To feel grabby and uncomfortable with this.

[abstractplantpot]

Background - i'm married with kids we own our house and a small business. Sister single by choice owns her own house works full time and has a horse.

My father died 5 yrs ago and mum is left with the house they lived in and a small savings pot. She has been diagnosed with dementia and is needing increasing care.

My sister had talked about either renting her house out or selling it to move in with mum as she would eventually like to live in that house herself. This is fine by me. At the moment we share her care. I also do all the household business like keeping bills paid ensuring she has food and everything she needs.

Sister was advised by "the girls in work" to get legal advice before she did this as she could end up loosing out. I agreed and wanted us to get the correct info on how to do this legally and above board.

I couldn't go with her as i had no child care for the time she made the appointment so she went alone.

She has come back from the solicitor and said she doesn't need to move in with mum. She wants to open a bank account in her name and my name and transfer mums savings to it. Then get the house put into our names. with a document saying mum can live there untill she's no longer able.

For me this doesn't solve the problem of mum needing care! She has gone into that appointment trying to protect her inheritance and not looked at how we can help mum.

She's telling me she needs to look after her own interests as she hasn't got anyone else to do it for her. I have a husband she has no one. She is pushing me to do this quickly as she said we have to have it done for three years otherwise if mum goes into a home she will loose the house.

She isn't listening when i mention this doesn't help with caring for mum.

i do not want to do the joint account as it will mean my earnings for this year will push up to the next tax bracket. we own a business and this will be an asset. She's happy to move it into an account
solely in her name which again i'm fine
with but what about caring for mum.

Am i being unreasonable for being uncomfortable with this. I was happy to do it when she was moving into the house (happy to get deeds in her name or joint names not the bank account) to care for mum when she wasn't at work. i'd have gone in during the day. But now she's forgotten all about mum and is concentrating on the money.

How can i make her see i'm unhappy with this with out seeming i'm selfish.
thanks.

Not only is this wrong, it’s asinine !! No one can be forced to sell their house to pay for care, just as no one can be forced to go into care if they don’t want to. The OP’s mum has lost the capacity to make her own decisions and what you’re suggesting is to fleece her and deprive her of the care that selling her house would provide. Why should the tax payer foot the bill so that greedy relatives can protect their inheritance ? And it won\t work. It’s deprivation of assets and if her mother needs full time care, the LA will investigate and find out what’s happened. They will then come after them for deprivation of assets - and probably fraud, as what they will have done will essentially be the same as marching a vulnerable person to the bank and forcing them to withdraw funds.

@MannyTeddy - You are talking rubbish - and encouraging the OP not only to commit fraud but could land her in deep legal trouble and with untold tax implications too

🙄😳

You are correct, there is no time limit any more. The LA will go back as far as they like and if they can prove that something like this was done at a time when there was a reasonable expectation that the mother would require full time care, then they will apply deprivation of assets and assess the mother as though she still has those assets. If the sister or the OP has disposed of the assets in the meantime, the LA are perfectly entitled to take legal action to recover the care home fees from them.

It’s also fraud as their mother has dementia and doesn’t have the capacity to agree to any of it.

Your mother has assets (a house she won't need for much longer) so will need that to fund her inevitable care.
Surely your sister wouldn't expect me and other taxpayers to subsidise your mum who has thousands of pounds herself she has no other use for?!
Disgusting. And it won't wash, the seven year limit rule is nonsense.

But the rules also state that a charge will be put on the property and at such time as it is sold, the care home fees will be recovered from the proceeds. Some councils also charge a small amount of interest as the fees accrue.

There is no time limit any more, the local authority can go back as far as they like, and it’s a clear case of deprivation of assets because the sister is trying to get her hands on the house after her mum has had the diagnosis of dementia, so they can’t claim that they didn’t know she would need care. It’s also fraud, as the mother has lost the capacity to agree to any of this, and even a POA wouldn’t give either daughter the authority to do what the sister is planning.

She would have to be over 60 years of age or have a disability to be allowed to continue living in the home - also living in the home at the time her mother went into care. And the care fees would still have to be paid. The LA would put a charge on the mothers’ house so that at such time as it is sold, the fees would be recovered from the proceeds. LA’s are also entitled to charge reasonable interest on the accrued fees. It would also be noted by the LA that the sister has her own home, so may not agree to her staying on in her mothers’ home.

@Lovelysausagedogscrumpy She was going by the advice from AgeUK as follows see 5:1 Mandatory Disregards:

www.ageuk.org.uk/globalassets/age-uk/documents/factsheets/fs38_property_and_paying_for_residential_care_fcs.pdf

The LA can only use money from the house if it is subsequently sold whilst the owner is still living in the care home.

8:1 states that a DPA cannot be set up if the home is disregarded in the financial assessment.

Don’t be ridiculous.
she has taken legal advice and is quite rightly being advised so that their mum’s money isn’t eaten up with care home fees

There is no time limit on local authority investigations now - they can go back as far as they like. And it’s important to point out that ‘free’ care for 12 weeks is only available to patients being discharged from hospital who are unable to go home because there is no one available to care for them. Once the care package is in place they will start to pay whatever contribution they have been assessed as capable of making for home or residential care.

@Lovelysausagedogscrumpy
Also the daughter has no plans to sell the home when and if her parents go into care - she will live there for the rest of her life. She is an only child with no other family so will not be bothered what happens to the house after she dies.

Why is it ridiculous ? Her mother has dementia and isn’t capable of agreeing to any of this. The ‘legal advice’ she has supposedly taken is nonsense, including the three year time limit on deprivation of assets - there is no time limit any more. She’s proposing transferring her mother’s money to a joint account in her and the OP’s name. Even a POA wouldn’t give her the authority to do this, it’s stealing. And it’s not a question of the mother’s money being eaten up with care home fees - there is a property available to be sold to pay for her care. Why should the tax payer foot the bill so a greedy relative can keep the money instead of ensuring that her mother is taken care of ? Also there are strict rules - there is a reasonable assumption that the person will require care when the assets are disposed of, then it’s deprivation of assets. Their mother has already been diagnosed with dementia, so it’s more than an assumption, it’s clear cut.

The LA may not allow her to live in the home if they find out she has her own.

Your sister has misunderstood the advice or has been misadvised or is lying. Has she perhaps confused inheritance tax advice with advice re: deprivation of assets? For inheritance tax, the longer a person lives after giving assets the less inheritance tax is payable, I think after 7 years a gift would no longer be subject to IHT.

With a PoA once your DM loses capacity you can’t give her assets away anyway.

A fairer solution would be for your DS to move in, do all the caring & house maintenance etc in return for living there and bills. If your DM passes away before a move to a care home, then the house probate value is split 50/50 between you and DS buys your share from you (or according to her Will!) Otherwise when DM needs a care home, your DS buys the house from your mother, the proceeds go to fund care home fees, and whatever is left on her death is then split 50/50 between you (or whatever the Will says).

A deferred payment arrangement can be made so that the home doesn’t have to be sold within the persons’ lifetime, to pay for care fees. Unless the house is disregarded as an asset, the LA can grant a DPA and place a charge on the land registry so that if the house is sold at a future date, the fees can be repaid. It’s not conditional on whether the person is still living in the care home at the time of the sale, as the DPA is intended to mitigate the need for the home to be sold within the persons’ lifetime. But the care home fees still need to be paid. This is how it was explained to us by our LA.

there is no way she’s been advised that by a legal professional because that’s not how it works.

If her mother, who already has dementia, needs a care home then the mother’s assets will have to pay for it.

Selling their mother’s assets for their own gain absolute would be viewed as theft.
the OP as POA would be in a world of shit.

Saz12 · Today 18:44

With a PoA once your DM loses capacity you can’t give her assets away anyway.

That is not strictly true @Saz12 as you have written it. As a POA holder you have the legal right to do anything that the POA Granter can/could do. Anything at all.

HOWEVER, unlike the Granter, anything you do must be for the benefit of the Granter and I agree that I cannot think of any situation where it would be to the Granter's advantage to give away property or savings, but there may be some, so in theory it could be done under the right circumstances.

Furandfeathers 'eaten up with care fees?' You mean someone with many thousands of pounds they can't otherwise spend at the en of their life shouldn't pay for their own heating, lighting, food, laundry, gardening, property maintenance, 24/7 care, etc etc. At £1000 a month that's only £1.40 an hour. My nursery fees were more than that 20 years ago.
The care system is in crisis 'with' people paying or contributing towards their own care. Imagine how much worse it would be if taxpayers had to fund all that for millions of elderly people as well whilst relatives pocketed the lot.

I’m not saying it’s ethically right - my point is that she’s not trying to ‘Rob her own mother’
thats a ludicrous statement

The solicitor has not suggested selling their mothers assets for gain

Selling = stealing. Wrong word.

However, the OP’s sister is absolutely suggesting getting rid of the assets in her mother’s name for their gain allegedly after legal advice that as long as the mother lives for three years after it’ll be fine - She wants to open a bank account in her name and my name and transfer mums savings to it. Then get the house put into our names. with a document saying mum can live there untill she's no longer able.

Why are so many people always trying to fiddle the system ?

I work in this area ( advice for older people). I'm always shocked by the number of people subtlety ( or not so subtlety) trying to hide assets, give large sums of money away, avoid paying for absolutely anything, not declare assets, have large sums of cash hidden in their homes and still claim means tested benefits without declaring the cash ( because why should I when I've worked hard all my life ? ). Honestly are there any honest people around?