Financial assessments for care funding - help please

[olderbutwiser]

FIL is in hospital following a series of small strokes, pneumonia, dementia; it's early days and he could be there and rehab/respite/reablement for some time but when he comes out his care needs are likely to be significant - potentially bed bound, so either multiple care visits a day or residential care.

We have LPA for finance.

FIL and MIL own their home and their finances can be split. FIL has modest savings, around £30k, and a reasonable pension + state pension + attendance allowance. So far they have been self funding a care visit a day, but clearly FIL money will run out very soon once he's out of hospital and past any NHS funded rehab/reablement.

At what stage should we ask for a financial assessment from the council for funded care? And what will we need to supply/arrange for that? (We know their home will be disregarded as MIL is still living there).

ALSO, if FIL goes into residential and MIL then downsizes and some equity is released, I assume half of that goes to FIL care costs?

AgeUK have brilliant downloadable factsheets and a genuinely helpful helpline for all this sort of stuff. Answer to your final question is no, not necessarily, FIL will be allowed to pass some of his equity in house to MIL so she can get something suitable for her when she downsizes. Details in one of the aforementioned factsheets.

I would instigate a financial assessment asap, if he’s only got £30k savings that’s only going to last a month before it takes him below the threshold for self funding, and this needs to be taken into consideration when choosing a care home.
once he’s partially funded he will no longer be eligible for attendance allowance,