Attendance Allowance & Nursing home

[AANursinghome]

MIL is in a nursing home. This is partially funded by the council with MIL paying the remainder with her pension and attendance allowance.
Weve just been told that AA should have stopped when she entered care. We had no idea, was transparent when filling everything in for the financial assessment for care and no one told us.

Anyway, they’ve said it will all have to be paid back. We estimate £7-8k. I just can’t get my head around it. The attendance allowance went straight to the care home. If she wasn’t in receipt of it the council would have just paid a larger proportion. Has anyone else had this?

Anyone?

According to the gov.uk website:
"If you’re in a care home
You cannot usually get Attendance Allowance if you live in a care home and your care is paid for by your local authority. You can still claim Attendance Allowance if you pay for all your care home costs yourself."
Citizens Advice are good on this sort of thing.

Hopefully someone will be along who is more knowledgeable than me but when DM went into a home, the manager filled all the forms in and they claimed the attendance allowance. DM hadn't previously claimed it while at home. Do the forms indicate she needs full time care?

Ah yes, DM had a charge against her property so was in effect paying for her own care.

You only get aa in a carehome if you're fully self funding, i think you get it for 28 days the carehome should know this, it's all on the government,UK site, could she claim any other benefit, why is she having to pay a contribution, would she qualify for funded nursing care if she has nursing needs. If it went straight to the carehome bank account surely they are the ones who need to pay it back, I'd get in touch with citizens advice or a solicitor, it's obviously been going on a while if its 8k. What have the care home manager and administrator said.

omg what a nightmare, I am so sorry you're in this situation.
When I applied for AA for my mum, it was pretty clear in the award letter that I would need to let them know if she moved into LA-funded care so they could stop paying.
(In the event she moved into self-funded care, I let the DWP know and they confirmed they will continue to pay. It's a generous <2% of the total monthly cost 🤔).
Who applied for the AA as it would have been clear in the award letter? It's a bit weird if it's paid direct to the home- I can't quite square that one.

How did the carehome receive the aa, it's paid to the recipient directly to their bank.

Thanks for the responses. It wasn’t paid directly to the care home,no. We paid the invoice for the care home each month from mils account.
I realise now she wasn’t entitled to it but it just feels unfair that we were so transparent, she didn’t benefit from it amd now it has to be paid back…

She is probably eligible for Funded Nursing Care, is she getting that?

My dm is in a nursing home and has been for 18 months. I have just taken over as her appointee and had a meeting to do so. At the meeting I was told all was ok and she didn’t see any problems regarding dm’s finances . 2 days later I got a letter stating AA has been overpaid for the full duration of her time there. I haven’t yet had the letter asking for return of payments but I believe I will be getting it any day now. I have been to CA and was told as she was in control of her finances even though I payed the monthly invoice on her behalf ( I hadn’t officially signed anything at that stage) that I am not liable for the repayments so it’s just a waiting game for me. There is always right of appeal .
The person responsible is the recipient or appointee . If you weren’t acting officially on her behalf financially you are not responsible for the repayment. It’s a distressing situation when a loved one makes this transition without having to deal with things like this. I think this is something that catches many honest people out and as it’s linked to dwp I don’t understand how it doesn’t flag up immediately.
I hope you get it favourably resolved op . Good luck 🤞

You can’t claim Free personal care / free personal and nursing care and AA at the same time. I wonder if her claim for FPNC hasn’t been made. It’s worth more than AA.

I had this with my stepfather who I was Deputy for.
His care home was partially funded - in effect, anyone who has a pension will only partially funded their care.
If you are expected to pay back the AA, then the LA should reimburse that as it has meant that they’ve contributed less towards the fees than they should have done.
EG
Weekly fees - £1000
resident contribution - from income £200, from AA £100 total £300
LA contribution - £700

OR
Weekly fees - £1000
resident contribution from income £200
LA contribution - £800

You need to speak to the LA finance team and ask them to complete a retrospective financial assessment. In reality they should pay back to AA amount to the DWP.

We're the dwp aware of the date that she had moved into a carehome

To answer some questions, she has no capacity at all, we have POA. To complicate things she was denied CHC but was put onto fast track CHC 12 weeks ago. This meant she paid nothing since then. However because she hasn’t passed away in these 12 weeks it is due to be reassessed on Monday and we expect it will be revoked.

@Soontobe60 thabk you! This is my train of thought. Do you have e experience of this? I believe they should pay it back. Not MIL.

No. I admit we’re at fault here. I should have known I suppose that I was meant to inform them but I just didn’t….i told the LA she got AA and they used that in the calculation for the assessment.

Someone has to pay it back because she wasn't entitled to it, whats happened to the 3 months aa, like ppl says get in touch with the la And ask for a retrospective assessment, she may qualify for funded nursing care, fnc, which Goes to the carehome towards the cost.

It is made clear that you have to report a change in circumstances, further down the line if you do have to pay it back it could possibly come from the estate, hope you get it sorted quickly and as easily as possible.

Do the council tax office know she is in a home? She should be exempt from council tax and a refund due if not. It will mitigate some of the cost of repaying the aa.

She lived with us anyway and we got a discount because she was severely mentally impaired. This has stopped now amd carers allowance. I did ring round when she went into care but the AA just never occurred to me.

All you can do is contact them, you had the responsibility to deal with her finances and benefits as well as your own, good luck with getting it sorted.

Every time my Dad changed care setting we had to tell AA. Coming to us, hospital, change of hospital, respite stay in care home,full time in care home. At one point I felt I was on the phone to them all the time!

For the care home stays they asked if he was privately funding or LA funded.

He is paying fully, privately, so they wrote to me (POA) to formally say his AA continues for that reason.

So I would say that your Mum shouldnt be receiving it and it should have been stopped when AA were advised of her move into care.

That's unfortunate that you didn't realise you needed to stop the claim. I think they let you keep it for 28 days or something but then if council are funding part or all of the nursing home care AA should cease.

It makes sense as the person in the care home has virtually no living costs. Bills, food, care, equipment etc is provided and those are the things AA is for.

I hope they can take it back in affordable chunks.

I have some experience as my stepfather had a small lump sum paid that took him back over the threshold to be a self funder and the LA said not to claim AA as it would have only been for 2 months- they just reduced his fees by that amount.

My Dad was allowed AA on his long hospital stay until it reached 28 days, then they stopped it until he was discharged back home.

Thank you. I think that's where I'm getting the 28 days thing from. I'm glad he was able to come home x