Care home fees

Linda_Alexander

Hi. I have never posted before so hope this is the right place. My disabled mother may have to go to a care home due to increasing disability but she is worried about the cost. Half the family house was willed to her children on my father's death and she is now renting a property. She would like to gift some of her cash to her family to keep it from being used for care home fees but is not sure how much she could gift without it being questioned. The whole estate is less than the inheritance tax threshold.
Any advice would be much appreciated.
Many thanks! )))

dzug1

She can't give any more than trivial gifts - the local authority will regard anything significant as deliberate deprivation of assets and assess the care fees as if she still had the money.

monkeyspanner

If you do a search of this forum you will find a number of threads which deal with this matter. Essentially any capital gift could be viewed as inappropriate under DDoA rules by the council. They have the power to examine records back as far as they like in this circumstance and also can recover recently gifted funds from the recipient. Often people will quote the Inland Revenue Inheritance Tax gift rules but in this circumstance the council have their own rules and IR rules don't apply.

From a practical point of view having capital funds does allow your Mum a much wider choice of care home as not all homes will accept the comparatively low fee rates of the councils. This then means that the family or friends have to top up the fee levels to supplement the fees. The downside is that if your Mum arranges her care home placement then she will almost inevitably end up paying more for the same service than council assisted residents as most homes which accept council assisted residents charge their 'self-funders' more. In my MIL's case this was the difference between £314 per week (council) and the £415 she paid.

As your Mum is renting a property does this mean that the home you mentioned has been sold? If not there are rules relating to additional council assistance during the initial 12 weeks of the sale, although I am not sure if this would apply if she no longer lived in the property.

For a good basic guide to care home funding have a look at this link
http://www.counselandcare.org.uk/assets/library/documents/16_Care_home_fees_paying_them_in_England_2009.pdf

Mojisola

monkeyspanner wrote: »

They have the power to examine records back as far as they like in this circumstance and also can recover recently gifted funds from the recipient.

Can they do this? I thought they just assessed the person needing care as still having that amount of money.

Biggles

Mojisola wrote: »

Can they do this? I thought they just assessed the person needing care as still having that amount of money.

Yes, though there appears to be a 6-month time limit on recovery.

http://www.ageconcern.org.uk/AgeConcern/Documents/FS40Transfer_of_assets.pdf

Mojisola

Biggles wrote: »

Yes, though there appears to be a 6-month time limit on recovery.

http://www.ageconcern.org.uk/AgeConcern/Documents/FS40Transfer_of_assets.pdf

Thanks. I learn something new every day on this site!