AIBU to try and prevent care home fees? Advice appreciated

[Watermelonsuns]

So my parents are elderly, both have health issues but managing well at home. My mum in particular would struggle if something happened to my dad. Recently a friend's parent had to go into a care home and as the parent owned their own house and savings they are self funding and the fees are crazy.
AIBU to try and find a way to protect my parent's property and savings in order its not all gone in care home fees in the last years?
Someone has suggested moving their property into my name but surely that would be an obvious way to avoid fees and would look dodgy? Is there another loop hole im missing? Aby advice from someone working in this area would be appreciated thanks

When you say 'excluded', does that mean that if a couple live in a house and only one goes into care, there are no fees (assuming no savings)? Or are the fees recouped from the estate when the spouse who is not in care dies?

I am fairly sure that if one person remains in the house the couple purchased then the LA have to pay. My father went into a home. My mother was not expected to pay any costs or have a charge on the house.
However, I have heard of the case where a wife moved into a home. The husband then sold the house to be nearer his wife and then the LA demanded that the finances were separated in half.

There are no fees relating to the property.
The property is exempt
As its except they cannot recoup monies after the remaining spouse dies. They cannot put a charge on the property.

However if the remaining spouse passes away whilst the other spouse is still in the care home then SS can use the property as an asset for fees. If there’s no dependent living in it any longer.

The house is completely exempted from the financial assessment if one spouse is still living in it after the other goes into care, and crucially, it is their only home. SS will include 50% of any joint savings/assets and 100% of any savings/assets solely in the name of the spouse in care. They will also take into account what proportion of any personal income they are liable to pay towards care fees. Fees are not recouped from the estate if the spouse is still living in the house when the person in care dies.

However, only the original house they shared at the time one of them went into care can be exempted. If the remaining spouse downsizes before the spouse in care dies, then any profit would be assessed for care fees. If the remaining spouse pre deceases the person in care, a reassessment of fees would be made to include the house - similarly if they move out permanently for any reason the person in care’s share of the house would lose exemption and there would be a reassessment.

In the case of a direct relative - a dependent child, someone aged 60+, or disabled sharing a home with the person who has gone into care, exemption would again be made while they are permanently resident in the house, if that is their only home. They would also have had to be resident in the house before the person went into care, and the rules applying to downsizing, pre decease, and moving out would still apply as above.

Spot on. This was our experience too, as you say, a lot depends on the needs of the person going into care. If the home doesn’t have the facilities to cater to those needs then they can’t offer services no matter how much you pay.

Thank you @Flossflower, @DrPrunesqualer and @Rosscameasdoody.

Luckily I'm not in that position, but I've never fully understood how the exemption worked.

So sorry to hear about your Dad. Sending you gentle hugs and hope you have support at this difficult time x

OP, both my grandmothers went into care homes. One had her own home in a good area to sell and a small private pension, and this paid for quite a nice care home. My other grandmother, who was mostly council-funded, went into one that was honestly no where near as nice, in any aspect: Room, decor, facilities, activities, noise, smell, staff competency, anything.
Quite apart from the moral/legal issue of deprivation of assets, wouldn't you WANT your parents to be somewhere pleasant, with excellent staff, and proper facilities?

If you RTFT you’ll see numerous examples and MNs stating cases contrary to this.
With only 1.3% of care homes fully funded by residents it’s simply not possible to think if you've got the money you’ll get better.

The places simply don’t exist in enough numbers

Well I'm sorry for sharing my own family's experience in that case. You obviously know far better than we do what was available to us, in our location, at the time that we needed to find care.

What do you mean by this?

@DrPrunesqualer
Yes 1.3% but they exist. There are some where they have theatre trips out, lovely rooms, history lecturers coming in etc. These cost in excess of £120k a year but if you sell a £1m house in the south east and have a good pension it will keep you going for a few years.

There are also homes that take self funders and people who are state funded but whose relatives pay top up fees. The ONS still classes people who have top up fees paid for them as state funded.

I’m just reading the stats from published info ONS etc. All Available to everyone

Individual cases when there are 300,000 elderly in care homes are not reflective of the majority.

Well yes
The point is 98.7% of care homes available are available to mixed funders or council only …they are the norm

As I said 1.3% are available to the fully funded only.
No idea how much they cost, where they are, who they can take.
They are too few to plan for

Well thanks Blossom. When have I ever said I know better. Aren’t facts more relevant than what people ‘think’ is going on.

My posts reflect the statistics and I’ve even posted screen shots etc to help.

Aren't people interested in facts.
Arent they the basis for educating ourselves and making good choices as without them we carry on in ignorance

It’s not what people “think”. It’s what they’ve experienced. For most of the thread you were insistent that every care home accepted LA funded residents. Now you’ve had to concede that isn’t the case. Being opinionated doesn’t make you right.

A friend of mines father has just moved into a care home so they have moved out of their rental property and into the father's house. Is this legal?

They’ll pretty soon have to move again. As soon as the LA starts proceedings to claim repayment of fees from the house sale - which it will - they’ll be homeless.

Not if the house forms part of his financial assessment. 'Legal' is the wrong term; they might not have the right to stay there long. On the other hand, if he has an absolute packet in the bank, like hundred of thousands of pounds, the care fees will be covered for quite some time. I think the authority is just happy that they are paid from the service user's assets in some form, but the eyewatering cost of care fees means that average savings don't last for long,

Splitting hairs, aren’t you? 98.7% of care homes accept LA funded residents. No, not every single one, but the vast majority.

Some of these 98.7% that accept LA funded residents will only accept them if relatives or friends agree to make a top up. The percentage of homes that accept LA funded residents without top ups is much less. So not the vast majority.

I’m not aware I’ve said anywhere that ALL care homes accept LA funded residents @Blossomtoes but I’m happy to be corrected if you can find that post.
Agree @Flossflower about top ups by relatives on top of LA funding to secure a place. I suppose to get that choice that’s what people chose to do. Maybe that’s through a lack of fully funded residents 🤷‍♀️. Who knows

Thanks @westisbest1982 I think so too it’s such a small number and I think the point I was making with the 1.3% was re a pp commenting on the fully funded care homes only.

I’d still love to know if people are prepared to help out this system that is falling apart and only going to get worse in time by paying into a centralised
insurance scheme
or a new tax of some sort

See past post and with a bit of research, stats and maths ( it’s all about facts ) we could fund the 300,000 with £2:50 a week extra in tax by all working age people.

Shall we all pull together to support this Welfare State
or shall we just all forget about it now