Social services want to take over finances ..advice?

[onestepat]

Hello and thanks in advance for any advice given.
My gran had a hip break and social services have told me she isn't safe to remain living alone.
They've told me she has to go into a care home.
I'm her appointee with DWP and at the minute deal with her finances.
My gran lives in a council property and has no savings except for around £7,000 in the bank (which my aunt has bank books)
Anyway social services have said normally they take over finances.
Is this correct?
They've said I could apply to court to deal with them but unless she owned a property it's not worth it.
Is this the best option ?

You can take over her finances, if she no longer has capacity and there is no power of attorney agreement then you apply for legal guardianship. This would be how the authorities take charge too. Its fairly straightforward. I'll find a link.

www.gov.uk/become-deputy
I would consider what your aunt would want. I acted on behalf of my great uncle, I actually had a joint agreement with my mum so we could share the burden. He was a private man and I knew he would want family to be managing his affairs.

I presume that she won't be obliged to use savings for care and so the savings she has will need to be looked after and can be used to buy the things she needs to make life comfortable. We bought clothes and toiletries for my uncle. He had sufficient money that he also had to pay his care home bill. He had lost access to some accounts and so we dealt with the banks and moved money into appropriate savings accounts. You have to submit annual accounts to the court, but its quite straightforward.
I can't think why the authority is recommending they take this on rather than you?

I wouldn't have thought her savings are high enough for her to fund her care, and obviously she has no property to sell to fund it.

There will be an assumed income for savings over 6k I think - and more than the savings are worth, especially now. Use 1k of her savings to pay for carers to keep her out of a home for a few weeks. Then show them the bank books and say you want to keep charge of them to pay for her funeral at the appropriate time. That reason is why there is a savings disregard - I dont mean to be unkind, just saying it as they shouldnt argue about that.