What happens if you have no money for care in old age

[traytablestowed]

I'm asking hypothetically, because my relatives (currently in their late 60s) are likely to be in this boat at some point. They have no money and no assets (old car worth peanuts and they rent privately). I worry about what will happen if they need care later in life. How does this work in practice? Who pays?
Would really appreciate any insights. This honestly keeps me awake at night sometimes.

My MIL had to go into a retirement / supported living type flat. She has no private income and no savings.

She gets everything paid for, basically.
She gets state pension, pension credit, housing benefit (which covers the whole rent) 4 care visits a day paid for. That's what I know off the top of my head but I think she gets more that I don't know the names of. Also winter fuel payments, council tax reduction, things like that.

The only type of council accom that is readily available in a lot of areas are retirement / supported living flats. So the chances of being put in temp accom is much lower than for other people that are on the homeless list. MIL actually had the pick of 3 flats in one block when her private rented flat was no longer suitable.

The council really don't like putting people in residential homes - it's expensive. If they think you can manage with 4 x care visits a day, that's what they want to do as it's so much cheaper.

Thanks for this. Realistically I expect this is the situation they will end up in so it's good to know that the support is actually there if they need it.

I checked the exact wording on the financial assessment that we completed for my father in law (Adult social care elderly team). It asks for the exact amount of rent or mortgage being paid and I assume it will make a standard allowance for utilities. You can also put down costs such as a cleaner or gardener that relate to the care required and additional costs such as extra electricity required for medical equipment or heating needs.

This was for care at home assessed by adult social services.

Don't be put off by council care homes, either. My MIL was in a council run care home and it was vastly, vastly better than the BUPA owned one my mum was in.

I honestly think council ones might well be better now. Anecdotally they tend to keep their staff for much longer (pay, conditions and pensions are better than in private) and the privately run ones seem to run in agency staff with no loyalty to the place or history and relationship with the residents. Many of the staff at my MILs had been there for over ten years. I barely saw the same carer twice at my mum's (I visited both once a month, as I love a distance away)

I know that's a huge generalisation, but my experiences are in three different parts of the country.

The council pays but the threshold for help is pretty high, generally it's care in your own home unless it's not safe in which case they place the person needing care in a home (not both the couple unless both have high needs) and all but a small allowance is taken from them pension wise

The Social care reforms (part of which involved increasing the threshold from £23k to £100k) were supposed to be introduced in October 23. Then they were put back to October 25 - ie after the next Election.

I suspect they will never be implemented.

What allowance of income do they make for you still to-be able to feed yourself and heat your home (assuming housing benefit is paying the rent)?

The bit about pension is wrong. The state pension is still paid, and is then used to pay towards the fees.
I get a monthly invoice for my stepfather’s fees. He contributes about £200 a week which I pay as I now get his pension paid to me, and the LA pays the rest.
OP, have a read of this. https://www.ageuk.org.uk/globalassets/age-uk/documents/factsheets/fs10_paying_for_permanent_residential_care_fcs.pdf?dtrk=true

From AgeUK:

”If all your eligible income is taken into account in your means test, you must be left with an income of £189.00 per week, if you’re single and above Pension Credit qualifying age. This is known as the Minimum Income Guarantee”

So if you’re getting care at home, you won’t have to contribute if your weekly income is less than £189 and your savings are less than £14250.

Care is charged at an hourly rate, which for my father 4 years ago was £15.

You’re both correct, as the financial assessment is based on need. If someone is still living at home with a care package, say they have carers coming in 4x a day, then the assessment will take into account everything they pay, such as rent and utilities. If however they are in full time residential care, all income is taken into account less a nominal sum of around £28 a week personal allowance.

I think that policy has been kicked into the long grass,

Don't be put off by council care homes, either. My MIL was in a council run care home and it was vastly, vastly better than the BUPA owned one my mum was in. There’s in effect 3 classes of homes 1) Council run homes 2) Private homes (profit making or non-profit) with low enough fees for Council to be prepared to pay 3) More expensive private homes. It would be a fallacy to think that a class 3 home was going to necessarily be better than a class 1 or class 2 home. Think very hard how much benefit your demented semi-mobile parent will get from the restaurant, on-site hairdresser and other shiny facilities.

This is for care at home, of course, not care in a care home

Council-run care homes (as in wholly owned and staffed by people on local govt terms and conditions) are quite hard to find these days.

Mu friend's Dmum went into a council funded care home when she could no longer live independently in her high-rise council flat even with multiple care visits (she was in her 90s) and my friend said the home was excellent and the whole process fairly straightforward.

Aren’t you getting ahead of yourself a bit? They are only in their late 60’s so the scenarios you are discussing are likely 15-20 years away. I’ve got no idea what benefits will be available in 5 years time much less 15 or whether your parents will qualify for a care home placement then and nor can anyone else on this thread. There will almost certainly br at least one but probably more change in ruling party before they need this and that will have a significant impact on what will be provided when the time comes.

All you can realistically do at this point is to ensure they are getting all the benefits they are entitled to and have the most secure and affordable tenancy they can find. Though as they are still relatively young and presumably have full capacity, they could presumably check all this for themselves and may be offended by you infantalising them by getting involved in their private financial affairs unless they have expressly asked for your advice and input?

@EmmaGrundyForPM @Luckydip1 yeah I doubt we'll ever see that one. 😒

What allowance of income do they make for you still to-be able to feed yourself and heat your home (assuming housing benefit is paying the rent)?

There is a minimum income that they have to leave you with. At the moment it's about 190 a week.

Thanks again all for the replies.

@Katrinawaves they haven't asked for my input and they would certainly be offended if they knew I was enquiring about this behind their backs. Hence the anonymous forum. I'm at an age where some friends' parents are starting to need support, I saw my own grandparents go through it. In all cases I have known, people have paid for their own care - so I didn't know what options there were if you're not able to do this. I didn't know if we would need to fund it, in which case we would need to start putting money aside now. Or if they needed to be claiming certain benefits, which they could start doing from now. Basically a big unknown, hence my worry.

The replies here have been very helpful and I feel reassured that they will be ok in their current scenario if/when the time comes (hopefully it won't!). I also feel informed in case they do ever ask for my help.

They'll be entitled to housing benefit for their private rent.

They don't make individual allowances really. Regardless of whether HB is paying the rent, part paying the rent or if they don't get HB. It doesn't consider individual expenses unless proved to be part of disability costs.

They just say income equals X amount, (and list the places where your income comes from eg which benefits, wages etc you receive).

The government says you need Y amount to live on (whatever the current fixed official figure is for basic expenses, looks like it's £189/wk from other posts) and carry out an income minus money-to-live-on calculation.

This is the extra you have left over (resulting figure from the above calculation). Your contribution towards care charges is Z amount per week (which may not be all of this left over figure).

What they don't do is say oooh bad luck you couldn't find a one bedroom property to rent or a property that's within the housing benefit amount, but never mind, we'll not charge you anything for your care because we can see you've got an extortionate rent to pay, or £5k debt on credit cards, or you're funding an adult DC/DGC through university etc etc etc. They're not interested in what your actual expenses are. It's a standard formula, a calculation, they follow.

The above concerns care in the community not residential care.

OP as the relatives, you will never have to pay for others care. Everyone pays for their own care. Otherwise the state steps in and pays. In theory. In reality it's quite usual to not be able to get the care one needs, despite the assessment. In those cases individuals or their relatives may choose to step in and provide care from their own pocket. It's worth noting that SS assess what care is needed based on "need" not want. If someone is paying privately for care or providing it for free themselves, that care is already meeting a need, therefore SS don't have to meet that same need. In other words, people often have to be left to suffer to establish that a need is present and can't be fulfilled another way.

They are still relatively young! Government rules and regulations concerning payment for care change fairly frequently. Are they actually concerned about what will happen to them in the future?
Make sure they are applying for available benefits by doing a benefits check on AgeUk or similar websites.

OP if one of them became unable to care for themselves it's likely the other would help in the first instance. They would have an assessment but in the second instance they might get a couple of hours a week home help to help get them out of bed in the morning then put them to bed at night. You have to be really ill to qualify for a care home space. You have no input as to which care home they will be placed in either. It's also unlikely even though they are married they'd be put into a care home together.

I don’t think it does.

The limit for savings also varies - in Wales it is around £65000.00