De-tangling father in laws finances & entitlments

[Comefromaway]

Fil is in a right state and his Dd (my sil) has asked me to help as I’m apparentky good with this kind of stuff.

Long story short, he’d been caring for mil with dementia. This took a huge toll on his mental & physical health. He was rushed into hospital last summer and things come to a head. He’d been sticking his ear in the sand, refusing help etc but he reached crisis point a few weeks ago and mil went into respite care (long overdue). He then understandably said he didn’t want her back (she was violent, refused all personal care help, smelt of urine etc etc).

Anyway long story short she’s been assessed as having no capacity and requiring 24/7 care in a home. Someone came to do do a financial assessment.

They own their own house jointly (no mortgage) only worth about £45k needs a lot of work. They have some savings in the bank & individual ISA. Under the savings limit with regards to the care home fees but just over the limit for pension credit.

He’s received a letter that apparently says his pension is going to be reduced to £130 per week. I’m assuming it’s because he’s now going to be classed as a single person. He says he can’t live on that and will have to go back to work part time. (His knees are so bad he can’t walk without pain & he suffers angina, pancreatitis. He’s on anti depressants.

I’m getying him too bring al his financial paperwork for me to look through. Mil gets a small private pension but I don’t think he does though I can’t be sure. Also I’m assuming now the ISA in her name can’t go towards his income. Do we have to declare all the other savings or split them in half. I assume mild pension will go to the home (my nans did)

Are they any other things I should be investigating. I thought of attendance allowance but he doesn’t need help with personal care even though his knees & pancreas are shot. But he does neglect himself when he gets depressed. We do have him round as often as possible and cook him a meal etc.

He got single person council tax and mil wasn’t counted due to the dements. I’m assuming he will no longer get her attendance allowance now she’s in the home.

So he left about half an hour ago. We’ve been wading through 3 boxes of paperwork.

He thought he was getting £215 pension for them both as a couple plus mil private pension & this would drop down to £130 as a single person. He wasn’t. The £215 is his alone, basic state pension plus top ups for paying into Additional State Pension & a scheme in the early 70s called Graduated pension benefit. Mil’s state pension goes in separate. Her state pension is a bit less than his.

This is why he’s not eligible for pension credit. His income is too high. And they’ve not even been spending anywhere near it and that’s with all these daft insurances & incredibly high broadband & mobile phone.

I also found out the assessment was for a care package at home. Mil was being classed as a self funder for that. But now she’s not coming home a new assessment needs to be done. It’s going to be by telephone but I’m going to book a day off work to be with him. Dh is a teacher so he can’t.

But ultimately he’s a bit happier that they aren’t going to take his £215 per week off him & reduce it to £130 and he can live on that

Well that's good news buy a bit worrying at how clueless he has been about his own finances.

You must be shattered!

A bit frazzled! I spent ages trying to work out what a £690 regular payment from DWP was with mils NI number before finally realising she gets her state pension monthly, not weekly!

And they have more savings than we thought too.

@Comefromaway

So he left about half an hour ago. We’ve been wading through 3 boxes of paperwork.

He thought he was getting £215 pension for them both as a couple plus mil private pension & this would drop down to £130 as a single person. He wasn’t. The £215 is his alone, basic state pension plus top ups for paying into Additional State Pension & a scheme in the early 70s called Graduated pension benefit. Mil’s state pension goes in separate. Her state pension is a bit less than his.

This is why he’s not eligible for pension credit. His income is too high. And they’ve not even been spending anywhere near it and that’s with all these daft insurances & incredibly high broadband & mobile phone.

I also found out the assessment was for a care package at home. Mil was being classed as a self funder for that. But now she’s not coming home a new assessment needs to be done. It’s going to be by telephone but I’m going to book a day off work to be with him. Dh is a teacher so he can’t.

But ultimately he’s a bit happier that they aren’t going to take his £215 per week off him & reduce it to £130 and he can live on that

I wasn't wanting to doubt you/FIL but I suspected something like this may be the case as FILs situation isn't unusual at all and I was surprised that he was so worried and that no one had mentioned the pension disregard.

The local authority financial assessors are usually very skilled in teasing out the information they need and giving an answer pretty quickly about costs. They aren't in the business of leaving older people destitute because their spouse had to go into care.

Hopefully FIL is feeling less stressed about it all now.

Take away on FIL then 😂

@RandomMess

Take away on FIL then 😂

But only if it isn’t deprivation of assets!

😂😂😂

It's such a nightmare!

i think that would come under subsistence allowance.
double crispy prawn wings, pronto !

We’ve just had another night of it. I’ve discovered an investment bond mil took out in 2005 that fil knew nothing about! It has £7k in it in her sole name.

We’ve just had another night of it. I’ve discovered an investment bond mil took out in 2005 that fil knew nothing about! It has £7k in it in her sole name. Sounds like you're doing a very good, if exhausting, job

That and the ISA are both in her sole name. No investments in fils name. Fil was wondering if he’d be allowed to pay up her funeral plan that’s currently being paid monthly as he’s concerned about paying both his and hers out of his pension alone. (They took them out just over a year ago).

Continuing to pay for the funeral plan will have been taken into account in the financial assessment

To be honest I would just contact age uk for assistance. The attendance allowance is a good idea and it is back dated from application date, use it for domestic things he doesn't want to do himself.
Age uk will have lots of useful info

The normal Age UK helpline said I need to speak to a specialist advisor so they gave me a number.

@hatgirl

Continuing to pay for the funeral plan will have been taken into account in the financial assessment

So can that be paid from her pension rather than his? They are doing another assessment next week as the last one was for a home care package, not full residential.

@BunnyRuddington

If the house needs a lot of work, can he use some of his savings to bring him under the threshold for Pension Credit?

I was wondering same. He needs to do those jobs and it could make running the house cheaper, depending what it is he has done

He gets £219.41 state pension per week plus £26.23 private pension

She gets £176.13 state pension plus £45.86 occupational pension

He has £14k savings. She has £25k

I discovered upthread his actual income takes him over pension credit threshold anyway. He’s not going to be destitute he just needs to handle things better. Like he got a text last week to say he’d run out of data and did he want to buy more. He ignored it in case it was a scam and carried on using his phone. The bill for using excess data came to £200!

He had a brand new top of the range Worcester Bosch boiler fitted last year but he didn’t pay for it. He needs the damp sorting and new stairs carpet. The kitchen is a state and I reckon the bath needs replacing with a shower for easier access.

He’s just spent a few hundred pounds on animatronic dementia pals dogs for mil. She adores them.

@Comefromaway

He gets £219.41 state pension per week plus £26.23 private pension

She gets £176.13 state pension plus £45.86 occupational pension

He has £14k savings. She has £25k

So back of a fag packet

The house won't be taken into account for MILs residential care whist FIL is living in it. Thats his to live in for as long as he wants until he either moves or dies.

The threshold for self funding is £23500. Your MIL has above this currently in savings and income so for the first few months she will probably have to pay the full cost of her care.

Once she drops below that capital threshold it's likely she will start to pay less towards her care, depending on if/what additional PEAs the financial assessor agrees to

Regardless of this 50% of her pensions will be disregarded from the assessment and will remain with FIL so thats a minimum of another £111 a week he can add to his pot.

Once MILs savings have reduced to £14,250 her capital will no longer be taken into account. That £14,250 is hers and technically is supposed to cover things like funeral costs etc but you can discuss this with the financial assessor if there is already a payment plan in place.

For every £250 she has over £14250 in capital she will have to pay £1 a week towards her care plus half of her income from her pension and any income she receives from benefits.

Thank you. That’s really helpful. Knowing this in advance will help me stave off the inevitable woe is me they are taking everything reaction I’ll get from fil when it comes back that she will be fully self funded at first. I can explain it will only be for a very short time until her savings fall below that limit.

I really wish he could sell the house and move somewhere nicer as the area has gone so downhill. All the other houses in the street have been bought by absentee landlords and there appears to be rather a lot of drug dealing. But there is no mortgage on the house so it would make no sense to lose that then have to pay rent.

Like he got a text last week to say he’d run out of data and did he want to buy more. He ignored it in case it was a scam and carried on using his phone. The bill for using excess data came to £200! Is that the way it works? Surely it should be an opt-in, not an opt-out?

Maybe time to move him to something with a limit on spending. I quite like the giffgaff model but I don't know the full range of what's out there.

I know it works like that because dd did it when she was younger when my dad was stupid enough to give her one of his contract phones.

If you use up your included data allowance on your contract you get charged an extortionate amount for any data you use over that in the same way that if you go over your minutes you get charged per call. So what happens is the phone company sends you a text to say you have reached 80% of your data allowance then they send another telling you you have actually run out and giving you the option to purchase an extra 250 mb for £3-5 or whatever. If you don't purchase the extra data and continue to use your phone you get charged the out of allowance rate and it soon racks up.

Gosh I missed the bit about the £200 bill.

Could you set a limit on his phone? All of our phones just are set so that you can't go over the limit. It might be worth taking a look at his contact as well. You can get 10gb with unlimited calls and texts for £8 a month from Smarty right now.

I've found that lots of older people don't seem to switch contracts. When I swapped DFIL energy suppliers his bill literally halved.

His daughter (sil) has updated his contract. Dh tried to just over a week ago but the person he spoke to didn’t seem to understand what LPOA was (contract for both phones were in mother in laws name) so he had to write to them and enclose a copy. That’s now been noted and sil was able to make the changes/swop the names over.

My Dad didn't switch electricity supplier because he was convinced the new supplier would inspect his wiring and would Condemn it because it didn't meet the latest wiring regs and would want to do a complete rewiring before taking it on.

When i changed it, I was able to email a copy of the LPA. There is a strong temptation to commit fraud and just claim you're the person whose name the account is in.