Loopholes? Elderly homeowner wants to move into council warden run accomodation.

[Treadmillmom]

My 80 year old mother who is widowed and lives alone is losing her mobility to arthritis and really we're so worried about her we'd like her to move into a warden supervised accomadation.
She has 6 children and is adamant that after all her years of hard work she wants the proceeds from the sale of her home to go to her kids and grandchildren, not the state to pay for her ongoing care.
Friends have hinted that she can 'sign' the deeds of the house over to the kids and then move into council accomodation.
Does anyone know how this works or any alternative routes we could take?
If any of you ask, the sale of her house would never afford her a private retirement setting.

There was a phone-in on MoneyBox on Radio4 about this about a month or so ago, so you might be able to look up the transcript of that programme.

However, I think that it might be best to go direct to Age Concern or similar organisations to find out what they advise - this was basically what the speakers on the programme were advising.

Off hand, I don't think that she can sign the deeds over to the kids, as this would still count as selling it (in order to stop people using this as a way to avoid tax).

She might be able to sell it and set up some kind of trust so that it doesn't benefit the kids directly (I think my gran may have done this), but I think you'd need to talk to a specialist financial planner about this.