My mum wants to sign her flat to sister

bris

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/CaringForSomeone/CareHomes/DG_10031523 Here is the link that you may want to read.
If your mum signed the house over to your sister the state would see this as a way to try and avoid paying the fees. There is no time limit on how far back they can claim fee avoidance so you are in a tricky situation here.
The only way would be for your sister to care for her until she dies.
The state will start assesing your mum for fees after week 8, so depending on how long she has been in you might want to make a decision on what to do quickly.

Fly_Baby

I don't know all legalities - but if your sister wants her own home surely she can use right of buy and buy her council flat? I imagine, mortgage should be quite manageable, considering it's with a discount and for a flat.

You can keep your mum's house intact and just care about her as others on this thread have suggested - by visiting her without giving up your main residences. Then when she passes away, you both inherit her house (which will be below the inheritance tax threshold). I understand that she doesn't want to go into care anyway.

If she still needs to go into care, then you may use the savings, try to take out a loan, remortgage her (or your) house to pay the fees - but keep her house in the family - if that's what you want too.

Errata

lalinchante wrote: »

Could she make a claim for NHS care when she has savings and a flat?

Your mum could ask to be assessed for NHS funded Nursing Care contribution, around £100 a week, or NHS Continuing Health Care contribution which will fund all her weekly fee. The chances of her being successful are vanishingly small and a bid to obtain can go on for years with appeals etc.
Why not seek advice from Age UK on what would be the best way of caring for you mum and how it should be funded

Hermanmunster_2

I understood you could pass a house on to a relative if it was done many years (say 7-10) before you went into care especially if you had other reasonable assets in savings?

Errata

Herman - that period is for tax purposes. There is no time limit on deprivation of assets, each case is judged on its merits.

RAS

lalinchante wrote: »

I want my sister to have the same. I don't think upkeep and service charges would amount to much more than what she pays in rent now.

If Mum goes into full time care, the flat will have to be sold, mum's savings will be eaten up until she reaches that 23k.

This was why I was trying to find a way for her not to lose all her money in care.

Hi

If you sister stays in her current flat, then the repairs are paid for, and if she is not working, the rent is covered by HB.

If she moves into mum's flat, then she gets no state help to cover the service charge and upkeep. She would rapidly lose the place if she stopped working.

pineapple123

Caring for someone with nursing needs 24hrs an day 7 days a week is very difficult and tiring especially in a flat, I hope if you go down this route you will able to help with the care like night sitting, holiday breaks, etc

noelphobic

Errata wrote: »

Your mum could ask to be assessed for NHS funded Nursing Care contribution, around £100 a week, or NHS Continuing Health Care contribution which will fund all her weekly fee. The chances of her being successful are vanishingly small and a bid to obtain can go on for years with appeals etc.
Why not seek advice from Age UK on what would be the best way of caring for you mum and how it should be funded

the Registered Nursing Care contribution isn't that hard to obtain. Fully funded NHS CC is a lot harder. My mum got the former with no quiblbles whatsoever. We're now fighting for the latter and she has been dead for 2 months.

Tr1pp

im not very familiar with whats involved in all of this but my GF's gran signed her house to her daughter (my gf's mum) i have since found that this took many years (7 if i remember correctly) to complete the whole process.

not to sound heartless but does your mum have that long left in her? as the process may be a waste of time otherwise.

but like i said I dont know fully the process involved so i may be very wrong but worth checking still.

edit: ah i see someone has already mentioned this earlier

Yorkie1

There is confusion between two separate issues here.

Inheritance tax - property given away is treated after death as still remaining in the person's estate for IHT purposes, although there is a sliding scale regarding how much tax is charged until 7 years after the gift has passed, at which point the gift can no longer form part of the estate.

Deprivation of capital - where the state looks at how much money / assets a person requiring care has, in order to determine whether they are able to fund their own care. Any property given away is treated as being part of those assets, and as previously stated there is no time limit for that.