Protecting Inheritance from care home ...help me!!!

[lincolnpaul1]

Hi there,
Thanks for reading this first of all....
Summary:
My mother is ill and now in care (home) with Alzheimers. She is self-funding her care home fees but the money owed is being run up on her property (about 14K currently). I have Power of Attorney over her finances and she is not in the position to make any decisions now, so I make all these. She has her house which I am currently selling for her (120K). Some of the proceeds will go to pay off the debt. We will be left with about 100K capital in mum's account. Mum will continue to self fund her care (about 700£ per week) until her saving are down to about 20K. Mum wanted to protect her savings (as much as the 100K) and obviously didn't want it all to go to her care. Does anybody know how I can/what I can do to protect this to ensure it is passed onto family?

If you are an attorney I wouldn't just seek financial advice but also legal advice. Generally an attorney must use the donors assets for the donors benefit. There are some instances where you could gift assets but it's very limited and you would have to be able demonstrate that it's the donors wish, that may be difficult to do if she has lost capacity. You may end up being investigated by the OPG. In addition the local authority would expect your mothers assets to be used to fund her care to a certain extent. It may not seem fair that those who don't have assets get "free" care but why should everyone else fund the care of someone who has assets, councils are incredibly cash strapped and they must look very closely at every case that they are requested to fund.

I would tread very carefully here OP and be absolutely sure of what you are doing, if you can't see a solicitor have a look on the OPG website for guidance on the duties of an attorney. Do the wrong thing and you could be prosecuted for fraud by abuse of position.

Mooey does that mean that my mother cannot gift £500 a year for family gifts ?
I buy her nice clothes and supplement her diet with tasty treats and fruit .
Mirroring the £20 a week that care home residents are given for toiletries etc.
She has been in a care home for ten years now with still self funding left.
I am shocked if such a small sum would be taken into account . And no I don't have the funds to pay that back . I am worried .

The system treats everyone the same. It doesn't care whether someone worked hard for their money, or won it on the bingo, or was a career criminal. It doesn't make moral judgments on whether some people are more deserving of keeping their assets than others. It doesn't make allowances for people who have children and want an inheritance, over people who didn't procreate.

And that's how it should be.

Lots of aspects are wrong, like the cost of care, but I don't think your starting point should be "protecting inheritance".

I know she would have wanted something more to go to the family

Of course that's true, but presumably she would also have wanted to stay in good health, not get dementia and not end up in a care home.

There are some pretty dire care homes out there. At least, with your help, your mum is using her money to stay in a nicer place.

Newlife - it can be requested if it was given away in the knowledge that it would be needed to pay for care fees - so when they were about to go into care or while there.

Overall I fear you have left it too late ( or rather you mum did) you could consider renting the house out if that would provide a decent cut of the fees - remember she's still get her pension , attendance allowance etc as well. If you can't keep paying though a charge can be placed on the house to be paid back later.

The positive thing I do know is the savings threshold of 23k approx when care gets paid for you. Fees erode savings fast. You need to look at gettibg help for fees well before you get to this - say at 50k as it'll take ages to do. Remember though when the state starts contributing to her care she will loose state pension and attendance allowance etc.

You may also end up arguing about the cost of her care. It is £700 privately but the state will say .... We believe her care can be bought for £500. At which point you say - show me where ( often they can't actually show you the place that would and will up their offer and the hone will lower the price etc). Ultimately you could be into an appeal re why keeping her in her current home is best for her physical, mental and spiritual well being in order to stay where she is ( age concern advised me on this and were very helpful, though dad wisely quietly died before we really had to fight for him). Be wary of entering any doc services agreement that needs a top up long term - the 23k savings won't last long and you may end up out of pocket.

Always remember continuing healthcare assments. She may reach the threshold for NHS funded care due to primary health needs too either now , or later down the line - but it's normal to have an sesame nt and fail the 1st one or 2 before " winning" . This is independent of savings but your have to poke people repeatedly to get this going. Arm yourself with knowledge of the criteria etc

Rent your mothers house out that will pay some of the care home fees, and hopefully you will be left with the house after her death to do as you wish, its a horrible situation, I really feel for you.

This may rub people the wrong way but why shouldn't your DM's assets be used to fund her care? If she was living at home she would need to self fund (beyond any pension entitlements).

I don't see why the public should fund living expenses (which essentially this amounts to) while there are significant assets available.

Nobody should be aiming to die with money so their children can have an inheritance.

The reason some people get it for 'free' is the same reason younger people receive benefits. Because there is a minimum standard of living and if you cannot meet that then as a decent society we are obligated to help.

Granted, maybe that means you shouldn't be responsible throughout life and save, blah blah blah. But saving might give you a very healthy retirement balance and lifestyle well beyond what the pension could afford. It's your choice whether to spend it all so you can receive a meagre pension. It's like cutting off your nose to spite your face.

Rant over. It just really annoys me to see people trying to get out of paying for things they should - child maintenance (self-employed, purposely unemployed etc), those who hide assets to avoid reasonable tax and things like this.

Yes that's a good point, is she eligible for CHC (Continuing Healthcare)

KP I do understand your point and I largely agree with it. It's very annoying though I suppose when someone gets care paid for because they haven't got assets whilst for other people the family home has to be sold. I know people should take responsibility but from an emotive point of view...

Sorry you and your family are going through this.

You need to be aware of a concept called "deprivation of assets", because the council will argue, potentially, that you sought to gift all or part of your mother's estate specifically in order to deprive them (aka collective taxpayer funds) of these assets which are legally supposed to be contributed to directly fund the costs of her health care.. they therefore have the right to seize gifted assets on basis that state has primary ownership rights.

I do have to say many other countries manage this situation much, much better than UK, for all concerned: patient, family and state!

Bassettfeet, I believe that 'continuing spending patterns as before care was needed or anticipated' is fine - so if your mum bought presents at the £50 mark, dressed in M&S, went out for afternoon tea, bought Yardley then that would be acceptable to keep doing that. But if she/you swapped to £1000 presents, Jaeger, Le Manoir, Creme de la Mer then that might be am issue.

The people that get their care paid for by the state will be in cheaper NHS homes with smaller rooms and not as good facilities as those who pay for it themselves. I used to work in a private care home and my grandmother has just spent the last few months of her life in a funded NHS home. I know which one is rather go to when I'm older so I don't see it as 'loosing' money, rather making sure I have a lovely last few years of my life.

I think that the best you could probably hope for now is to set aside an amount for funeral costs [sorry] and possibly a very small gift amount for grandchildren where you are not a beneficiary.

Also, I feel strongly that "the family home" is just another asset, no matter how much emotional attachment one may have to it. If one person has a £500,000 house and no savings, and another has a £100,000 house and £400,000 in savings, they should be treated the same.

bassett
When I say 'gifted' I'm talking about those who suddenly sign over the 100k so that asset is not in DMs name.

Yes I agree to.

It is sad that elderly people scrimp and save thinking that they will need to save money for a decent Nursing home. Personally I plan to downsize early and use the remaining money to help my kids get on the property ladder, hopefully at least seven years before I die ! It is true that a large chunk of savings might buy me a better Nursing home if I need one but I'll take the risk. I thought there was a limit being brought in where around £70k from a house sale couldn't be touched , can anyone clarify this?

sparkly I'm like that. There's a chain of homes called Belong and I'm adamant I want to be there if I need care. Talking like a £1000 a week though. A WEEK. And this isn't in an affluent area but it's full and has waiting lists. Council will pay towards some but rest has to be found elsewhere.

Sparkly . Do you know if they move a reident from a private one to a state one if the money runs out?

NewLife you don't have to pay the actual sum back, you would have to pay the inheritance tax due on the sum.

I agree of course that every person needing care should get the same level regardless self funding or not . Am just a bit annoyed that my mothers care per week is more than the local authority pay for same care .

Also why she cannot have the pleasure of giving modest presents to her family at Christmas and birthdays . Or have treats because the food sometimes can be awful . She has capacity although I hold power of attorney . She still signs her own cheques and understands .

www.saga.co.uk/magazine/money/personal-finance/giving/what-you-need-to-know-about-signing-property-over-to-your-children interesting reasding

NewLife sorry, I hadn't refreshed the page and there are lots of replies I hadn't realised were there.

I think renting her house to fund her fees is your best option.

My nan scrimped and saved for years to leave a legacy for her children and would have been devastated to know that it ended up paying for her care. She would have been far better going on a round the world cruise and wasting it on lavish living.

In contrast, my grandad was a council house tenant whose care fees were met by the la. His care home was no worse than my nans.

So unfair. I intend to downsize and help out my children before it becomes a consideration.