Person going into care home thinks they have avoided selling their house to pay fees?

I agree in principle with self funding.

After all, you are selling your home & paying to live in another.

What I don't agree with is that self funders subsidise non self funders.

Also that people with dementia don't seem to get any funding at all & pay the full cost of their care.

Yep! Even the minimum wage carers who work there will be subbing them.
They'll also be subbing people who could afford to pay for medical care, child benefit for people earning twice as much as them, and all sorts of things which benefit people earning much more than them.

Yep! Even the minimum wage carers who work there will be subbing them.

I think most people want to live healthy lives, free of pain. And the freedom from pain is probably the most urgent need. Difficult to know whether refusing medication will simply cause more pain without doing anything to shorten life.

And as PP mentioned the LA just go for any home in their area. They wanted to put my mum in somewhere 15 miles away that would have meant her sister couldn't get to her (rubbish public transport links). Instead we got somewhere round the corner and she had lots of visitors.

One thing to remember is that local authorities pay as little as they can to badly funded care homes.

My mum had to fund her own care (rightly so) and we got her into a far far better home than the LA were pushing for. I'd be wary of relying on the LA if I could afford better.

The LA wouldn't have agreed to putting her in the better home and us topping up (I checked as was worried her money would run out) as they didn't have a deal with the nice one we found.

Local Authority Safeguarding social worker here!

I could write a book on the shenanigans that solicitors and siblings do to preserve any inheritance and avoid paying the care fees for their parents, but I won't for confidentiality reasons and in case the salacious gossip mongering tabloids get hold of it.

Suffice to say, putting granny and her wheelchair up a long winding flight of steps in the servants' room of a manor house after she has put her house in the family trust fund and then her son who had LPA for finances getting a private carer in for granny to cry to and her needs to be met so the family could save on care home fees, is just one example of misplaced trust in children.

Another is children with LPA for finances believing that once their relative has been diagnosed with dementia, it can give them the rights to raid their bank and building society accounts.

Unfortunately for them, we can and do get LPA's revoked through the Court of Protection and we can take over your loved ones finances or assets if we have good reason to believe you are not acting in your loved ones best interests.

Often there is a lot of squabbling between siblings. We have seen it all.

Nothing surprises us any more. And the posters who say that an expensive care home will automatically give you better personal care? Sorry, that is not always the case. The expensive care homes are businesses and run for a profit and the glossier their brochure doesn't mean to say they aren't frequently on our warning "traffic light" system.

Think long and hard before you try and pull a fast one over the care and treatment of your loved one.

Unfortunately for many people, morality and ethics come way down the list and financial gain is their top priority.

The arrangement @gingercat02 describes is very common, the aim being to protect some of the estate for their DC.

Anyone savvy enough to do this is likely to have substantial means or assets, therefore they are unlikely to meet the threshold for financial assistance for quite a long time. In the meantime they will be meeting the full cost out of income and savings, which can’t be avoided. The care system still gets more money out of these clients than someone who has very limited assets to take into account, even if they don’t get the whole lot.

@MrsDanversGlidesAgain indeed

My Mum's estate is all going on care .. it is what it is .

@benfoldsfivefan
I will have a very good NHS pension, so that and my state pension will go a long way to paying for my care. DH can choose to top it up if he wants/needs to. I will make that decision if and when I need to for him.
MIL is currently in an NH. We have just sold her house (LPA) and invested the money. Her state and teachers pension plus her Scottish government care allowance pay for her care atm, but we can top it up from the income from that investment if we need to, as it is her money.

Local authorities can go back as far as they want if they suspect deprivation of assets

It's deprivation of assets so it won't work unless he did it 7 years ago before the diagnosis

But unless you’ve got savings, you or/and DH are going to be dependent on your LA for care but there may be a time when you or him want care of a certain standard and in an area of your choice, which you won’t have because you can’t pay the fees (if I’ve understood properly).

Yes, the former, and if we both went into care, possibly yes.

Reading in more detail, I think you mean the former.

I don’t think this would stop the LA putting a charge on the house, or looking at the whole thing if you both went into care rather than one dying and DS inheriting.

Ok, so you are tenants in common now, so each of you owns 50%, but in your wills, you each leave your 50% in trust for your son?

Or your house is now owned by two trusts, one of which has yiu and DS as beneficiaries and the other DH and DS?

I used to be an Older People's social worker. Our LA is pretty hot on deprivation of assets. I know several cases where families were trying to game the system and got caught

There is no need for rent as the other parent still owns 1/2 of the house. It is watertight and very commonly done. We are only in our 50s, so we will hopefully be around for many years yet.
It also means that if one of us dies, the other can't leave the house to anyone else, while DS is still alive. So, to a second spouse or SC

My DD works for the local county council in adult social care funding, and believe me, they have access to all of someone's financial information and things like this are rarely gotten away with. They have a very large department dealing with this.

The care funding has to come from somewhere, and the LA does everything it can to make sure that it's not coming from them if someone has money/property.

@LadyMooMoo Leagaly, we both own 1/2 house independently. When one of us dies, their 1/2 goes straight to DS.
If we need care, then the other person still owns 1/2 the house, so it can't have a claim put on it.

@Paul2023 would this property transfer not make the house liable to Capital Gains Tax, whereas it may have been mostly tax free from Inheritance Tax if willed on death? Depends on value of estate I suppose.

Ive known of a few cases where some mothers ( often widowed) have signed their property over to their children.
One lady died anyway and didn’t end up in a care home. This was a few years later.

@gingercat02 I'm not sure your plan is as watertight as you think it is. It may be legal but it's still clearly done to avoid paying fees so the LA will see right through it.
Will you be paying market rent to your son if one of you passes away?

I do agree with @MereDintofPandiculation about advanced indications of wishes etc. My dad doesn’t know who anyone is, etc. I doubt he would want to continue like this if he did know.

Most of us do want to live a long life. Taking pills, having blood tests, getting check ups, scans, surgeries.
The vast majority of people don't suddenly start refusing medication when we become frail and ailing. Over thirty years of nursing has taught me that.