Unpaid Nursing Home fees after death - who is liable?

fredsnail

Talk about passing the buck - still if they decide that the lady was in charge of her own finances - maybe you can get her pension back from the daughter?

JuneBow

ratty67 wrote: »

I am so very :mad: right now I could scream.

The letter has come back to them from the DWP and, get this, NO-ONE was appointee for the lady. No-one.
Someone clearly wasn't doing their job properly.

And how the heck did the daughter manage to get her Mum's pension payments changed from the lady's bank account to HER OWN without appointeeship?

Hi Ratty,
I cannot help you on the legal issues as I have no professional expertise there, but I can tell you something about the pension payment.
Many years ago I worked as a graduate recruit in the department that paid pensions direct to peoples bank accounts. (Called the DHSS at the time)
One of the clerical staff received a typed letter from an elderly gentleman saying “can you change my bank account to XXXX”
The letter was signed with just a squiggle.
The clerk changed the bank account, but it turned out to be the next door neighbours bank account. The neighbour had somehow got hold of the bloke’s pension number.
The bloke had not signed an appointee form, he had not signed the letter, nothing. The neighbour was banking on the department not doing any checks.
Anyway, the gentleman’s daughter used to work at the DHSS before all of this happened, and took it up with them.
Her argument was that the DHSS had not paid her father’s pension to him. They had, in error, paid it to someone else.
At first the department tried to tell the daughter that they must report this to the police and get the police to deal with the neighbour. However, the neighbour had so much debt that it did not seem likely for them to get the money back.
So the daughter went after the DHSS.
After a while, the department did cave in and give the old chap the money that was paid to the neighbour in error as they realised that they had made an error in not checking the signature against the one they had. They had not taken sufficient care.
The neighbour was done for benefit fraud amongst other things, but the good thing for the old chap and his daughter, they got their money and did not have to take action directly against the neighbour.
I am not saying that things have improved since that incident. They have not, because most of the staff are simply clerks who do not do sufficient checks, so this could easily happen again.
From your point of view however, if you can prove that the department have not taken sufficient care eg If the letter they received was not signed, if the phone call that was made to change bank accounts was not properly recorded, then you may be able to recover the pension that she had not had. In other words, the department has made a mistake, they have paid pension into the wrong bank account. In that way, it will be the department who will take steps to recover the pension paid in error, rather than your husband.
IMHO you need to be firm with the pensions people. It is their error.
This chaps daughter wrote to her MP about it, but before he got to reply, the department realised their error, and reibursed the man.
HTH

ratty67

JuneBow - a sad tale with, thankfully, a happy ending! Much appreciated that you took the time to write that out, DH has drafted a letter to The Pension Service that will hopefully shed some light on the matter. It's a pleasing thought that the estate may be able to gain the 'lost' pension monies back (it would amount to almost £10,000). Plus missing winter fuel payments.

DH has still not managed to pin down the lady's mental health team worker but in the process of ringing numerous numbers he has spoken to a couple of people who were 'surprised' the lady was not receiving NSH continuing care... A whole new can of worms!

www.mylostaccount.org.uk has produced one result so far, an unknown NS&I account. They would like copies of the death cert, will and a copy of the lady's signature (the will should surfice for that surely?).

Onwards and hopefully upwards as they say!!

Errata

Ratty, thanks for the upate. Won't it be lovely if the NS&I account contains lots of £££££££ !
Continueing Health Care is indeed a whole new can of worms and crossed with a crown of thorns and a poisoned chalice. I'm sure you've read the thread detailing people's battles over it.

ratty67

Errata - indeed I have read the relavent thread and have spent the last couple of hours refreshing my memory reading it again.

DH is quite prepared to 'go there' if it looks like she shouldn't have been paying. He's already seen red with collective attitudes which state that making sure an elderly person isn't financially abused is the families responsibility and not theirs.

Bunkum :mad:

Savvy_Sue

ratty67 wrote: »

They would like copies of the death cert, will and a copy of the lady's signature (the will should surfice for that surely?).

Not necessarily. As well as comparing signatures with what's on the account they have, they may want more than one signature to verify that it's the same, IYSWIM, and not just someone trying to forge it on the will. Copying a signature once is easier than doing it several times, I believe.

ratty67

Thanks for that Savvy_Sue.

Shall look through the stack of paperwork, I'm sure there's something else with her signature on although offhand I can't remember.

Errata

ratty67 wrote: »

Errata - indeed I have read the relavent thread and have spent the last couple of hours refreshing my memory reading it again.

DH is quite prepared to 'go there' if it looks like she shouldn't have been paying. He's already seen red with collective attitudes which state that making sure an elderly person isn't financially abused is the families responsibility and not theirs.

Bunkum :mad:

Bunkum indeed - it's usually family members who financially abuse older people.
If an elderly person has a social worker part of their duty of care is to ensure no abuse of any nature is carried out.

JuneBow

ratty67 wrote: »

JuneBow - DH has drafted a letter to The Pension Service that will hopefully shed some light on the matter.

Ratty, if this were me, I would simply write a letter saying
Dear Sir

I am executor of the late Mrs X, and note that she has recieved no pension from you since xxxxx

I would be grateful if you would look into this matter, and rectify this.

Yours faithfully

Mr Ratty

I would not mention the daughter at this stage.

This is the line the daughter in my story took.

She made them prove (which they could not) that they had taken sufficient care.

Let us know how you get on.

olibrofiz

I've just found this thread, hope you don;t mind me commenting. What a fantastic job you and Mr Ratty are doing for that lady.

What an absolute horror of a daughter, words fail me.

How can someone do that? I'm an only child and my mum is now in her 80's so I help her out a lot (arrange house/car insurance, sky all sorts of stuff) and she spoils me, buys me petrol or a bit of shopping. I sorted everything out for her when my dad died 7 years ago, he always did all the bills.

She was in hospital last year with a pulmonary embolism and she gave me her bank card. It never entered my head to take out any more than she told me to.

:T:T:T to you and Mr Ratty