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Nursing home top up:Intimidated by Assessor,
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Dramatist
Posts: 7 Forumite
I am 55 and permenently disabled in a wheelchair which I have been for 12 years. Since becoming ill, I have been living with my elderly mother. I am her only child and her only beneficiary.
During this time, she has paid all the household bills, refusing point blank to take any money from me and refusing to let me pay for anything at all saying that I will need all I have to get care etc when she dies. The house is in her name and is free of any mortgage. I have Enduring Power of Attorney for her. So far so good.
Over the last few years, however, mother slipped into dementia and in 2007 went into a nursing home. At the time she had shares worth £70,000 and pensions totalling about £1500 a month.
By the time she went into the home, we were employing a gardener and a 'domestic help' as neither of us was capable of running the house physically.
The rules of EPA state that:"Unless you put in a restriction preventing it your attorney(s) will be able to use any of your money or property to make any provision which you yourself might expect to make for their own needs or the needs of other people.."
My mother, had she remained compos mentis, would have continued to pay for everything to run the house and to look after me until the day she died when, doubtless, I would sell the house and find a more suitable property for my needs. The house is anything but suitable - I can't get upstairs for a start!
Under the regulation above and on the advice of a Financial Adviser who I employed to look after the shares etc, I continued to use her money exactly as she would have done and I also paid her Nursing Home Fees.
Her savings, of course, depleted and she was left with shares worth just £6,000. The Finacial Adviser had totally missed the vital 23,200 mark and so had I. I applied to Social Services for funding for her care and the Social Worker said all was fine that there would be no problem.
Last week the world fell apart. The most intimidating and obnoxious young lady (!) from the Finance Dept turned up and gave me the third degree! She has requested to see every dealing from the moment mother went into the home and has basically accused me of defrauding my own mother by using her money to run the house. She claims that mother should still have £40,000 left and that the chances are that the council will not fund her because of it.
I am worried sick - where do I find money for Nursing Home Fees? Because of my disability I live on Benefits topped up by Income Support. As for defrauding mother - the only person who loses on the deal is me. If the money has gone, I can't inherit it but that's fine, It is her money and I don't begrudge her a penny of it. I will do everything to keep her safe and in care.
My solicitor says tough it out and he will appeal it if and when the decision goes against me. Easy for him to say but I am just about at breaking point.
Worst of all, I can't really prove where the money has gone since the help and the gardener, who have had about £40,000 between them in cash, it turns out refuse to give me any form of letters or receipts to say what I paid them. It seems that they have not declared it!!!! That was something which never crossed my mind. When I was working and got paid cash from time to time, I always just banked it and declared it on my tax form. it would never have entered my head to do anything else with it.
Clearly, I have been awfully naieve over this whole affair but I don't deserve to be brought to the edge by circumstances not of my making and a completely cruel and heartless assessor. What the hell do I do?
All replies gratefully received.
Jonathan.
During this time, she has paid all the household bills, refusing point blank to take any money from me and refusing to let me pay for anything at all saying that I will need all I have to get care etc when she dies. The house is in her name and is free of any mortgage. I have Enduring Power of Attorney for her. So far so good.
Over the last few years, however, mother slipped into dementia and in 2007 went into a nursing home. At the time she had shares worth £70,000 and pensions totalling about £1500 a month.
By the time she went into the home, we were employing a gardener and a 'domestic help' as neither of us was capable of running the house physically.
The rules of EPA state that:"Unless you put in a restriction preventing it your attorney(s) will be able to use any of your money or property to make any provision which you yourself might expect to make for their own needs or the needs of other people.."
My mother, had she remained compos mentis, would have continued to pay for everything to run the house and to look after me until the day she died when, doubtless, I would sell the house and find a more suitable property for my needs. The house is anything but suitable - I can't get upstairs for a start!
Under the regulation above and on the advice of a Financial Adviser who I employed to look after the shares etc, I continued to use her money exactly as she would have done and I also paid her Nursing Home Fees.
Her savings, of course, depleted and she was left with shares worth just £6,000. The Finacial Adviser had totally missed the vital 23,200 mark and so had I. I applied to Social Services for funding for her care and the Social Worker said all was fine that there would be no problem.
Last week the world fell apart. The most intimidating and obnoxious young lady (!) from the Finance Dept turned up and gave me the third degree! She has requested to see every dealing from the moment mother went into the home and has basically accused me of defrauding my own mother by using her money to run the house. She claims that mother should still have £40,000 left and that the chances are that the council will not fund her because of it.
I am worried sick - where do I find money for Nursing Home Fees? Because of my disability I live on Benefits topped up by Income Support. As for defrauding mother - the only person who loses on the deal is me. If the money has gone, I can't inherit it but that's fine, It is her money and I don't begrudge her a penny of it. I will do everything to keep her safe and in care.
My solicitor says tough it out and he will appeal it if and when the decision goes against me. Easy for him to say but I am just about at breaking point.
Worst of all, I can't really prove where the money has gone since the help and the gardener, who have had about £40,000 between them in cash, it turns out refuse to give me any form of letters or receipts to say what I paid them. It seems that they have not declared it!!!! That was something which never crossed my mind. When I was working and got paid cash from time to time, I always just banked it and declared it on my tax form. it would never have entered my head to do anything else with it.
Clearly, I have been awfully naieve over this whole affair but I don't deserve to be brought to the edge by circumstances not of my making and a completely cruel and heartless assessor. What the hell do I do?
All replies gratefully received.
Jonathan.
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Comments
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how have you managed to get through £120,000 since 2007? im including the £1500 per month pension here. How much is the house worth? can you move to a smaller more managable property?Be Alert..........Britain needs lerts.0
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I would like nothing better. The house was valued last year at £340,000. I put it on the market with a view to doing just as you suggest but got no viewings.paddedjohn wrote: »How much is the house worth? can you move to a smaller more managable property?
As to how I have got through the money, the savings have covered the nursing home thus far and the help I need to cope in the house and garden, the £3,000 a year utility bills along with some emergency building repairs and a re-wiring when British Gas Homecare condemned the distribution board and associated wiring has accounted for the pension.0 -
I am worried sick - where do I find money for Nursing Home Fees? Because of my disability I live on Benefits topped up by Income Support. As for defrauding mother - the only person who loses on the deal is me. If the money has gone, I can't inherit it but that's fine, It is her money and I don't begrudge her a penny of it. I will do everything to keep her safe and in care.
"There is a scheme called the deferred payment scheme which allows someone who goes into care to keep their property and still get help from the local authority with paying care home fees. The local authority recovers the fees from the proceeds when the property is sold. This scheme can also be used if there is a delay in selling a property."
http://www.nhs.uk/CarersDirect/guide/practicalsupport/Pages/Chargingforresidentialcare.aspx
Perhaps the NHS should be paying for some or all of your mother's care.
http://www.nhs.uk/CarersDirect/guide/practicalsupport/Pages/NHSContinuingCare.aspx
The Mental Capacity Act 2005 details what an attorney must, can and cannot do. Accounts must be kept and money spent for the benefit of the donor not the attorney. I can understand why questions are being raised.
http://www.justice.gov.uk/downloads/guidance/protecting-the-vulnerable/mca/mca-code-practice-0509.pdf0 -
The Mental Capacity Act 2005 details what an attorney must, can and cannot do. Accounts must be kept and money spent for the benefit of the donor not the attorney. I can understand why questions are being raised
Yes, but the regulation applies to LPA not EPA. One of the reasons mother ws so happy with the EPA was that I could, indeed, use her money to continue to live in her house. In retrospect, it would have been in her and my interests to have sold the wretched house when she went in the nursing home!
Thanks for the wize-up on the deferred payment scheme. That looks to be ideally the route to invesigate. I'm not particularly worried where I live just so long as I can basically look after it physically myself, which is impossible with this monstrosity of a house and there is room for me and two small dogs to the end of our days!0 -
No practical help or advice, but sympathy. The council finance dept were very inefficient when i was dealing with my father's affairs, too.
Awful situation and I hope it is resolved for you.Member #14 of SKI-ers club
Words, words, they're all we have to go by!.
(Pity they are mangled by this autocorrect!)0 -
paddedjohn wrote: »how have you managed to get through £120,000 since 2007? im including the £1500 per month pension here. How much is the house worth? can you move to a smaller more managable property?
Quite easily I would have thought dependant on how much the care home fees were.
Whilst the OP should have kept his and his mother's finances separate as soon as his mother went into a care home or became mentally incapacitated the council should not have used the mothers savings to finance care home fees once they reached the lower savings limit. It is not permitted to use savings under that limit to pay for your own care home fees and I think the council are trying to manufacture a notional situation were the savings haven't reached that level in order to cover their error and force the OP to release more funds by selling the house.
I would agree with the solicitor tough it out. As the OP is disabled the value of the house is ignored whilst he remains living in the house. The deferred payment scheme is not relevant in this situation unless the OP is no longer living in the house. The OP is under no obligation to finance his mothers care from her own resources or even to declare what those resouces are to the council. His mother owns the house it is reasonable to spend money on the up keep of the house. If you pay cash to a gardener and they are self-employed it is up to them to make proper declarations. By keeping up the maintainance of the house the OP is merely carrying out his mothers wishes as last expressed.
Even if the OP has to agree that the money on upkeep should not have been paid a retrospective review of the financial assessments should be made and presented to the OP. The council cannot just pluck a figure of £40K out of the air and browbeat the OP into submission.0 -
monkeyspanner wrote: »...................
Whilst the OP should have kept her and her mother's finances separate as soon as her mother went into a care home or became........
As the OP is called Johnathan I would assume they are a he not a her.0 -
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