Moving Mother in with us

[Wenjack]

My mother who is 90 and in excellent health and wellbeing would like to sell her house and live with us, which we think is an excellent idea, as our house is too small we would sell her house and ours and buy a larger house possibly with a granny annex. She would give me money from the sale of her house (approx £80000 - my share) to fund a mortgage we would have to get for the larger house.

What I am not able to find out is - If she had to go into a nursing home in the future would the authorities come to me for the £80000 to fund her nursing home fees.

In my opinion you should get a bigger share than your siblings as you will be the full-time carer, even if she is lucky enough to be fit and well at 90 now.
If she does have to go into a home later, her savings from the sale of the house in her name will have to pay for it.

We looked into this a few years ago. I think the view then was that there was a possibility of the £80K being clawed back by the local authority to fund nursing home fees if it was felt that the money had been gifted to you in order to avoid paying nursing home fees. If your mother is in ill health then your proposed arrangement doesn't look good from the point of view of fee avoidance, but the opposite also applies.

To get a more up to date view, try getting a 30 minute appointment with a solicitor specialising in family trusts/probate

I don't know if the Local Authority can claw back the money from a house you also live in , they may put a charge on the property to do this if it is ever sold. However if she had mor than£22,250 in savings and she needed care then she would need to use this money to pay for it. If this is effectively your siblings part of an inheritance then it may cause a problem as you may be seen to be getting your share while they don't.
I don't really think anyone can bank on money from a will these days if care is needed.