What happens financially when an elderly persons requires full time care,

[Yumyo]

I am expecting that this may happen with one or both of my parents in the next few years. They a have a good monthly pension. And own their own house which is worth approximately 300k
we are in Scotland if that makes any difference

what happens about paying for care? If one can still stay at home. How is care paid for? I assume this must be a position a lot of people find themselves

Google Age Concern ... it is all there.

thank you

How very helpful.
Mumsnet wouldn't exist if every question asked received that reply.

@Yumyo
there's a lovely friendly ongoing thread called the Cockroach Cafe with lots of posters caring for elderly parents. They'll welcome you and help you find out everything you need to know, but basically, all things being equal, full time care with that amount of money/equity, it would be self-funded until a certain amount of resources are left. (when I was in that situation some years ago now, I think it was £28,000 in savings)

There are situations when, even with savings/resources, care is funded but varies wildly and isn't common.

With my Dad and his wife, she had to go into a care home because her needs were beyond him eventually, although he tried hard to avoid it. The council paid for her care home fees under the provision that as they had assets the house would be sold when he died or went into a care home . They sent regular invoices so he knew what was the current amount owing, and the house was sold and bill settled.

NB we are in England, so not sure if it's the same.

In England what you have to pay depends on savings, whether it's home care or residential, and crucially whether it's deemed medical care or not - fairly subjective but if the reason for care is due to a medical condition you can apply for nhs continuing care which isn't means tested, if it's deemed social care eg when you just old and not capable anymore you pay yourself until the means test

Scotland has some free care but the devil is in the details I'm told by family. Get specific Scottish advice

Scotland definitely makes a big difference, or used to, because they don’t means test for personal care (social care at home) unlike England (not sure if this is still the case).
Your local authority website should have advice.

in England, funding for care at home is means tested but your property isn’t taken into account.

for permanent residential care home, the property is taken into account too but only if there is not a spouse (or adult child with disabilities) living there, but you get 12 weeks where it’s disregarded (to give you time to sell basically) and after that 12 weeks if you can’t sell it or don’t wish to there’s the option to keep it but the local council have a charge on it, so they pay your fees but are repaid with interest when the house is sold. That’s called a deferred payment agreement (dpa)

I get social care. They basically take any money over the state pension amount for your age.
Even if your only income is benefits.
Their not allowed to touch mobility money though.
This is in England.

Thank you I am obviously going to need to research a lot in to it

I believe Scotland has an equivalent of Attendance Allowance. The system (and possibly name) for it is changing this year so I'm not up to speed on the details, but if it's like the English one it's not means tested.

You might need to ask Mumsnet to put Scotland in the title, because most people won't be able to help much.

But what you describe isn’t the English system, where the value of the home is disregarded if an elderly spouse still lives in it.

I was told CHC replaced the old long term geriatric hospital awards, so it’s not just whether it's “deemed medical care”, it’s whether the medical need is sufficiently high that you’d expect them to be in a long term hospital ward, ie a much higher bar.

The point if this is that if you’re self funding your care, you can get Attendance Allowance as a small contribution, in England, that is. In England,they would be self funding.

Cockroach Cafe is for chat and support.@Yumyo is absolutely right to start a separate thread for a specific question likely to generate a lots of replies .

You must act now and ensure your parents have registered a Lasting Power of Attorney for 1) health & wellbeing 2) finance & property. If they took out an Enduring Power of Attorney before 2007 then it must be registered with the Office of the Public Guardian. All this will smooth the way with social workers in what will be an already difficult time.

This is a very important point and often missed.

The value of the home is disregarded (meaning it is not included in the assessment) and cannot be taken if..

A Spouse lives there
A close relative under 18 or over 65
A close relative who has PIP or DLA or is classified as disabled
(Some LAs also have a relative who has provided care over a long period in this list too, ours does)

Presuming the person in care dies whilst the above still applies the house value is never taken

However, many LA advisers persuade people to sign a DPA (deferred payment agreement) which basically is a kind of mortgage registered against the title, which, once enacted, cannot be reversed, overriding the above and the home has to be sold on the death of the person in care or the debt satisfied by other means.

NEVER sign a DPA if the first three above apply and in any case always take a solicitors advice before signing the DPA

It does say this about 3 times in the DPA form, but so many people just sign!

This may help OP.
https://careinfoscotland.scot/topics/care-homes/paying-care-home-fees/capital-limits/

What I would suggest is that your parents separate their income and savings now. It is assumed that all savings are joint, so half will be taken into consideration. The income of the person needing care will also be taken into consideration -so if they receive a state pension of £900 a month, most of that will go towards fees, with a small weekly personal budget allowed.

As there is a couple there, two things to do.

1/. if they own as Joint Tenants, split to Tenants in Common - this is easy, a letter from either one to the land registry can do this - solicitor can advise.

They should amend their wills to gift their 50% of the house to someone other than each other with life interest for the survivor.

2/. If parent 1 goes into care, the property can not be included whist the other lives there - do not sign a DPA

3/. Should parent 2 survive parent one, no value is taken, if they both go into care their respective shares pay for their respective care.

This is the most financially prudent model, perfectly legal, perfectly moral, it does not deprive the local authority of anything so cannot be challenged.

Pointing someone towards Age Concern is a very helpful thing to do. The info there is detailed, factual, well explained and (most importantly) correct.

Gosh this is all very helpful. Thank you so much

I am in Scotland and can advise a little as this happened to my mother in law. She needed to go into a care home and ultimately the house had to be sold to pay for this. My brother in law lived with her as her carer and because of that they couldn’t just sell the house immediately so what is called a charging order is put in place so that mil could go into the home and this document stipulated that money from future sale of the house would go towards her care home costs. I can’t remember if there was a time limit on him moving out, but he did after a short while. The social work services allocated a solicitor to oversee it all and make sure the money went where it was supposed to. My mil ended up only needing to be there a short time (less than 2 years) before she passed so there was still money left from the sale of the house and this was split between my husband and his brother.
Im not sure what happens if a spouse remains in the home, I’m guessing a similar thing? A charging order which allows them to remain there until either they pass or need care themselves then either remaining proceeds go to spouses care or is spilt between family. Perhaps a will comes into play here if your parents made one. I don’t know as my in laws died intestate.
I hope that helps. If your mother is that the point of needing care it is likely she will have a social worker (or soon will have) who can advise you.

Beware of thinking that the house can be ‘signed over’ to someone else to avoid paying care costs. In Scotland at least, the local authority can still pursue them/you for care costs under what is called ‘deprivation of capital’.

If any of..

A spouse
A close relative under 18
A close relative over 65
A close relative who is disabled

lives in the house it is automatically disregarded, its value is not counted and no charge can be placed unless the owner mistakenly signs for one. If the person in care dies prior to the person in the house moves out then the property passes according to the will / intestacy and is never part of the care fee.

You should never sign for a DPA (charging order) without first talking to a solicitor.

There’s lots of good advice in here, both my parents had their final days in a care home. Mum was high level need and we paid £2200 per month (after the govt contribution) Dad had less need and we paid £1500. This was last year. They should get proper legal advice now, there are some things that can be done to limit costs