Care home top-up fees

[veryfondoftea]

We are starting to look at care options for my mother who has dementia.
Costs for this are outrageously expensive in our area. Around £1700 a week. If we sell her house we can self fund this for 3 years.
She has no other savings, so as I understand it, once the money from the house sale runs out she will be entitled to council funding.
What I cannot work out is how much this will before?
I am presuming it will not cover the £1700 and I see that there is usually an option for a third party ( this would be me) to pay a top up fee to keep her in the nicer/ more expensive care home.
Is anyone able to give me an idea of how much this top up fee is likely to be? I realise it will vary but anyone who can give an example from their own experience would be helpful.
Thanks in advance

You can get dementia photo albums that you can record a message on each page, eg describing who's in the photos

This would not be the case in my LA.
my stepfather is in a home, currently LA funded. He pays £800 a month which is basically his state pension plus very small private pension less a £25 weekly personal allowance.
The way funding works is that if the resident has a house to sell, and has capacity to sell it, then the LA will expect it to be sold to pay for their care. They can put a charge against the property, which interest will need to be paid on, but as I said, my LA won’t do that, and the resident has to agree to it. Selling a house that may be worth, say, £200k would fund a long time in a home. @ £1500 a week that’s 2.5 years. However, self funders are entitled to Attendance allowance, and along with their State pension giving them a weekly income of around £300, this means that their initial funds from the house sale will go further. In addition, the money from the house sale can be invested and will receive a decent return, extending the initial amount even further. Many people actually use this money to purchase an annuity which gives them a guaranteed income. If their savings fall below £24k, then the amount they have to pay is reduced further on a sliding scale.
The LA would be very reluctant to pay a top up of more than a couple of hundred pounds a month.
Why would you be reluctant to sell the property? It certainly won’t give anywhere near enough rental income to pay for residential care unless they already have a big private pension.

You wouldn’t be losing it because it isn’t yours in the first place. It’s your mums, and should be used to ensure she has a decent quality end of life. It’s not up to tax payers to fund nice care homes so that resident’s children can get an inheritance.

@Soontobe60
Thanks for your supportive comment.

I’m being realistic. My priority with my stepfather is that he gets the best care that his limited money can afford. As his home is worth very little due to it having equity release on it, the LA disregarded it in their calculations. Despite that, it is being sold and the little equity that is left will go towards his care fees. The LA will complete a new financial assessment so for a short time he will pay more for his care. Unless he dies within the next 6 months, we won’t see a penny.
Believe me, some care homes where the LA funds places are pretty grim. Local authorities are on their knees financially all over the country. Council tax is rising, everyone is having to pay higher prices with less money. It’s very crass to expect other people to fund care home costs through their taxes when someone owns their own home just so that families can keep an inheritance.

I can assure you it is my absolute priority to make sure my mother gets the best possible care.
She has worked her whole life and never taken a penny from the "tax payer" so I'll have to disagree that it's crass to hope that she might be able to leave something behind for her children and grandchildren.
Surely this is why this new cap is coming in, to allow people to have more chance of leaving something behind.

I can only tell you how it works locally to us. Once the savings are down to 23000 the places are funded. We never got to that point with either of my parents, but we were told they wouldn’t need to move if it did. With dementia it’s also likely that a point where care becomes palliative is reached. Usually that’s funded

Make sure the home offers nursing as well as care. You don't want her booted out because her needs can't be met further down the line. And they will do, if they are a care-only establishment.

You want to avoid moves as far as you can, each move can accelerate a decline and destabilise and distress the person with dementia.

If she has no savings but has her own home and wants to stay there a while, contact social services now and ask them to do a needs assessment for her. They may recommend she gets a carer at home and decide a personal budget for her. They will then ask you to do a non-residential financial assessment for her, which will decide how much she can pay for own care, based on her current pension, expenses etc and social services will make up the rest. You then wont have to sell her house until she actually needs residential care.

In this situation, I believe only the nursing part of the care is covered by the NHS. The individual continues to cover the residential costs - bed, board, utilities etc

@veryfondoftea
I would be very cautious about agreeing to top up fees. They can only be paid by a 3rd party, usually a relative.
They are also likely to increase by much more than inflation so you could be building up a huge commitment.
Could you ask the homes if they would accept the Local Authority rate if the resident has already self funded for 3 years.

So here I just quoted from own experience. The OP may have a different experience where they live.

My mother was 90, did not have dementia but stopped eating properly following an infection that took away her sense of taste. When she dropped belie a certain weight her care was considered palliative and all care home costs were paid. This 2022

Ah, thanks, @New2024 - my dad has recently moved from 'residential' to 'nursing' but still pays the residential rate. I am sure there are conditions like your DM's (sadly) where everything is covered.

I know this isn't what op was asking but does anyone have any experience of care home annuities
My mum has just moved into a care home and is self funded so my brother and I are looking into these

@GardenersDelight I'm guessing a normal annuity would do the job but maybe ask the question on the money/investment thread. They're more likely to be able to help you over there.

Barchester would only accept MiL with evidence of a minimum of £150k of liquid assets. Her fees were £1400 - £1600 per week. They said that once funds ran out they would "liaise with a new care home". We lost her 12 months later during Covid.

@GardenersDelight we did look at this, I would advise speaking to a good independent financial advisor (not a solicitor) and at the same time have an frank and honest talk with her doctors about her prognosis. It is NOT the same as a normal annuity (which is the way we eventually went). Take all the info you have to the financial advisor. Be prepared for some hard truths!
Whatever way you go it is a bit of a gamble.

Hi OP,
On a slight tangent if your mother is only recently scared to be alone and those feelings are worse in the morning it might be worth taking her to her GP. They might be able to try medication to help reduce her anxiety - with her consent of course.

You can't use this. It has to be a third party top up not from her pension. My Aunt is in a care home I have POA. I could only put her in a more expensive care home if I personally was to pay. Council were prepared to pay £450 a week, I had to pay the other £1.5k per week!! Suffice to say she is in a council one. I hate it but who has a spare £6k a month to pay out

As @Alphabet1spaghetti2 says, immediate needs annuities are specialist products. For a start they are usually much shorter term than normal annuities, and they come with a more detailed health assessment.

@IIdentifyAsInnocent blimey that’s not a top up - that’s draining the tank and being chased by debt collectors. £6k a month!!! That’s more than Elton johns spend on fresh flowers?!

@Alphabet1spaghetti2 i know!! She has to pay her care home fees with the pension up to £1203 a month, the council pay the rest, but if I wanted her to go to a better home I'd be liable for the £6k a month!! She has dementia very badly, but is physically very well, so although 86, is likely to live a while yet. It is daylight robbery

I am not allowed to use the rest of her pension to pay any care home fees at all. It is amazing how quickly that extra bit of money each month adds up too, so I'm constantly trying to make sure she is below the self funding level, mostly because it's a lot of hassle to go through the council's financial calculations and amend the costs etc each month.

My nieces and nephews get nice presents at every birthday, she has the best of everything.

@IIdentifyAsInnocent funeral plan and all the extras prepaid? Surprising what isn’t included and ends being extra - cars, flowers, Funeral tea, stationary etc. Suspect though you’ve already done that though - we did have a lovely family who made sure that their loved one had a massive home wide party every year with day long entertainment which managed to eat a chunk of ££ annually. One year I organised a home visit safari zoo for the morning, an afternoon tea dance with lovely singers who sang from a bespoke list of requests out in by every resident and well as birthday gal, followed by fish and chips and birthday cake for all residents. Just an idea…..!

@AAlphabet1spaghetti2 funetal plan fully paid up years ago. I'm now in the process of buying her some nice jewellery (she love gold) to ensure its below the threshold. We also go out for dinner regularly which she pays for. Honestly, had I know how difficult it would be to be POA, I'm fairly sure I'd not have agreed.