Fed up of reading threads asking how they can get out of paying care home fees.

[Nextdoortomeis]

As per the title.
I'm sure lots of people would like the state to pay care home fees.
But we don't live in a fair world.
Both mum and mil paid nearly £70k in fees
yes I didn't want to pay but I also wanted them to get the best care in their later years.

Because one person’s care fees can easily add up to more than the family home is worth. From a self-funding point of view, it may make no difference if their spouse develops dementia or not. The first person’s care costs will have wiped out the family assets (even if the family home doesn’t have to be sold until they’ve both moved out).

My question too. I have a relative who was fit as a fiddle which meant they lived an extremely long life. The last few years had to be in care though, purely because of how old and therefore frail they were, not because of their health as such.

No idea.
I suppose they’d have to take control of the money and house etc.
If it got that far there would be a court case, in order to prove intent. Assuming of course the person was denying it.

How, I wonder, do you prove what someone is thinking and who would be so stupid as to lay that down in writing. ?

I think if we’re going to go on this way, there needs to be a conversation about improving care homes and making it a universal benefit - that everyone gets it paid.

If we think people shouldn’t have to pay for their care home costs I mean.

Otherwise we are going to have to get really tough on people hiding their assets, passing them on early etc. It’s not right that people think they’ve got a right to “their inheritance” when there are care home fees to be paid, unless we said “well that’s for everyone”.

But I think making it universal would be unfair as it passes the cost on to those with who have less.

The problem is, people don’t want to pay more tax to make it universal, and at the same time want to be the exception to the rule and not pay their own.

Irrespective of circumstances it still stands that those who have assets have to use them to pay for their own care AND to top up the fees of those who don’t pay anything.
We can’t just always consider the rights of those with nothing without also considering the rights of those with something.

I agree that there is too much hysteria about this subject. Everyone assumes they are going to end up in a Nursing home for year - in reality, this won't be the case for the majority of us.

Neither of my parents went into a Nursing home, neither did my FIL. My MIL went into a care home aged 90 and was there for 18 months before she died. She was self-funding and we were able to find a lovely place for her to live out her final months

We're talking about assets, not contributions.

You can have worked hard your whole life, have paid taxes for decades, and still have no home of your own.

Does this make you less deserving?

I didn't think the couples home was taken into account for care home fees if the spouse/partner was still living there

I haven't read anything from anyone that nails the poster's colours to the right -wing mast.
Or you just using the term as a lazy, go-to insult?

So why are those that have also worked and paid but have managed to accrue assets less deserving?

Totally agree with this. People with assets are not the enemy, despite what MNetters would have us believe.
It's all very lovely talking about caring for those with nothing, caring for the poorer, caring for the disadvantaged, but someone has to pay. And those who do are castigated. It's madness.

This! '"We can’t just always consider the rights of those with nothing without also considering the rights of those with something." Brilliantly put!

And it's true for so many things now - at some point it does feel unfair that the hard working 'in the middle' who are not poor but still not super rich, are continually being asked to pay ever more taxes (including VAT on schools etc).

But also, the profit margins most care homes (private) are operating at are insanely high! It's immoral really and shouldn't be allowed; same with children's care homes. Maybe there should be something similar to charity status for care homes, with a limit of how much can be taken out in profits?

I would imagine they would fall loosely into the category of 'the rich', so no, they are most definitely deserving of nothing but contempt on MN

Thing is that if you are in a home for more than a couple of years you can become one of those who HAD assets, and is then moved on to state funding anyhow when they are all used up.

MIL will run out of money in 2027 (if she lives that long) if her house sells for the estate agent valuation - allowing for 4% nursing home fee increase annually.

Not every self funder has houses worth megabucks.

The right wing media and those who comment on right wing media platforms are always making this criticism of the poor, regardless of whether they work or not. It's constant. Are you seriously trying to tell me that you don't know this?

This thread is a strong argument for why private equity firms should not be making profits off care homes -whether that's direct profits to shareholders or profits from charging the management company extremely high interest on loans.

As usually the really rich screwing over everyone else.

The staff should be paid very well so it's an attractive career, but no profits.

However, in terms of the hole in Local Authority finances, social services were a total useless waste of time in terms of the actual risk my relative posed to themselves and others (the police and paramedics on the other hand were great - though there was a cost to them also of the SS failures). It would have been actually much better for all involved if they hadn't existed at all, as they just impeded, minimised and said they'd do things and didn't, so there does need to be accountability for SS money being used properly and actually doing the job they're paid to as well. It is possible to pump millions into the public sector and nothing very much to improve without accountability. We've seen this so many times with insanely high manager salaries in the NHS and no actual accountability for real failures including deaths. We should be getting value for money from public services, and our interactions with social services were that in our specific case they could have cut the entire 'service' we received (there were endless phone calls and meetings though no action which no doubt cost a lot) and we'd have been better off.

No, I am seriously questioning why you have labelled anyone you don't agree with as 'right wing'.

That’s not correct. If a married couple live in their home together and one goes into care, the home cannot be used for funding while the other still lives there

So who do you want to pay?

A lot of people feel entitled to have the taxpayer pay for them. It’s odd. Also people taking issue with it because fees are extortionate” are odd. It’s a female dominated industry which is already terribly paid. How long do we want the pay to go.

I do think we need a conversation about it. With falling birth rates and an ageing population this problem is going to get bigger.

Did you read what I wrote or did you just ignore it and write something unrelated? I've explained why I used that label. Perhaps you are just a touch paranoid about this and therefore lashing out.

I thought the local authority forced a sale after the remaining spouse had moved out. It looks as though I might have been wrong about this.

If so, I apologise for posting misinformation. But personally, I would be really relieved if my parent without dementia could keep the family home and pass it on to whomever they choose.

I find it more odd that people think only some should have their needs met by the tax payer. If you’ve never worked or never accrued assets but have paid tax you’re fine. If you’ve worked 40 years and paid everything asked of you and managed to buy yourself a 3 bed terrace, tough shit.

The profits are the issue not the pay, the pay is shit.

I'd feel a lot happier if the 5k my relative pays per month went to the (lovely) carers but it doesn't. They're paid min wage, a hell of a lot of it goes in profits to people who never set foot in a care home.

When we are deciding if there may have been deliberate deprivation we would look at things like when did the local authority first have contact with the person and compare that with when the assets were disposed of.

E.g. if someone contacted us in 2017 for a Care Act Assessment and from that we put in 3 single carer visits a day at home, then reassessed in 2023 due to an increased care need and put that up to 4 double up carer visits a day for a couple of years there would be at least two assessments on our system as 'proof' that you recognised you had a care need at those times.

If you then came to us in April 2025 and said the needs can no longer be met safely at home due to night time needs as well and the local authority agreed that the threshold had been met for a care home placement and you wanted the local authority to fund that, we would likely ask for bank statements going back to at least 2017 as that's when there is a clear indication of assessed care needs.

We would also e.g. speak to your GP to establish when you were given a dementia diagnosis as part of the social care assessment we would do before doing a financial assessment.

If your bank statements / property deeds showed that in 2023 you signed the house over to your daughter and gave large and untypical cash gifts to all your grandchildren we would likely feel there was a case of attempted deprivation of capital.

If you signed the house over in 1999 and you always give £5k a year to your grandchildren and have done every year since they were born it's unlikely the council would consider that deprivation as the arrangement pre-existed any real anticipation of care.

If you refused to show us your bank statements (which you are entitled to do if you dont want thr local authority to fund anything) we would just work on the basis that you must be full cost and charge you accordingly.