Selling house and going into care

[mrssoap]

Not sure if I'm posting in the right place really but basically, my nan has a house worth about 170,000 that she owns. She has now gone into a care home permanently. The sale of the house will go towards her care, but we were wondering if she can give any of it away without it being a Deprivation of assets? She has 4 daughters and would like to give them something from it. Thanks in advance :)

No, I'm afraid she won't be able to do that. All her assets will be taken into account when setting her contribution towards the fees. There isn't a way of protecting any part of her assets at this point.

If she hasn't already got a funeral plan in place I would urge you to arrange one before her funds are assessed by the LA team. She can pay for it up front and the LA will deduct what it costs from their calculations. It means that you won't have to pay for it from what is left of her money when she dies. Sorry, don't want to be blunt but there's no other way to explain it.

Also, if the reasons for her going into care are primarily medical rather than social care she might qualify for Continuing Health Care. It's very difficult to get, but it's funded by the NHS and isn't means tested. She would stop paying for her own care if she qualified. It's a question worth asking anyway.

You would need to talk to the care home and the Community Psychiatric Nurse I think. Someone else may be able to advise you better.

Ok thanks for replying, she has already got funeral money covered. My auntie was under the impression she could give a certain amount away and I wanted to check

Well I might be wrong, I'm only going on my own experience and to be honest it was a question I didn't ask. I hope I'm wrong and your auntie is right! I think if she's going to give any money away it would need to be BEFORE the financial assessment.