selling house to pay for care home

bboswell

My mother is having to sell her house to pay for her care home. She is desperately sad that she will not be able to leave her family any inheritance. She has no savings whatsoever, but would like to give her grand daughter a wedding present, and also her two grandsons some money to help them get started. Also she has said she wants to pay for her funeral in advance. When her house sells will she be able to do these things, or will it be regarded as disposing of some of her capital. Any help with this would be appreciated.

dmg24

Yes, it will be classed as deprivation. Why did she not choose to do these things years ago, when deprivation was not an issue?

noelphobic

All of her money will not be taken to pay the care home fees. They can only take the full amount until she has 23,500 left. It then goes on a slidiing scale until she has approximately 14,500 left when she should become local authority funded.

My mum died recently and had been in residential care for 6 years. Her house has not been sold yet but there is a charge against it from the local authority of 70k plus! We are intending to appeal against this and try to get retrospective fully funded NHS continuing care, which may be something you want to look into, although it is not for the faint hearted!

As far as giving present goes, I don't think there is a definitive answer unfortunately. It would depend partially on the value of the gifts she wanted to give. I'm also not sure about how pre-paying for her funeral would be treated, although it doesn't seem unreasonable for her to want to do this.

You could try to speak to someone from Age UK who may be able to advise further.

I hope this is of some help.

noelphobic

dmg24 wrote: »

Yes, it will be classed as deprivation. Why did she not choose to do these things years ago, when deprivation was not an issue?

The OP has said that their mother has no savings. She would therefore have been unable to do these things years ago. She will be able to when she sells her house and receives the funds.

dmg24

noelphobic wrote: »

The OP has said that their mother has no savings. She would therefore have been unable to do these things years ago. She will be able to when she sells her house and receives the funds.

If she was so intent on giving these gifts, she could have secured lending on the house. This is the difference between intentional deprivation of capital and genuine spending. Genuine spending would occur irrespective of circumstances, which is not the case here.

bboswell

dmg24 wrote: »

Yes, it will be classed as deprivation. Why did she not choose to do these things years ago, when deprivation was not an issue?

As 'Noelphobic' stated,she did not have the money to do this before, and never dreamed she would have to give up her home to pay for a care home. She has always been generous with what little she had for birthday and christmas presents and also her favourite charities, and now feels she should be able to continue with this. She has all her faculties and wants to use her money as she always has. Is this considered unreasonable.

noelphobic

bboswell wrote: »

As 'Noelphobic' stated,she did not have the money to do this before, and never dreamed she would have to give up her home to pay for a care home. She has always been generous with what little she had for birthday and christmas presents and also her favourite charities, and now feels she should be able to continue with this. She has all her faculties and wants to use her money as she always has. Is this considered unreasonable.

It obviously shouldn't be considered unreasonable but there are no hard and fast rules. It would depend on how much her home sells for, how much she gives away and over what period of time and what view the local authority have if she gets to the point where her savings are running down and they are expected to help foot the bill (around 23k at the moment). For example, if the sale of her home raised 100k and she gave away 90k then it probably wouldn't be considered 'reasonable'. However, if her home raised 200k and she gave away 10k they would possibly take a more lenient view of it. Depending on the sums involved and putting it bluntly it is quite possible that it might never become an issue anyway if you see what I mean.

I think I read somewhere that paying for a funeral in advance is generally considered to be 'reasonable' but can't remember where I read that. It probably wouldn't make much difference overall as paying 2-3k in advance would probably only cover care home fees for a month or so anyway.

The other option, as I mentioned previously, is to investigate the possibility of obtaining fully funded NHS continuing care, in which case her money would be hers to do with as she wishes.

bboswell

thanks - I will look into this.

soolin

bboswell wrote: »

As 'Noelphobic' stated,she did not have the money to do this before, and never dreamed she would have to give up her home to pay for a care home. She has always been generous with what little she had for birthday and christmas presents and also her favourite charities, and now feels she should be able to continue with this. She has all her faculties and wants to use her money as she always has. Is this considered unreasonable.

No it is not unresonable but it is the way things work.

My mother and father skimped and saved all their life to buy a house and intended it for the grandchildren. However my mother left the family home many years ago and signed her half over to my father on the understanding his will would leave it to the grandchildren, but now, 30 years later my father had a stroke and has severe dementia and is in full time care. I had to sell the house even though my father (before the stroke and dementia) made me swear I never would , and we only have a few more years of money left to fund Dad.

Mojisola

soolin wrote: »

My mother and father skimped and saved all their life to buy a house and intended it for the grandchildren. However my mother left the family home many years ago and signed her half over to my father on the understanding his will would leave it to the grandchildren, but now, 30 years later my father had a stroke and has severe dementia and is in full time care. I had to sell the house even though my father (before the stroke and dementia) made me swear I never would , and we only have a few more years of money left to fund Dad.

Are you sure he isn't entitled to free care? I know it takes a fight to get it but his needs sound medical rather than social.

soolin

Mojisola wrote: »

Are you sure he isn't entitled to free care? I know it takes a fight to get it but his needs sound medical rather than social.

He is not in a nursing home, just a care home for people with dementia. So whilst i am happy that my father is deemed to have no medical needs, it does mean we do not fulfil the requirements to get any aid at all.

Although he does of course receive full DLA.