Person going into care home thinks they have avoided selling their house to pay fees?

[LindorDoubleChoc]

A distant relative has just sadly gone into care (dementia). He is not married but has a long-term partner with whom he has two adult children.

His family seem to think he won't have to sell his property to pay for the fees because "he has put his house in his son's name". I'm trying to think what this means and surely if it were that simple everyone would do it?

Are they misunderstanding the system? Or how could they have achieved this? They are in England.

Keepin fingers crossed for you, this worked for my relative-then the house was rented out, and the rent generated also couldn’t be touched by the council as it belonged to the trust and not the individual.

Bring on the hate as I couldn’t give a 💩-the care home got every penny of my relative’s not inconsiderable pension income, bar £34 a week, they weren’t getting the house they’d worked all their days for

The local authority I work for has a whole team of financial assessors, their only job is to look into the finances of every single person who seeks funding for care from us.

They see this kind of thing every single day and nothing gets past them.

They have a hotline to the DWP to check what benefits someone is claiming and what financial info has been shared with the DWP

They check land registry as a matter of course

They go through bank statements going back 2 - 3 years checking where any large sums of money have gone

I'm not sure how but the other day I heard one establishing that someone had a savings account they hadn't disclosed to them - not sure how they got that information!

Good luck with that. DM left her half of my parent’s house to DB & I with provisions for him to stay there, about 5 years before DF needed care. Social Services tried to say that it was to avoid paying for DF’s care. He had no health issues when they made their wills. DB and I were paying half of the maintenance costs. Admittedly DF told them he owned the house and it was worth about 3 times what it was- he had dementia.

But if you need care and you don't have a house to use to pay for it because you've signed it over to a family trust then how will you pay for the care you need?

This!

The state will pay and they are making a decision to get state care for the price of leaving assets to their children.

A lot of homes are both state and private funded and you can be in the next room to someone paying 1500 a week with exactly the same service but you are paying £0 per week.

Thats so true. I guess the FA's get paid by the clients plus get commission from the trust so they've got nothing to lose anyway. They couldn't care less if it doesn't work because they've already had their money.

Which sounds pretty normal.

But if the house has been given to the son 10 years prior, they won’t be finding anything related to that in bank statements, DWP info etc…
Nor will they they are the owner if a house,

My grandma's (former council house tenant, no property or sizeable savings) care is funded by the LA and she is in a private care home alongside those who have had to sell their homes to fund it..

No one pays £0 a week.

Everyone pays something even if its just their state pension.

The local authority care homes in my area have the highest standards, are modern and have stable local authority payroll staff teams and are run to provide car not make a profit.

It's the dank, dingy, decrepit private care homes that sink any spare cash into the owners profits and are run on skeleton staff that people end up in if they want the council to pay their fees and there's no space left in the council care homes.

The people who can afford to pay go to homes that the local authority don't contract with as they won't accept our rates of pay.

This is why advanced directives should exist. I have no interest in living if we can't be independent (pensions etc will cover cleaner + gardener) our house will be in trust to us then DS for hopefully 30 years before we even retire 🤞🏻

100% this. My mum had to pay for her care home. She had Alzheimer’s. I had to sell her house but was able to afford a lovely care home for her as a result. One that was immaculate, comfortable, well maintained gardens, good food, activities, excellent staff etc.
There are big differences between the quality of care homes and people can live many years in them. I would have felt so guilty if my mum had signed her house over to me but then ended up in some smelly shithole as a result.

If partner lives in the house and is over 60 the value of the house may well be ignored anyway as long as she is living in the home.

If partner doesn't live in the home, so the house is now empty. Then the LA may well investigate if the gifting of the house was done deliberately to avoid paying care fees. If they believe it was this is deliberate deprivation of assets. There is no time limit for how far back they can look for this. The main thing the LA need to prove is that at the time of giving away assets you had a reasonable expectation of needing care in the future and your motivation for giving away assets was to avoid paying for this.

@NotImpressedByYourBragging my parents were advised by a solicitor to do this, I was very dubious and went to see a different solicitor who advised that it’s really not a good idea, the LA can still come after you for deliberate deprivation of assets, and you’d just be wasting the money it costs to set up the trust (£3,000 in the case of my parents). Solicitors can do mis-selling just as well as IFAs can unfortunately.

Maybe there is a way to avoid selling your home and then the LA take care of you. But you don't get your choice of home and they can be awful - avoiding feesmis in no way a."win". I felt that mum's home should laid for her care and it was the best way to see it in my view. Yes it cost but it was her money and she was happy there - Worth it!

Out of interest those saying they want to afford the best care homes, what happens if your money runs out? Do the LA then fund this care home or get moved to a LA run one? Curious

@VerityUnreasonble I thought that too, esp looking at the Age UK website info - if the joint owner living in the house is over 60 it's not counted as capital for assessment purposes. However, I had thought that the cost of the care home would then accrue as an interest bearing debt, to be repaid if the house was ever sold or the other occupant died. Not sure where I got that from.

You can get moved @Custardslices to a more economical place especiallyif it is an expensive private place, and you don't have much say as to where you move.

When my dad went into care we had to prove he had at least enough money to fund the fees for 2 years, then he went into the best home in town. So I guess they take a gamble that the residents will die within that period.

It was a bit vague about what would happen after that, I think it would’ve depended on his health at that point and where there were places available, and whether the LA would have agreed for him to stay.

However he died within 6 months so it wasn’t an issue.

I wonder how many people who are looking to pass on their house to children and rely on tax payers to fund their care have been into and seen local authority care homes? There is a HUGE difference between fully private and homes which will contract with LAs, and many pulling out. You would be nuts to limit your future care in that way, it’s often grim now frankly, worse than it used to be and I can’t see the future will improve any. Like those decent people on this thread, I am happy that my mums house can help her get the decent care she deserves.

As the cost of providing adult social care increases, it takes up more and more of LA budgets. Wonder why schools aren’t getting enough funding so teachers have to put hands in pockets for pens and books? Why road pot holes are worse, why local breast feeding support groups, youth groups or sports facilities aren’t being supported as they used to be? Rising cost of ASC. There’s a major moral risk and inherent selfishness and self-centredness in those wanting to deliberately deprive themselves of assets. I trust they will end up in care homes they fully deserve, many many miles from family 💁

Believe me, there's a massive difference in basic council care homes and private. I'd much rather my parents spent their hard earned savings on a good care home, than be stuck into a basic one so i could inherit.

It used to be more possible in the past. So anyone who says they managed to do this in the past may be telling the truth.
But local authorities budgets are very tight so they have really clamped down. I know someone whose job it is to investigate this. They love the job and see it as being like a private detective.

There are a number of disregards. When the individual goes into a care home the cost of the first 12 weeks is disregarded. If the individual stays in their own house and pays for carers to come in and provide care they can run down all savings ie down to the cap and then the Local authority steps in and pays your at home care costs -provided you stay in your own home (value of house is disregarded). (Not always possible to stay in house depending on health conditions but CHC assessments may help if that is needed). The house is also not sold nor its value taken into account in calculating the value of assets (before LA funded help is provided) if particular people (eg children under 18 or other category of relatives) are living in the house with ie before the individual moves into a care home. Look at the age uk help sheet below (which also points to the legislation where these rules are contained).

If you do need to pay for a care home then a DPA deferred payment agreement can be used. This may give you the advantage of paying fees at a rate negotiated by the LA (ie less than you would pay on the open market procuring the care yourself - as LA have price caps and bulk buy care contracts)

https://www.ageuk.org.uk/globalassets/age-uk/documents/factsheets/fs38_property_and_paying_for_residential_care_fcs.pdf

Bloody hell!

Your Mum’s house has been given to her BIL?

So if her DH dies, BIL could kick her out?

She won’t be able to leave her share to you because it actually belongs to BIL?

Most care homes in the UK are private. Its a question of who pays. Some residents pay themselves and others are paid for by the LA. Use the CQC reports for ofsted type ratings. There is some discussion with the LA as to where relatives go. If your relative funds themselves they pay more than the LA funded person sitting next to them in the same home. Reformm is coming