Depletion if funds????

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Hi, My mum has lived with me and my family in my home for 4 to 5 years and I have been the sole carer.

She moved in when with us as she diagnosed with dementia, the middle stages as was hoarding and didnt look after herself. I have been the sole carer for 4 to 5 years which has been trying at times but she is in a clean, safe environment and has had alot of enjoyment from life with days out etc.

My mum has since had unexpected seizures ( 2 within a month) and i requested a carers assessmemt be carried out, so she is now in a care home for the 6 week carers assessment. I am not expecting her to come home as the seizures are servere, and she is not medicated ( waiting for a referral).

When Mum sold her flat 3.5 years ago ( she did have the dementia diagnosis) she gifted all her 5 children some money approx £25,000 each, as one of her children was in financial trouble and she wanted to make the gifting fair to the other siblings.

She never wanted to go in a care home as she was in care as a child before being apopted and the plan was always to live with us and get home help if required.

We added a shower room to our house for my mum. A year ago, the house was no longer working for us, so we moved and brought a much larger house to accomodate my mums needs. She has a bedroom with an ensuite and a further bedroom used as a lounge, my husband and i financed the move. Again intening my mum to live out her days with us, as at this point did not have seizures. My Mum has just over £100,000 left, and we are expecting that to go on care home fees.

At the time when the money was gifted, it was in the news that noone will ever have to pay more than £86,000 towards care. It was always mums and our intention to get home care if needed which she is able to finance. Im now concerned about the gifted money when/if she runs out of money at the financial assessment. Ironically, if mum went straight into a care home from her flat and didnt make any gifts, all the money would have been gone by now and would be financed by the local authority as I was the sole carer which has probably gained 2 extra years of them not needing to fund for a care home.

Any advice on this?

Many thanks

First of all, how much income does she have coming in from pension and Attendance Allowance?
Care home fees are around £1000 a week where I live. If she has £1000 a month in income then she has to fund a further 3 weeks a month, so 3K. Her £100k she currently has, if invested well, could therefore last her around 3 years, or less so if she moves into a more expensive home. So the deprivation of assets will only come into play once that money runs out. The concern is that she gifted this money after diagnosis, so there’s a clear expectation that she could need residential care in the near future at the point she made the gifts. In addition, she didn’t just give it to you and then move in with you, whereby one could argue that by doing so she was justifiably paying for her own care. She gave £100k to others who did not provide a home or care for her. This will likely be seen as clear deprivation of assets should she still be alive once her current savings have run out.

Soontobe60, thank you for your response. She has around £900 pm coming in.

The care plan was to stay at our house and live out her days here with home help ( as my grandad and father in law both stayed at home with dementia until they passed - excluding a couple of weeks at the very end).

If mum solely had dementia she would still be at home with us, but the newly brought on seizures are another level.

It was never her intention to deprive herself of assets as we had a care plan in place which we all believed was achievable. Do you think that they will take this into account?

Thabk you again x

They might - but there are savings to go through first. Do you have a timeline you can have ready if questioned?

Your care has saved a lot of money and it really doesn’t seem fair to go back so many years - I hope a financial assessor on MN can comment on your thread around how far is reasonable to go back.

Also, has anyone mentioned Continuing Healthcare (CHC) funding?
It is NHS rather than social care funding and everyone will say it is hard to get but it sounds like your mum needs to be in a care home with 24 hour nursing and for a medical reason so might be worth exploring.

You might get chc because the seizures add an element of unpredictability which is what the look for in the assessment. It’s actually a fairly straightforward process and there are lawyers who will do it on a no win no fee basis. It’s very hard to get though - my mother who is immobile, has to be moved by hoist, cannot communicate, fed puréed food by hand, doubly incontinent, skin on legs breaking down, does not because according to the nhs her needs are social and predictable….
if you don’t qualify and she lives longer than her money lasts I do think it will be viewed as deprivation of assets as her need for care (whether at home or in a home) would have been largely foreseeable. It’s an unfair system because the more you save, the more you are penalised, but on the other hand if you could have afforded care but gave your money away why should the tax payer subsidise your siblings getting 25k each.

FiniteSagacity. Thank you for your response. I do hope so as it is a new condition that wasn't anticipated. She did make provisions for care, but didn't anticipate a care home.
I have thought if the chc funding but im not sure she will qualify. But definitely worth a go! I will look into that, thabk you. X