Care home fees & deprivation of assets

anj_S

My mother lives alone (widowed) is in her late 70's, and in poor health. I can see carehome needs around the corner but she understandably wants to stay in her own home for as long as possible with help.

I live in a relatively small cottage which isnt really suitable for having my mum to stay - only one downstairs room other than the kitchen, hall too small for stairlift, no downstairs loo etc. However my mum wants to pay for me to have an extn (which effectively would give me a larger hall, another downstairs room and a downstairs loo). This Would NOT be for my mum to permenantly live with me and my family but more so that she could come for short breaks or if she was unwell. I feel that these "breaks" would then enable her to remain living in her own home for as long as possible.

However my concern is that as my mum is already not in the best of health her spending £20K on my property might be seen as deprivation of assets, as though obviously the immediate benefit would be for her, but i would also benefit from a larger house.

I certainly dont want to end up in a position where the local authority have a claim on my property or that my mum if she ran out of money to meet care home costs in the future would not receive help as she was considered to have deprivated some of her assets

can anyone help me?

Anj

margaretclare

As your Mum understandably wants to stay in her own home as long as possible, wouldn't she be better advised to spend money on modernising her own home, make it more convenient and easy-care? There are many things that could be done - a shower rather than a bath, for instance. And also paying for help in the home, cleaning, gardening, those kind of things.

seven-day-weekend

Maybe her mum's house is rented???

Errata

My mother lives alone (widowed) is in her late 70's, and in poor health. I can see carehome needs around the corner but she understandably wants to stay in her own home for as long as possible with help

Studies show that in general older people fare better supported in their own homes than resident in a care home and local authorities are keen to enable as many older people to continue to live in their own homes for as long as possible and there's a lot of care support - practical and technical - available.
Your mum would always be left with an untouchable c£12k, which for arguements sake she will leave to you when she dies, that gives a difference of £8k which the local authority could argue the toss about re deprivation of assets. Given that £8k is only the price of an average saloon car we're not talking about a very large amount.
So.........should your mum need residential care and given the shortfall will be £8k I would guess you could easily add this amount to your mortgage should that become necessary.

If there's an Age Concern in your district their Information Officer will be able to talk things through with you.
HTH

monkeyspanner

Have a look here:
www.counselandcare.org.uk
They also have a help line on which you can enquire about these matters.

The council would only be obliged to assist with care home fees when your Mum's assets (house if owned plus savings) reduce to around £22250. If it was necessary for the council to assist and they then considered your mum's gift was a deliberate deprivation of assets then they could ask you for the money if your mum needed financial assistance within 6 months of the gift. Thereafter they would assess your mum's assets as though she still had the gift and would decline to fund until your mum's savings reduced to the appropriate level. In that instance I guess you would feel obliged to step in and effectively repay the gift over time by assisting with her care home fees. If of course this would be an option for you.

In practice the local council will apply there own rules as to how far back they will look so it may be adviseable for you to make some local enquiries as to how the council apply the rules in your area. Maybe Help the Aged might be able to provide some information in your area.

anj_S

margaretclare wrote: »

As your Mum understandably wants to stay in her own home as long as possible, wouldn't she be better advised to spend money on modernising her own home, make it more convenient and easy-care? There are many things that could be done - a shower rather than a bath, for instance. And also paying for help in the home, cleaning, gardening, those kind of things.

My mum already has a perfectly accessible home and has a gardener, I do her cleaning etc. The problem is sometimes she gets very low, then gets anxoius which leads to panic attacks. So the aim of bringing her to my house is for company as much as anything else. I cant go and stay there as I own family to consider but I feel that if my mum had regular short breaks with me she would do much better.

weanie

Hi anjS
It seems from your post that the originator of the idea is your mum and also that she is currently in sound mind. It also appears to be the case that this action would be of great benefit to her and that you would be empowered to provide another element of encouragement and support to her on her old age.
If there have been suggestions of residential care from professionals involved in your mum's care, then this does make your Mum's plan a little worrying.
If I were in your position and if I had decided to push forward your mum's plan, I would ensure I had gathered as much written evidence as ever possible in order to show others in the future the true honourable motives of the plan. Perhaps I'd get the GP's opinion of the value of the plan, letters from other family members in support of the action and certainly any written word from my mum from the date of the initial proposal. I assume all this evidence could be helpful in the future.

anj_S

Hmm you have definately given me some food for thought there guys. It seems such a shame that we have to worry about "how this will appear" as all we genuinally want to do is help my mum.

yes there have been murmurings from my mums social worker about care homes etc, so I would def have to discuss plan with her and perhaps get something in writing if they thought what we had in mind would be of great benefit to my mum as well.

Incidently my mum does own her own house (worth around £100k) and does not have alot of capital about £10k, so we would be looking at equity release for the money for the extn. So if she did go into a home and her house was sold it would take quite some time before she was down to £22K anyhow even if we had taken some money out of it for the extn.

However with regard to the 6 months rule and then being able to claim off me (if it was considered depreciation of assets) is that 6 months between the time of the using of money and the date a care home was reqd, or is it 6 months from the using of the money and the date when local authority financial help was sought. Because obviously it would be several years from going into a home until she was looked for fee assistance.

EdInvestor

You could consider scaling down the plan, to provide just a downstairs loo.If the idea is only for occasional visits this would probably be adequate, especially if you can fit in a shower as well. It might not cost much and thus probably wouldn't trigger any action by the authorities.

sloughflint

EdInvestor wrote: »

You could consider scaling down the plan, to provide just a downstairs loo.If the idea is only for occasional visits this would probably be adequate, especially if you can fit in a shower as well. It might not cost much and thus probably wouldn't trigger any action by the authorities.

It gets a bit silly when people live in complete fear of helping out their loved ones.:mad:
Why the heck should they scale down?

If it was me, I'd go ahead and argue until the cows came home. It's all about intention of DoA. Here OP is clearly trying to keep the person out of a care home environment for as long as possible.I dare say one year's care home fees would come to more than 20k.

The likely reality is, the mother may need to stay more and more frequently as she gets older and less well thus comfort is crucial.

Errata

anj - the difficulty with the care home fees arises when the house is unsold and your mum's ready cash runs out. The LA will fund your mum, but will put a charge on the house and before that happens they will need to carry out a financial assessment.