A few questions about my parents situation

Tall_Tone

My father (75) was recently very ill and for a few weeks we did not know if he was going to pull through. 6 weeks after the original infection he has now been moved to rehabilitation at another hospital and will hopefully be home in a month or two.

My parents have been married for over 40 years but have always kept separate bank accounts etc. When things were looking very bleak my mother (with my fathers permission as he gave us the pin) has started using his debit card to withdraw money from his account to pay for ongoing expenses like paying a joint credit card, food and travel etc. Is this actually legal as she is not named on the account, although working with the account holders permission? and how will any assessment view money withdrawn from a cashpoint while he is in hospital.

Secondly it transpires he is sitting on about £60,000 in cash Isa, and shares which are all in his name, not joint. (The house is in joint name)
He will in a few weeks be assessed for Community care, as he will require in house help when he hopefully returns.

The local council policy is that, if you have savings over £23,250 you pay the maximum amount for this service. One line in the documents states.
"If capital has been earmarked by the service user for a particular piece of disability related equipment (e.g. a stairlift or wheelchair) any such capital over £14,250 will be disregarded."

He will need an electric wheelchair, but we are also looking at converting a downstairs room into a bedroom with level access shower built in. My question would be - Could we Earmark his money for these modifications?

I have also suggested my Mum goes to the Citizen Advice Bureau to see what they suggest.

Any answers appreciated or any other comments welcome

chesky369

...Could we Earmark his money for these modifications...

I suspect that this depends entirely on the policy of your local authority - best thing would be to telephone and ask them.

As for the legality of your mother using your father's debit card to withdraw money, I think it would be a hard-hearted person indeed who would decide against it, as I've no doubt she had a definite need to have access to family funds.

monkeyspanner

Sorry to hear of your Dad's illness.

As your Mum is using your Dad's ATM card with his permission then it probably isn't illegal but it will be against the banks terms and conditions for card use. Should there be any fraud or disputed transactions on the account then the bank could probably wriggle out of its liability. Having said that it can't be unusual for partners to know each others pin numbers and occasionally use each others cards.

As long as any money withdrawn is used for expenses that your Dad could reasonably be expected to pay I wouldn't have thought there would be a problem. Also gifts between husband and wife are fine as far as the revenue are concerned, except you can't transfer ISA's without them losing their tax free status. Any capital transfer may be veiwed by the council as a deliberate deprivation of assets so it is probably not worth transfering assets to try to avoid them being assessed for care provision purposes.

I would have thought earmarking capital to make modifications to their home to accommodate your Dad's new living requirements was perfectly valid.

If your Dad's medical condition is permanent and affects his ability to look after himself there is an outside chance he may be eligable for NHS funded continuing healthcare. This funding is not means tested and is payable for care provision in any setting including his own home. The assessment for this funding is carried out by the PCT (primary care trust) and an initial checklist assessment should be carried out prior to him leaving hospital, and then if the checklist indicates it a full assessment should be carried out by the CHC team. The full assessment is based on a DST (decision support tool) which has various domains. PCTs are very reluctant to provide this funding for obvious reasons and it is difficult to secure this funding. There is a long thread on this MSE forum which you will find if you do a forum search for CHC.

Another non-means tested benefit is Attendance Allowance which your Dad should qualify for, it is paid at one of two assessment levels the higher being I believe aqround £64.50/week. You can't get AA as well as CHC funding.

I would recommend this charity which is a good source of information
www.counselandcare.org.uk

Also Age Concern and Help the Aged have join forces to launch a new website
http://www.ageuk.org.uk/

I hope this helps.

Biggles

Tall_Tone wrote: »

Could we Earmark his money for these modifications?

I can't see that it would make any difference to the assessment, he would still have to pay in full, as he would still be well over the threshold of £23k.

nigem

Although they have always had separate accounts, if anything should happen to either of them them, the bank must freeze the account. Would it be sensible for both of them to make their accounts joint so direct debits etc will be paid, and all proceeds of their accounts automatically can be used by either of them. They do not need to have cards or statements for the others account.

carefullycautious

When my dad was in rehab hospital for 4 months he gave me his card and pin to allow me to buy essentials for him. The bank told me this was illegal and that if I lost the card It would not be covered by their insureance if any money was taken.

I still continued to use it but was extremely careful that I did not loose it. This was before I managed to get power of attorney

beccam

If your father is going to be incapable of looking after his own accounts etc then I would highly recommend starting the process of getting your mum/other family member put in charge of them with proper legal access to all his accounts.

When my FIL had a stroke and was no longer able to look after his own affairs it took months (close to a year) to get everything swapped over into MIL's name, not helped by the fact the bank wanted him to attend the branch himself to complete paperwork to say he was in agreement!

It also became apparent he had some money put away that nobody knew about but also that he had debts nobody knew about either.
His savings alone put him over the limit as regards some financial help for care etc however once MIL used this money to clear his debts that brought the savings down to a lower amount meaning he was then entitled to help.

Savvy_Sue

If your mother doesn't have enough money going into her accounts to cover the regular / normal expenditure, then one of the quick and easy things to do would be to set up a monthly standing order from Father's account to Mother's - get the form from the bank, sign it at home / hospital, hand it in, job done.

Your only worry would be if your father's signature no longer looks like the one the banks have on file, which happened after my FIL had a stroke.

However, planning ahead would include getting Power of Attorney set up, or getting at least one joint account from which household bills are paid.

dzug1

It may or may not be actually illegal for your mother to use father's account in this way but it is 100% against the T&C of the account.

Its legality/otherwise won't be of great concern to the LA

Get something better set up ASAP.

Tall_Tone

Thanks for all the responses. A direct debit of a sensible amount sound the easiest way to go for now, but I will get the paperwork to change the account to joint as well.

I think you are right "Biggles" Even putting in a new accessible front door, building a ramp to get into the room and putting a shower in will only be a few thousand. A few thousand more for a decent wheel chair and we are still £30k over.

Mojisola

Tall_Tone wrote: »

Even putting in a new accessible front door, building a ramp to get into the room and putting a shower in will only be a few thousand. A few thousand more for a decent wheel chair and we are still £30k over.

There may be a lot more things he will need. What about an electrically controlled bed so that he can change position? Will he need a hoist to get in and out of bed into his wheelchair? If you're going to put in a shower, you will need to allow for some redecoration downstairs. I'm sure this isn't a comprehensive list.

He may still be fully-funding for a time but his life will be a lot more comfortable and it will be a lot easier for his carers to look after him.