Care home fees and income for spouse at home

[maymummy22]

We’re having to start looking at care homes for my FIL and would appreciate some high level advice on finances. I know there’ll be a full financial assessment but it would help if we had an idea - our main concern being MIL having enough to live on.
In brief, their situation is that they own their house (value around £200k) but have no savings. In terms of income, FIL has state and private pension; MIL has state pension. I think 50% of the house value would be accounted for as FIL’s ‘asset’ so go towards fees but that would only become due when MIL no longer living in the house? And for income, given they/MIL relies on FIL’s pension, would she continue to receive some of this or would she just have her state pension?

Which country as that might make a difference ?
As far as I'm aware, assuming your MIL is over 60, then the value of the home will be ignored, as least while she continues to live in it.
Once your FIL is in a care home ,then I believe MIL would be considered as a single person for benefits purposes as so would possibly be entitled to Pension Credit, Council Tax reduction, single Person discount etc.

I'm not sure whether your mother would be considered to some of your fathers provate pension ,as with no savings it sounds as if the care would have to be at least partly funded by the local authority with his pensions (less a nominal weekly amount) being taken towards it.

Yes my understanding is also that the house is not considered while there is a spouse or dependent relative (for example a child who lives there long term) still resident.

as for the pension no idea. I don’t think they would leave mil on the breadline though. Interesting as my mil doesn’t have a pension of her own, only state, whereas fil has his final salary public sector pension and state. If he went into a home mil would be stuck financially as she is dependent on him financially.

I have just googled and apparently the house is discounted, and 50% of the pension is also discounted and paid to the remaining spouse so they are not left struggling.

so your fil’s income assessment will be half his pension. The house and other 50% will be left with your mil.

Thanks for your replies. We’re in England and they’re both in their late 80s. Income is our bigger concern, but just on the house when you say it won’t be taken into account do you mean from a cash perspective - ie we wouldn’t need to fund the care home now - or that it wouldn’t even be “owing” at any point?
Re income, his private pension wouldn’t come close to covering care home fees so yes it would be partly funded.

The house won't be taken into consideration. If they have no savings at all this will all be considered in the financial assessment. You will get discounted council tax should be entitled to guaranteed pension credit. Is your MIL healthy and able to live independently or does she need help with anything then you could claim attendance allowance. They should not be leaving her short. The only down side is apart from the council tax she will probably be paying the same bills like electricity water.

They would only take the house into consideration if your MIL had to go in a home too. I can't help with the private pension as my parents only had state pension.

Thank you so much, that’s much clearer for me

I know when my DF was being assessed as to whether able to self fund or not the social worker said that my DM and him would be considered as 'divorced' at 50:50 from a financial perspective. Think this was one of the worst comments of the whole process, especially after being married for nearly 50 years. I know my DFs money could not be used for the household bills. Money in joint accounts where split 50:50 and money in his name was solely his. DM wasn't eligible for benefits, but she got the single person's tax allowance for council tax. But something like pension credit might apply and this is something of a gate way benefit into housing benefit etc - the age concern website might be useful..

https://www.ageuk.org.uk/information-advice/money-legal/benefits-entitlements/

Basically though financially my DM and DF funds where split and DF was no longer financially responsible for my DM.

Been through this in the last 12 months in England for my parents. House is not taken into account. My dad was the one going into care with only a private pension (too young for state pension). They only take 50% of his pension and leave my mum with the rest. Her income is not taken into account at all. When he starts being eligible for state pension next year I believe all of it will be taken to pay for care home

Do your parents have wills? Is the house owned as joint tenants or tenants in common?

I think at the moment, the only way the house would be taken into account would be if your mum passes away first, or needs a care home herself, whilst your dad is still alive.

onceuponatime the ‘divorced’ comment was quite cruel; sometimes I think people who deal with this all the time forget that there are individual with feelings on the other side of their comments.
re pensions it sounds like it might be possible to transfer 50% of FIL private pension to MIL - I’ll look into this.
Re state pension, MIL doesn’t get a full pension because she doesn’t have enough NI contributions; so is she likely to continue to just get this or might she also receive a portion of FIL’s full state pension?

My experience with my parents (in Wales) was that each parent was considered separately from a financial point of view so all dads pension (both state and private) was considered for his funding.
It left my mum on a part state pension and pension credit which wasn’t ideal but as dad was self funding we kept all his direct debits for bills etc going for the house, and my mother was in the nursing home herself a year later so then everything changed again.

She didn’t qualify for any of his pension until he died

I don't think that she'd inherit any of your fathers pension unless he dies before her, and even then only if they both reached state pension age prior to April 2016 (when the pension rules changed).

You could look into whether it would be possible and worthwhile for your mother to make voluntary NI contributions for past years to boost her pension, but she may have missed the boat on this - until recently you've been able to buy additional years back to 2006 but that window has closed and you can only buy the last six now.

Most local authorities have a calculator to determine the financial contribution he would need to make, if spouse is living in the house then it is totally disregarded until she went into a care home in which case the money within the home would be split between both of their care home fees.