Day of Dad’s funeral; Council demand Mum sell her house day after

Presumably if the OPs DM needs 24 hour care and all liquid funds have been consumed providing care then the LA will potentially 'call the shots' because they will be funding whatever care is provided next. Presumably the LA want to pay for the cheapest, adequate care and that in this case this appears to be a residential/nursing home. If those assumptions are correct then the LA won't want to fund more expensive 24 care at home even on a temporary basis and the OP won't want to leave her mother without care. The OP wants her DM to have some breathing space at home but unless she can manage the LA to force a delay, she doesn't have the power to force the LA to provide the care she wants.

I would guess that what’s actually happened is that SS are trying to put appropriate steps in place for her in terms of care going forward, and have said that as she now needs residential care, she will have to contribute to the cost including selling the house. SS do not carry out the financial assessment, they arrange appropriate care packages. The LA do the financial assessment.

If that is the case then it's possible to revoke, given the person he has left his portion to is willing, but is has to be done within 2 years (I think) of the death. We had to do this for my father. I gave up the half of the house that had been left to me in trust, essentially turning it back into my mum having full ownership, and was then able to take equity release for her care.

Sorry for your loss OP. You must be grieving for your DF & to have to deal with this the day after his funeral must be difficult to say the least.

Your poor DM how awful for her dealing with the grief of losing her DH & now having to pack up & move out of the home that they shared together.

However, the world is run by people who only see a spreadsheet and take no account of the people behind the figures.

My DM cared for my DF for many years as his Parkinson's & dementia progressed. After the police found DF wondering the streets in the early hours of the morning one rainy November wearing only his incontinence pants (and strangely socks - which he hadn't been able to put on unassisted for several years) SS decided that she could no longer keep him safe and imposed a move into a home. They were both miserable being separated after 60(odd) years of marriage (though me, DH or one of our adult DCs took her to visit every day) and my DF died less than 3 months after the move.

We all know councils lick their lips at the prospect of getting the cash from a London house

This is a weird way of putting it. Apart from anything else councils don't get the cash from the sale of the house.

Which London borough are you talking about?

I don't understand why ss will control the house money ,or why they are calling the shots

I am so sorry to hear about your dad and the poor timing from SS.

I'm sorry for your loss @Supersimkin7 . Unfortunately the SS can be pretty unfeeling in this situation, your DM has a house so they want it sold to pay for her care Asap, no regard for a sick woman whose lost her DH.

I'm sorry , OP, that sounds upsetting. It sounds like there's a lot of history that you haven't posted completely in a stressful circumstance which some PPs have fixated on.

There may be some things you can do to give your family some time to take stock.

Have they put their proposals in writing. If not, ask them to post them to your mother.

Have they completed a recent care needs assessment. Your DM may be stable but they will need to work on up to date information.

It can take time to prepare a house for sale, sort out estate agents and so on.

Perhaps a chat with specialist charities or specialist solicitors if you can afford.

It may be, after taking stock, now your DF has passed that a place in a suitable care home might meet your DM's needs better than care at home. If so, some time might help trying to nudge SS to productive activities like selecting the appropriate home (visits, discuss with DNs/ACPs and others with local knowledge can help) and planning the move.

Good luck.

If your DF needs to go into a care home whilst your DM is still living at home then the house isn’t included in a financial assessment anyway, no matter who owns it.

Councils are not licking their lips, but if they can't safely be cared for in their own home, it'll be in the best interest of your DM to move into a care home. If they own a property, you will have the option of a deferred payment agreement, where they'll basically register a financial interest in the property, then when the house is sold when your mother passes away , they will need to be paid for the care they have paid for in the mean time, the rest of the money from the sale can be passed on to whoever is stated in the will. You should get a 12 week property disregard when she moves into the care home where she only needs to pay a contribution to her care based on her income. If you don't want to do the deferred payment agreement, you'll want to get it sold asap. The council won't profit from your mother being in residential care

I am sorry for your position but
"SS know we can’t pay for more private care, and that they’ll have to fork out for a couple of months respite care with round the clock carers if she at home." that isn't true.

Social Services will not be paying for a couple of months respite care with round the clock carers. If you want that for your mother, you must pay for that. There is no money in social care budgets to pay for what you want, and no legal duty to provide what you want. So either you go down the route of paying, or you must work with social services to find the best available option - and with 24 hour care needs that is a care home. Unless, of course, you are going to provide the care yourself.

There is a lot of unclear stuff here, especially around the "wrongly written will", but the lack of clarity won't change the fact that if you want paid for social care, this is what everyone gets, and there are no special circumstances. It would be wonderful if everyone could get the social care they want and need in their later years, but there simply isn't the money to pay for it.

Is the will issue being that they had mirror wills rather than tenants in common ?

My parents have done the latter (dad has dementia) and it protects mum's half of their estate from being swallowed up IF he needs to go into a home

Presumably because they are providing / funding care going forward

This doesn’t make a great deal of sense. So your DM was fully disabled and your DF who had Parkinson’s was looking after her together with the help of paid carers. Who was looking after your DF? Does your DM have capacity? If not, does anyone have LPA for health for her? If she has no money and needs 24/7 care, the LA will not fund this and she will need to go into a care home. The alternative is that they put a charge against the house in order for her to remain there and then once she passes away the house is sold and the money paid back to the LA.
It may well be unfortunate that SS called the day after your DFs funeral, however time is now of the essence regarding your DM. Who’s looking after her now?

Sorry for your loss OP. I assume your dad died a few weeks ago? We had a similar issue but were given two weeks after the death to sort things out: I thought that was reasonable TBH. The rest of your post needs some explaining though as it is very unclear, but I'm sorry you are so anxious about things.

Had to check I hadn't missed the "harassing and insulting"

They are asking questions and trying to make sense of what's happening to be able to help

I’m sorry for your loss OP.

But I don’t quite understand OP. When they were both alive the council would not be able to take capital from the house. Now one remains, they can. Is that what is happening? I know it feels like an assault getting an official correspondence so soon after the funeral but it’s not personal, these letters are largely system generated. We’re dealing with similar at the moment, and you have to remember that to anyone not intimately connected, you and your family are just numbers.

I’m so sorry for your loss.

But I’m afraid some of your story doesn’t make sense. Why was your dad’s will written wrongly?

if your parents had a council house, how have they spent 650k on care?

Who owns their house?

why are social workers involved?

I hope you manage to resolve this so your mum can rest.

So she lives in an expensive house but can’t afford the carriage needs, then the house needs to be sold, no idea why you thought it wouldn’t happen!

So sorry to hear this, what a horrible situation
Has anyone mentioned a lifetime mortgage? Sorry not had time to read whole thread.

My Mum's financial adviser mentioned this to us at our last meeting, giving an example of a man who lived at home with care needs, his wife died and he wanted to stay at home with carers. So his family found a live in carer, he moved in to the top floor and the man moved to ground floor with a few adaptations.

Each year he took out a £30k lifetime mortgage rather than taking out a big lump at the offset and accruing interest on all of it. This paid for the carer and his pension paid his living costs including the interest on the mortgage. When he eventually died the house was sold and the mortgage paid off and what was left went to his estate. As he paid the interest the amount repayable was £30k x the no of years he lived.

It's similar to what was called equity release but is now properly regulated and the rates are not outrageous as they used to be. It would mean you could free up some cash for carers relatively fast too. If she did have to go into a care home more could be released.

I’m very sorry for your loss and this is indeed bad timing. However it’s most unlikely to be anything other than an unfortunate coincidence that the call was made to coincide with the funeral.

unfortunately you cannot expect SS to find full time care to allow your DM to adjust. It’s financially unviable. She will either have to cope with what they can offer or have family in to help if she wants to stay at home.

Your best option is to work with them to find a suitable placement ( it could be respite and lead to her moving elsewhere later). The finance teams are quite tough. Very few people want to rush to sell and empty their parent’s home but the reality is that the funds are required.

Wishing you well at a horrible time.

Although it seems callous, I understand. Councils are at breaking point, unable to give life-saving services. It is awful but it's not SWs and Council employees squeezing everyone.

It is awful for service users, and I can tell you Council workers feel shit about that.

When my mother in law went into a home, the council just took a charge on her property and got their money back after she died, from her estate. Have you asked if they can do that?

OP's having a shitty old time of it by the sound of things so perhaps a little kindness and patience is in order