact that social care is means tested. On the other hand it highlights the inequality in the system.

Care has always been self funded. But in generations gone by, life expectancy was much lower, people lived with infirmity for much shorter periods of time. We had communities and families that could provide care at home, and the reality is we relied less on "commercial" care. These days it is very different. Very few of us can provide wrap around care for elderly relatives - either because we work, or because their needs are more complex due to advancing age. And local authorities can no longer afford to run their own care homes.

However, we still have a care system set up for the 1940s, with even greater demands placed on it in terms of the number of older people and the level of care and support they need. The reality is, the Local authority or NHS fund a very small proportion of care needs and that number is diminishing as the bar gets ever higher.

Do what you want re: your own inheritance but my advice - start planning for your own care in your 40s. By the time the vast majority of us require care, there will be next to nothing funded publicly. Unless we start to raise taxes... which is an immediate vote loser and successive governments have dodged.

The obvious answer in avoiding Care Home fees is to look after the person yourself.
I speak as someone whose DM was in a Care Home for nearly 10 years with severe dementia before she died. And yes the money from her house went to pay the fees.
I did NOT look after my DM myself, as a) I would have had to give up my full time job (which would also affect my work pension) and b) it is really impossible to look after someone with dementia without help, and frankly a Care Home was the best thing for her.
I think the annoying thing is that those who have a house (described as self-funded) pay MORE than those funded by the council (social services), as the council do NOT pay enough to meet costs, so they are subsidised by those like my DM. This is the most annoying aspect of it all.
In the past the council used to have their own homes (many years ago), but they cost too much and these all seem to be private now, thus making a profit.
We all hope that we would be someone who did not require a care home, and I do not know the percentages that do.

It’s social care that pay for care homes ( unless in a nursing home then it might be either or both )

Who do you think should pay though? Genuinely?

A solicitor told us that councils can look back a lot longer than 7 years for deprivation of assets.

Yeah but you can at least choose . I work in the care sector. I’ve visited many. But there are good ones. You just don’t get as good access to them if you aren’t paying.

These was an owner of a group of care homes in an interview recently and he admitted that if they know someone has a lot of assets they increase the weekly quotation for care.

it IS extortion - many are private, for profit businesses run by very wealthy individuals.

This thread just sums up why we need a major review of social care funding in the UK, and reminds us that both Labour and the Tories before them have happily kicked that particular can down the road. If you intend to vote Labour, Tories or Reform in future, then you need to be talking to your MP/potential MP about this issue and what their party intends to do about it.

Nb. I do agree with PP about the inconsistencies and unfairness in the system.

My friend's parents smoked and drank themselves into very poor health. Council fully funded their care. Left a purchased council house >£200K to my friend as inheritance, in full. In contrast, my Mum worked all her life, paid her taxes, looked after herself ... and, guess what, no funding support, house sold to pay the fees, and no inheritance to pass on. It's grossly unfair to the average person.