Care Home Fees, Deprevation of Assets and buying a car

Campden

Deprivation of assets is the deliberate disposal of capital or assets in order to avoid or reduce the resident’s contribution to care home fees or increase benefits

Your proposed expenditure is to to dispose of capital assets to purchase an item that would be useful to your mother and improve her quality of life.

Quite a different thing I would have thought.

If you are really hesitating to buy because of this rule, you could consult the local authority who I should think would put your mind at rest.

People are allowed to spend their own money: but not to squander it to avoid charges or increase benefits.

So it's yes to the Wheelchair Adapted Vehicle and no to the Lotus Elan

noratw

have you considered using the Motability scheme?

margaretclare

noratw wrote: »

have you considered using the Motability scheme?

I don't think this will apply. To qualify for Motability you need to be in receipt of DLA with the mobility component. Attendance Allowance for the over-65s does not have a mobility component (they think we don't need to go out, grrr!)

Unless Mother was in receipt of DLA with mobility component before age 65 this won't work.

sebastianj

EdInvestor wrote: »

Have you looked into buying an immediate needs "care annuity" to top up your mother's pensions/AA/savings income to pay for the care?

Depending on her age and estimated life expectancy, you may well find that this would enable her to retain a significant chunk of the 100k in the long term.Income from the annuity is paid tax free.

Hi EDinvestor, how does one go about getting the above you mention, costs etc eligibility.
And at what age or situation deprivation of asset is an issue, if one goes on cruise or other holidays, can this also become an issue? If you sell your property and buy a smaller one and have a good time with the cash, can that be an issue?
rgd
seb

Errata

Here's a hypothetical case which might clarify things:
a 60 year old woman decides to sell her large house and buy a small flat - less to heat, clean, maintain. She makes a substantial profit and being in good health spends it on a new car, a cruise, long holiday in New Zealand, lots of short breaks, and enjoys her retirement. She has a stroke and needs residential care as she has no family and her needs are too great to continue to live at home even with home carers support. When she happily spent her money on things she enjoyed she had no idea she would have a stroke, nor were there any indications that it would happen. It was an unforseeable circumstance and couldn't have been planned for, consequently there was no deliberate deprivation of assets in order to avoid contributing to care home fees.

EdInvestor

Some more info on care fee plans here: they can be excellent value and offer peace of mind.

https://www.hsbcpensions.co.uk/nhfa/pdfs/is6.pdf

margaretclare

Errata wrote: »

Here's a hypothetical case which might clarify things:
a 60 year old woman decides to sell her large house and buy a small flat - less to heat, clean, maintain. She makes a substantial profit and being in good health spends it on a new car, a cruise, long holiday in New Zealand, lots of short breaks, and enjoys her retirement. She has a stroke and needs residential care as she has no family and her needs are too great to continue to live at home even with home carers support. When she happily spent her money on things she enjoyed she had no idea she would have a stroke, nor were there any indications that it would happen. It was an unforseeable circumstance and couldn't have been planned for, consequently there was no deliberate deprivation of assets in order to avoid contributing to care home fees.

I bet that 'hypothetical' lady would be really pleased she had done all those things while she was still fit and able to do them, to enjoy them. If I was on my own I might well do similar (except for the cruise, which has never appealed).

sloughflint

Errata wrote: »

It was an unforseeable circumstance and couldn't have been planned for, consequently there was no deliberate deprivation of assets in order to avoid contributing to care home fees.

Just out of curiosity, why doesn't that work with the common question we see on here re gifting money (eg house deposit and such like) and recommendation to avoid as it could be classed as DOA? I've read LAs can go back indefinitely.

EdInvestor

sloughflint wrote: »

Just out of curiosity, why doesn't that work with the common question we see on here re gifting money (eg house deposit and such like) and recommendation to avoid as it could be classed as DOA?

It's not gifts for house deposits (to enable a child to buy) that would cause a problem, it's attempts to transfer ownership of the parental home so as to avoid it having to be sold to fund care that potentially fall under DoA.

Ted_Hutchinson

Transfer of assets, and paying for care in a care home
This Age Concern Factsheet is quite a useful summary.

Certainly spending on disability aids to improve current quality of life would not be regarded as intentional deprivation of assets.