Inheritance and care home fees

[Hateam]

Hello!

My mother-in-law is in a care home.

My wife, her daughter, is also in a care home for medical - non age related- issues. My council are paying for my wife's care as we have under £24500 in savings.

When my MIL dies (she's 94) my wife will inherit about £180,000.

We don't want this money going to Essex CC.

Is there anything we can?

Could my MIL's will be changed to remove my wife and replace her with me? She is still of sound mind.

Could the money go into an account in my sole name?

I am aware of the concept of deprivation of assets.

Exactly.

Assuming no undue influence etc it's MIL's decision and hers alone.

You wouldn’t. I misunderstood and I owe you an apology because I assumed from your first few posts that you were trying to sidestep care fees and hang on to MiL’s money. This is clearly not the case, sorry. If your MiL has capacity and agrees, then there’s nothing wrong with her setting up a trust for her daughter. What’s not clear (at least to me !!) from your previous posts is whether the whole £180,000 inheritance is protected from MiL’s own care fees. If not then she could only bequeath the residue of her estate after these fees were settled. If her own assets are protected and the whole £180,000 will be available, given your DW’s expectation of needing care for the duration of her lifetime, then I think it’s sensible to look at every option to make sure her future is protected. And allowing a considerable sum of money which you are never likely to see as a lump sum again to be swallowed up in care fees over a couple of years, is not the best use of that money.

He’s trying to work out the best use of a considerable sum of money that they’re never likely to see again. £180,000 is a huge sum of money that will be swallowed up in care fees in 3-4 years. OP’s wife isn’t elderly, she’s disabled as a result of a brain tumour and could be in care for 30-40 years. Added to that the money doesn’t belong to DW, it belongs to MiL. MiL can do as she pleases with it and legally and morally there is nothing wrong with her wanting to set up a trust fund that will ensure her substantially disabled daughter has financial security, given the circumstances. That’s his view.

Nope. It’s not a legal loophole. The money doesn’t belong to DW until her mum passes and bequeaths it to her. If MiL wants to use the money to set up a trust fund so her daughter has financial security for life instead of seeing it swallowed up in care fees in just a couple of years, that makes sense and it’s up to her. And how do you know which generation DW is from. OP hasn’t mentioned age.

Yep. This. Not DW’s money. MiL can do what she wants with her own money.

Thank you.

The figure of £180,000 is a best estimate based on her recent diagnosis, (life expectancy) care home fees and what I know about her savings.

There’s a huge difference between residents in care homes who choose to go there because they have no one else to look out for them. The person in question here sounds very much like she’s in a home due to very significant needs and that her DH plus other carers cannot safely look after her.

There’s also the fact that self funders who live in care homes alongside LA funded residents invariably pay more for care to subsidise the LA in paying for those who can’t pay themselves. My Aunt is paying approx £1000 a month more than she would be paying if she were LA funded - exactly the same facilities. Assuming she lives 5 years, that’s a whopping £60,000 from her own funding pot, paid towards the care of others. OP will be in this position if his wife’s inheritance is put towards care fees - it will all be swallowed up and not all of it for her own benefit.

You’re missing something very important though. She is currently in a home being funded by the LA. That wont be a luxury place by any stretch of the imagination. She is NOW at the mercy of Social Services because she isnt a self funder. The money would provide at least 3 year’s worth of care in a much nice home than she may already be in, and once it falls below the £24k threshold she will revert to being partially funded.

If someone is LA funded then most of their pensions/income if any would go to the care home to reduce the amount the LA has to pay leaving the resident with just a small amount of "pocket money" for toiletries, hairdressing, chiropodist, clothes, things to make the room nice. That £180,000 in a trust would fund all this.
On the other hand would it count as deprivation of assets if I started giving away assets now rather than once needing care (recently retired and luckily have funds at the end of the month)

If you have no reasonable expectation of needing future care at the time you give away assets then it isn’t deprivation of said assets. However, if your age or health, or any other factors make it likely that you would need care, then it is. The problem is that your interpretation of that definition and the LAs are likely to be two entirely different things. And there is no limit to the amount of time the LA can go back in order to try to prove it. The point with OP’s situation is that the funds in question do not yet belong to his wife. They are her mothers’ to bequeath as she wishes, and OP is looking for the best way prevent that bequest being eaten up by care fees in a couple of years when it could potentially be put in trust to provide an income for life.

If you're talking about gifts to your children or grandchildren and you're just in your sixties, I couldn't see the most overzealous official deciding that was deprivation of assets. It's not a bad idea. After all many parents give their children money for deposits etc. How far back can they realistically go? Someone at 65 giving their son £50K from their savings to buy a house? That's so many families nowadays, sadly. And yes the parent may well need care twenty years down the line, but if they take that approach, any of us might!

The whole "subsidising" thing is nothing but lies peddled by care home owners. They can operate just fine off the council rates but they charge loads more to private funders simply because they can, then dress it up by saying they dont get enough off the councils. It's just a profiteering racket and causes division between the private and council funders.

Absolutely. The self funders get a slightly bigger bedroom with slightly nicer furniture and maybe a view of a the garden.
Oops hit post too soon. It’s all ridiculous really. It’s the care homes who are charging whatever they like, it isn’t the LA funded people who are being subsidised.

There are limited care homes for younger adults. Even in well populated areas, there aren’t a plethora of care homes who accept younger adults. Uprooting someone who has a brain injury doesn’t sound like a sensible idea especially if you know it’s temporary.

The homes I worked for were not for elderly care, the people in them were often sent by the court or by the LA if the family could no longer safely care for t hem. I think I did mention that some of our residents would need 2 to 1 care so they'd go on holiday with two carers. Yes even those with significant needs don't need to be treated like criminals locked up for life.

Where I worked the self funders didn't get anything more than publicly funded except if they wanted a special holiday, say a cruise,they would fund that for themself and the carer/carers who went with them. If they were funded for 2 to 1 care they didn't pay any additional staffing costs, if they were funded for 1 to 1 care and two needed to go they would pay towards additional staffing costs.

Not likely as you presumably have no medical records of anything putting you on notice that care might be needed eg diagnosis of dementia etc

Yes I can see that I did misunderstand - sorry!