Gifting money to myself and siblings with a deputyship order

[Notright77]

I am a deputy for my Fathers estate. Unfortunately he is now in care for life. He is very happy and settled in a wonderful, private care home. We are selling his house and using the funds to pay for his care. However, he only needs a certain amount to secure his care in the home for life. He will have more than enough money to live on, for the rest of his life, with pensions and other savings. Once the house is sold there would effectively be around £70k left which should technically go straight into his bank but I think it’s a shame me and my siblings can’t have it. It won’t make any difference at all to him and will just go on more care home fees. Has anyone been in the situation and had the money? I know there are strict rules around deputyship but I know he would rather we had the money than it go towards more care home fees.

In answer to your hypothetical question, basically no it doesn’t work as you would like it to!

First and foremost the money belongs legally to your father and that’s an unavoidable fact.

Secondly deprivation of assets is another legal matter when funding care home fees. You have to pay the fees out of savings (that includes the sale proceeds from property) until your savings reduce to quite a low threshold before they can be funded for you.

Lastly if the fees are funded for you the local authority can stipulate which care home is to be used.

Yeah - I do get it . He is having nursing care at the moment. Looking at the more helpful answers (including yours) we won’t be able to legally use any of the money anyway although I will ask the solicitor. We do consider it all his and this was more a case of looking at the money as surplus to what he needs to get the exact same care (I appreciate people have opinions on SS then paying for the care) but just trying to explain the logic as to why it wouldn’t affect him.

Why won’t you end up in care? My Dad is 67, his Dad was over a 100 when he died. My Dad was playing squash 5 times a week and dating women half his age as he looked so young. He was fit as a fiddle. 5 years in a decent care home will cost you about half a million and if you live longer then SS will take over. Congratulations on knowing you’ll never go into care and that if you do, you won’t need any help from the state.

It’s not CHC it’s SS

The thing is it’s all down to deprivation of assets which is the fundamental thing you need your solicitor to explain to you.

Social services don’t just kindly kick in when money has been moved to others to avoid personal payments of care fees. This is the crux you need explained to you.

Thank you. This care home does have an arrangement with SS to negotiate the payment. I know they honour it too and have done for at least the last 20 years.

It doesn’t work like that. I was a deputy under the Court of Protection for my DP and was interviewed by a representative to check that I was doing nothing wrong financially. I wasn’t.

Thank you- I do get it honestly. I’m coming from a place where this is my understanding but I’m asking the question in case someone has a different experience. I wouldn’t make a decision without consulting a solicitor first and even if they found a way , I wouldn’t necessarily decide it was the best solution.

I do think it’d be fair enough to reimburse yourself for expenses you can demonstrate you have paid upfront.

I suspect with additional monies the council would see it as deprivation of assets and you’d have to pay yourselves.

I lived this situation for seven years and gave gifts to the family of £25 each birthday and Christmas. You risk a prison sentence unless you can prove your parent gave large amounts to each family member before they lost capacity.

Yes it does look like it would be considered deprivation of assests to be fair. I would really like my siblings to have something so if I do claim back the expenses I’ll give it to them- I think my Dad would have liked to leave something to them (particularly my little brother) but it’s looking like it will all go to care home fees. I guess we should count ourselves lucky he’s able to fund being in a great place.

He didn’t gift large amounts so I wouldn’t be able to prove it - you’re right. Can I ask? How did you go about reimbursing yourself for birthday money gifts? I have kept all the receipts and invoices from the solicitor etc for my records but I have personally given cash gifts on my Dads behalf (he asked me to) to my siblings and his grandchildren and nieces and nephews. I haven’t got receipts so thought I’d just have to take the hit?

Good luck with that.

It depends if your Dad has mental capacity. You being Deputy under the Court of Protection suggests he doesn’t have mental capacity. You absolutely can’t give larger gifts than he would have usually given, no matter what taxes he paid. I’m so sorry.

There are no loopholes. The Court of Protection charges high fees for you to go through this and you can’t gift yourself or your family money unless it’s normal expenditure for gifts.

He asks me to gift the money (as in birthday presents) and tells me the amount, it’s never more than £50. I usually ask my Uncle to be present to confirm and will continue to do this in the hope this is enough to start taking the money directly from my Dads account. The issue with capacity is tricky as he refuses to talk to any professionals and points to me when they ask questions but he definitely is able to say exactly what he wants. Thanks so much for your help.

You are allowed to make small gifts on customary occasions such as birthdays,Christmas and weddings from his funds but nothing more than that.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/giving-gifts/giving-gifts-web-version

Thank you

Social services do not take over paying for someone arbitrarily after 2 years. They take over after the person ‘s money goes below the threshold which was 23,500 last time I checked.

Lots of private care homes require that you are able to self fund for a minimum of 2 years so that they can get the higher fees for that time at least and will not accept someone whose money will run out within 2 years (I guess that’s break even for them given average life expectancy of nursing clients is actually less than 2 years). That doesn’t mean that they somehow can get social care to pay after 2 years if he still has money over the threshold at that point. They are just saying that they will not kick him out after his money gets less than threshold if that is after 2 years which is the minimum they can do really tbh.

You would need to apply to the court but it sounds as though such an application would be denied in the circumstances. He would need to be able to fund his care and expenses until the age he would reasonably be expected to die.

I know of someone who made a successful application but the elderly person was in their 90s and had £millions so it was vastly in excess of their needs (and it went to the person it was due to go to under their will).

We are reading your thread right. You’re saying you want social services (us, the taxpayer) to keep your dad in a care home while you spend his money on yourself… there’s rules against that for a reason.

Your father could gift some of the money to you. I intend to give most of my money to my children before I die. I have already spent money on them by buying them material things like a new lawn for their garden and a summer house. I prefer to see them enjoy my money why I am still alive. This is what my grandmother did and she left hardly anything in her will. She treated her family to holidays abroad etc

I can’t imagine any care home, which after all is a business out to make a profit, would have this kind of set up. Say there are 20 rooms for 20 residents at a cost of £1000k pw/per resident. Over 2 years each resident would bring in £104k, a total of £2080K. That’s over £2 million.
After 2 years, if each resident lived a further 2 years, the place would lose £2 million, their profits would be wiped out and the place would go bust.
You clearly have this wrong.

You can give £3,000 a year (or equivalent in gifts) legally free of IHT, start early! And as much as you want which after 7 years it's not counted for IHT, I think there are rules about these gifts not affecting your standard of living, etc, there is a taper too. Not sure whether all these gifts fall outside deprivation of assets as well though, if they are made close to someone going into care I suspect they would be looked at.

So you're trying to work out if you can get away with abusing your role as deputy to enable you to steal from your dad and ultimately from the taxpayer who will end up funding his care if you and your siblings take his money for yourselves?

I sincerely hope not.