Care assessment

[NK346f2849X127d8bca260]

My parents had a care assessment which I attended last week. My mother has dementia, they are going to be funded for a daily carer and for a care home place for 4 weeks when my dad has a hip replacement.
Social Worker wanted to see their Will and asked me to get a copy, I phoned yesterday because I had a couple of other questions that I had thought about and she again asked if I was going to get a copy.
I have never seen my parents Will and have no idea what’s in it, although apparently they are tenants in common. I feel very uneasy about seeing it as I feel it’s a personal to them until the day that I will obviously see it.
Does anyone know why the are asking to see the Will?

They dont need a Will, ask them why they want it. You cannot open it anyway and your parents home situation is not in a Will anyway. Say no. Do they want to see power of attorney paperwork if you have it. You cannot get a copy of a Will while they are alive unless they give you permission, it's not your property. Call her manager and ask why she wants it.

The Tenant in Common allows the property to be willed away from the spouse. If the first person dies and then the survivor needs care only half the property value is used for assessing contribution. If they have not made a tenants In common Will the the whole property value can be used to fund care,

I would contact AGEUK for advice. I don’t think they can insist on seeing the Will at this stage . Normally while the second person is living the property, the value is not used in the assessment.

Social worker here.

There is no reason whatsoever that they would need a copy of the will. It has no relevance to anything.

However if there is a POA in place they have to see that.

There is absolutely no reason at all why a social worker would need to see a will.

I'm slightly concerned about this, assuming you are certain you heard correctly then I would be ringing the local authority and asking to have a conversation with the social worker's manager. At best they gave mistakenly said 'will' instead of 'POA' or perhaps made a well intentioned but entirely and utterly inappropriate overstep. Either way it shouldn't have happened.

As a social work manager I really don't want to contemplate the worst case scenarios.

We were asked for the powers of attorney, we were also asked if they were tenants in common, they cannot insist upon a sale whilst the other partner is living in the house but it's part of the asset assessment

The legal ownership of the house is taken into account for financial assessments for residential care at that point in time that someone is going into residential care. 90% of the time though they would take an elderly couples word for it.

It's no ones business what someone intends to do with their assets in their will and has no bearing on any day to day decisions that social services have to make.

The only possible circumstance in this situation I could see social services taking an interest in a will pre death/probate is if there were adult abuse/ financial abuse concerns and even then they would have to prove that the person either lacked mental capacity, or was being unduly influenced in some way, before dovish services could argue the grounds in court to access it.