MIL transferring money to DH against future care home costs

That’s fair enough. I only found out recently and my local authority don’t tell people and you have to request it in writing so I’m telling everyone

If someone requires care the local authority (LA) would do a Care Needs Assessment (to determine what might be needed) and a Financial Assessment (to determine who pays for it).
Anyone individual with over £23250 (in England) pays for all their own care, between £14250 and £23250 pays a proportion of care costs.
As part of the Financial Assessment the LA can go back as far as they want to see what money an individual has had, where it has gone and when - this is especially key if someone already has a diagnosis because it increases the likelihood of care being needed. If they decide someone has deliberately moved cash to avoid care costs it will be considered deprivation of assets.
It may seem harsh but consider that any money they have over the threshold enables them to buy the care they want, rather than what the LA will pay for.
Please encourage them to seek advice, LA’s often have access to independent advisors who can help guide them through the process.

That's good to know. My Dad was on his own though. Mum passed away nearly 20 years before him. He was 94 when he died.

I would say that as long as dh and his sis actually hang on to the money, he can probably smile and nod at Mum if it makes her feel better.
If they own their own home, it will be disregarded if mum is still living there. It will only come into play if mum needs care after dh had passed away. It's a shame they didn't sort our poa and tenants in common before dementia. It might not be too late though. We sorted the poa out via a solicitor who was satisfied that she had capacity.
As long as dh/sister are willing to give the money back in the unlikely event that they are down to the last £3k I wouldn't sweat it.

Have a look at the caring for elderly parents section on Mumsnet. Lots of experience and advice there.

Your PIL can each gift £3000 per annum free of tax. So they could give you £6000 pa without any worry. Above this you’re into the surviving for 7 years territory. And your PIL need POAs… sooner rather than later.

The local authority I work for ask for a few months bank statements and take your word for it

If you have a spouse you can request 50% of private pensions be discounted for their wife/husband

Honestly she just needs to squirrel the money in to an account in her own name. Only accounts in joint names will be taken in to 50/50 consideration or accounts in his name. Unless he needs a care home in the next 6 months it will never be picked up if it’s done slowly

It will be seen as deprivation of funds.

Makes me smile (or it would if it was funny) the people who think they can get out of using their savings or property to pay for care home fees. This is the system we have in the UK right now, unfortunately, and if you can't pay you could well get inferior care. You could be asked to move out of a home you've settled into if the money runs out.

It's not right, it's not ideal, but with an ageing population and fewer and fewer younger workers contributing to the tax pot, who the F is actually supposed to pay for it all?

We sold my Mum's house to pay for her care home fees. We all felt lucky that she had a property to sell to pay for care in a very nice place with the sherry trolley, lovely garden, good food, well paid staff. What better to spend her money on? The alternative would have been funding me and my brother, both in our 60s and not destitute.

Just to make you aware that when people go into a care home the government takes all their pensions to pay for it and leaves them with a token amount for spending money (used to be £20 per month in 2013, probably gone up hopefully). The care home does not supply toiletries and you need to pay for hairdressers. So expecting the taxpayer to pay for people's care home fees is just not a thing, people are always saying this.Nothing is free. I know because my father was in a care home for 5 years and I took care of his finances as an only child.

They must have lied about the financial situation then.

You all need some proper facts before making decisions and transferring money here, there and everywhere.

https://www.independentage.org/sites/default/files/2025-09/Factsheet-Care-home-fees-Property-disregards-and-deferred-payments_0.pdf

Sometimes home ownership is disregarded anyway

Theses are such small sums of money I really wouldn’t worry. No one is going to be in trouble.

This sounds like small beer to me and unlikely to cause problems. You could do with LPA for health and finances set up in case they’re needed and to do some financial planning.
It could well be that your MIL is acting on the wrong assumptions; are they claiming all that they can in way of Attendance Allowance and Carers Allowance etc? You may be able to seek advice from Age UK.

Transferring the money like that doesn't safeguard it though. If your DH should need care in the future there will be a financial assessment from social care and they go back years and years to look for what's called deprivation of assets. They could require your DH to pay the money back and you may need to pay tax on the gifts if the estate goes through probate. Better to buy a specific funeral plan, one each, which will cost ££££'s. They can only legitimately gift £3000 per year total.

they (the council) only sue for it back if they have paid out any money. If they council find out before they start to pay for the res care, (or care at home as well actually) which is a more likely case, then they do the financial assessment as though the person still had the money. Its also possible that they can just cease or limit payments which they are entitled to do and saves court costs.

They are 2 different things, giving away money so your estate doesn't pay IHT is not the same as giving away money so you don't have to pay for your own care. Different rules.

This happened to my mum in law who went into a care home during covid with dementia - bad dementia I mean didn't recognise anyone, couldn't string a sentence together or recognise herself in a photo. She was probably in less than a year before she died but there was no bill during or at the end of it. With my dad, he had to part fund but I did all the paperwork - and I detailed all assets and got bank statements ready but no one looked at those, they went with the figures on the forms.

2 different things, gifts that will be disregarded for IHT and then what they are doing which is getting rid of money so that care home fees don;t eat it up. Its a really odd thing to do though, the latter I mean - surely if you could self fund / part self fund you would as that would mean you'd have a choice of homes rather than getting stuck in one the LA chooses.

They can't make it any clearer that this is what they are doing though, gifts starting at exactly the same time as your FIL gets ill. Having said that i am not sure they have the resources to check.

And it isn’t just about the money.

If the money has gone, who is going to pay for care? What if the LA won’t? What if the money has been spent? What if LA provision is limited (home for a couple of hours or a very basic nursing home)? Are the receivers of the cash able and willing to take on a full care role?

Having just gone through this, care home fees were £5,000 a month. We couldn’t have afforded this if my MiL had given away her money.

We wanted her to have a choice, for her to live comfortably and with dignity. She worked hard for this. We wanted to honour our late FiL who worked hard too and would have wanted their savings to look after his wife, with the best that she could have.

We would only have been able to offer the level of care she needed by her living with us and by one of us giving up our jobs. We have teen children to care for too. It would not be cost effective (besides many other reasons for not giving up a career) for the sake of the money given to us.

They can gift the £3k .
They can also buy a funeral plan which would be a better idea .
What they can’t do is pass many larger sums of money to your family or put the house in your name .
that would definitely be deprivation of assets

My sister who has just claimed her pension, is on pension credit, she does this, is hiding a few thousand in her sons account so she can keep claiming benefits.

Yes it's deprivation of assets. You can gift 3k a year to a person, but with father diagnosed it would be considered blatant moving of assets in order for the council to bear specialist care costs at an earlier date.

Tbh moving a few thousand is a drop in the ocean in terms of care. My grandfather was in a specialist dementia care home at £2000 per week. Today it's nearer 400 a day. Before 'extras'. It's v close to living in a nice room at the Ritz with dinner and drinks.