Spending money when in a care home

[nickdrakeslovechild]

Does anyone know where I can go for legal advise on what my mum can and cannot spend money on when she is in a care home? She is part funded and got just under 23K, She usually gives my child about £500 a year for birthday and Christmas and us about the same each year along with other family members. As she is part funded I cant seem to see anywhere what she can and cant spend her money on. Age concern have said they no longer give advise on this but passed me an email address but there has been no reply to my messages.

Gifts of that size would quite rightly be seen as deliberate self-deprivation of assets.

You can give family members £250 each in a tax year and backdated one tax year.

Office of public Guardian may have info on their website

My dad was fully self funding. He was allowed to spend £10 per week.
We bought his clothes and toiletries and reclaimed the money from him but we had to provide receipts for absolutely everything.

Thanks for the replies, she has a daily paper and on a monthly basis needs incontance things and chiropodist which all adds up to over £120 a month. She also needs new clothes as she has lost so much weight so we are keeping receipts for all those things. She wants to carry on giving the grandchildren presents and as her POA I can do that but I just cant find a definitive answer anywhere. Fortysix where did you get the information from? I am struggling to find anything on it on office of Public guardian.

I will pm you

As I understood it someone can give away up to £3000 in total - yep three thousand a year and it is seen as a gift. Any more than that and it's seen as a tax dodge.

Often this is the only way of dodging the tax man. It's the equivalent of leaving the country with wads of notes strapped about your person.

Not sure what your angle is though OP, are you worried the care home is ripping her off?

And if she has her marbles, she can do as she pleases with her money I'd have thought, but when it runs out, who gets to pay the top up fees? If nobody can, she's off to a dirt cheap care home or moving back with you. So it is wise to be thrifty.

If she does have her marbles, get LPA in Health and Welfare and in Finance for the time when she doesn't, or later they won't even let her back to the family home anyway, you are not the decision maker, the State is. The State has a license to kill the elderly, esp if they have dementia - it saves them money and you won't be able to prove anything.