Care home scam

We have a friend whose elderly mother recently died whilst in a care home. Sad but to be expected because she was 94, she had been in there for 6 weeks. My friend was paying the bill of £97 a day himself because the social services were still in the middle of working it all out and had provisionally given him the figure of having to contribute £210 per week because they would be taking her pension, care allowance, heating allowance and so on into the figures. Anyway he paid the care home £2910 for the month but the old lady died two days later and they have refused to give him a refund. They said it was in the contract but my friend had never seen much less signed a contract. The trouble is these people know that with funeral arrangements to be made the whole family being upset etc. no one feels like being assertive with them. So if anyone else is faced with this pay weekly!