Care Home Fees - Wilful Deprivation of Capital

LisaW123

Katykat wrote: »

To all the posters who protest at "the taxpayer" having to pay for care when a person goes into a home let me just quote a few examples.
A baby with a congenital heart defect gets its care paid by the NHS. A teenager involved in a motorbike accident- NHS. A pregnant woman giving birth- NHS. A middled aged alcoholic with liver damage- NHS. A foreign tourist with a broken arm -NHS. An elderly man with a stroke and vascular dementia has to pay himself. Where is the fairness in that?
To Joannkaz, if one of your children was poorly and needed care, either short or long term, how would you feel if you were expected to pay for that care? The Nhs was created to look after EVERYONE from the cradle to the grave, NOT from the cradle to the point where you need it the most ie when you are ill, and vulnerable and do not have the capacity to fight it.
I'm actually shocked that there are people who think that the sick, elderly people should be THE ONLY citizens who should pay for health care (AND THIS INCLUDES THE GOVERNMENT)
Sorry, rant over, but my point is still clear Redmen, your father is ill and incapacitated both physically and mentally. He should recieve NHS care, free.

Elderly people do get free care of the type you have outlined. No elderly person pays for care in an NHS hospital, or for NHS services. What those with the means to do so pay for is ongoing care because they are unable to look after themselves. The foreign tourist with a broken arm might be treated for say a couple of hours then goes off and is never seen again. The baby with the heart problem might have inpatient admission and hospital visits but goes home to be looked after by it's parents. It is a sad fact that a lot of elderly people spend far too much time in hospital because there is nothing much to be done about their conditions and there is no-one willing or able to look after them. Hence the need for care homes. The needs of many elderly people are not medical, helping someone to dress, wash, eat etc is not a medical need, it is a social need. Basically anyone could do it if they so desired. The fact is, most families do not desire to do this but do desire to inherit whatever they can, especially when there is property involved.

Please don't use the old "they've paid into the system all their lives" argument. Another sad fact is that few have paid enough into the system for even 20 years of state pension, let alone health care costs, any personal care costs, free travel passes, tv licences etc etc.

The cost of residential care is high. A downside to people generally living longer is that more older people will need some kind of help as they age. If they have assets, those assets should be used to pay for this care rather than to line the pockets of the children who wont or can't look after them.

shuvhalfpenny

Can I just pick up on two points please?

I thought that any action taken by someone that reduces the availablity of either capital or income such as purchasing a continuing care annuity runs the risk of deprivation.
By the nature of an annuity you hand over a considerable amount of capital in exchange for a monthy payment. The capital is then lost.
Surely the capital should remain intact and be used to fund the fees, until it has been depleted?
Then and only then should the question of 'free' care be entered into.

Secondly, if in a case, as is common amongst old people and it is the same for us, the house is normally only registered in the husband's name. His wife for all intents and purposes is nothing more than a 'lodger' in it. And if his wife had to enter into care, would 1/2 of the house value be treated as hers? AgeUK say that it will not as she does not have legal title to anything.
If the husband went into care the whole value of the house would be taken as his asset, except that his wife will continue to reside in it.
I have asked this question of AgeUK, who say that in this typical situation, as his wife has no legal rights over the property, the property (even if she still lives in it) will be charged to the council for the fees that they are paying (assuming there is no capital available).
If the property was jointly owned, only when the surviving spouse enters care is the home charged or sold.

I question this as it is entirely possible that if the husband goes into care and dies, his widow (having no legal right to the property) would have to move out and the house sold by the council.

I just hope that I don't go first as that would leave my wife homeless and with no capital.

Mojisola

shuvhalfpenny wrote: »

Can I just pick up on two points please?

I thought that any action taken by someone that reduces the availablity of either capital or income such as purchasing a continuing care annuity runs the risk of deprivation.
By the nature of an annuity you hand over a considerable amount of capital in exchange for a monthy payment. The capital is then lost.
Surely the capital should remain intact and be used to fund the fees, until it has been depleted?
Then and only then should the question of 'free' care be entered into.

Secondly, if in a case, as is common amongst old people and it is the same for us, the house is normally only registered in the husband's name. His wife for all intents and purposes is nothing more than a 'lodger' in it. And if his wife had to enter into care, would 1/2 of the house value be treated as hers? AgeUK say that it will not as she does not have legal title to anything.
If the husband went into care the whole value of the house would be taken as his asset, except that his wife will continue to reside in it.
I have asked this question of AgeUK, who say that in this typical situation, as his wife has no legal rights over the property, the property (even if she still lives in it) will be charged to the council for the fees that they are paying (assuming there is no capital available).

If the property was jointly owned, only when the surviving spouse enters care is the home charged or sold.

I question this as it is entirely possible that if the husband goes into care and dies, his widow (having no legal right to the property) would have to move out and the house sold by the council.

I just hope that I don't go first as that would leave my wife homeless and with no capital.

Whoever you talked to at AgeUK needs to go for retraining. If a spouse is still living in the house, it has to be disregarded when the financial assessment is made. It doesn't matter whose name is on the deeds.

The whole point of buying an annuity is so that the person can pay for their own care. It isn't a means of avoiding paying.

margaretclare

shuvhalfpenny wrote: »

Can I just pick up on two points please?

Secondly, if in a case, as is common amongst old people and it is the same for us, the house is normally only registered in the husband's name. His wife for all intents and purposes is nothing more than a 'lodger' in it. And if his wife had to enter into care, would 1/2 of the house value be treated as hers? AgeUK say that it will not as she does not have legal title to anything.
If the husband went into care the whole value of the house would be taken as his asset, except that his wife will continue to reside in it.
I have asked this question of AgeUK, who say that in this typical situation, as his wife has no legal rights over the property, the property (even if she still lives in it) will be charged to the council for the fees that they are paying (assuming there is no capital available).
If the property was jointly owned, only when the surviving spouse enters care is the home charged or sold.

I question this as it is entirely possible that if the husband goes into care and dies, his widow (having no legal right to the property) would have to move out and the house sold by the council.

I am aware that this situation was common among some sections of the older generation, however, it was by no means always the practice. My first husband and I bought our first home together back in 1962 and I've always been 'on the deeds'. In fact, I would never live in a house, supposedly 'ours', where I wasn't on the deeds and could be treated as a lodger. Don't assume that it always applies, just that it may apply.

I just hope that I don't go first as that would leave my wife homeless and with no capital.

The remedy is simple. Contact the Land Registry, who are very helpful people and easy to deal with, and get this situation altered. It's what we did after my second marriage in 2002.

The days are long since gone - thank goodness! - when a woman should be left in the state you describe, without a penny-piece to call her own or even a roof over her head. Shades of Victorian marriages, when a woman didn't own even a pocket-handkerchief or the clothes she stood up in! What did we struggle so hard for in the 1970s if this dreadful situation is allowed to carry on into the new millennium and just accepted, as you seem to accept it, as quite normal?

clemmatis

melly1980 wrote: »

perhaps because he's sodding worked for that money and hopes to pass it on. But no, he has to lose it and watch people who couldnt be @r$ed in life get the same things for free.

And we wonder why the country is f$ucked, there is no incentive to do well you either have to be at the very very top or have sod all.

On the general point, I agree with joandkaz. I just don't think this thread is a good place to make the point, given that the OP doesn't support his father's decision to commit fraud.

I have about as much money as the OP's father even though my pension is only a partial one. There are people who have worked every bit as hard as I did, and were also disabled by their jobs. who have very very much less money. There are people who have more money than I who have never needed to work, some of them because their parents "passed it on". That is unfair.

There is an incentive to do well/better if you can. I'll be able to choose my nursing home. People who can't choose are not getting the same thing for free. The nursing homes near me that have places at the price the council will pay, are not good ones. The one I chose for my mother had no patients who had only local council funding. None.

And by the way, self-funding patients don't pay all the nursing home fees themselves. My mother got £100 a week from the Welsh Assembly, £44 a week lower rate AA, and of course her (partial) state pension.

margaretclare

And by the way, self-funding patients don't pay all the nursing home fees themselves. My mother got £100 a week from the Welsh Assembly, £44 a week lower rate AA, and of course her (partial) state pension.

If she needs care 24/7 in a nursing home, shouldn't she - by definition - be eligible for the higher rate AA?

Incidentally, older people, as well as the baby and the man with the broken arm in the example, can and do have very expensive NHS treatment. Treatment, not care. I wouldn't like to add up all that DH and I have had over the past few years. Just yesterday he saw a spinal consultant who proposes very risky surgery within the next couple of weeks, and he's talking of allocating a whole day to his surgery, just to avoid being hassled or stressed, God knows what that might cost!!!

clemmatis

margaretclare wrote: »

If she needs care 24/7 in a nursing home, shouldn't she - by definition - be eligible for the higher rate AA?

(She's dead) I'd have thought so, particularly as the hospital had more or less insisted she enter a nursing home. But they found she didn't need care at night. Mind you, the hospital also said she only needed social care -- luckily for us, the nursing home matron disagreed, and so, we got the Welsh Assembly money.

MissMoneypenny

margaretclare wrote: »

To the last 3 posters, read what the OP wrote. It's Dad who wants to avoid spending, to leave money to his descendants. It's not the OP, who is unhappy about what Dad wants!

I think you need to reread what I wrote. I confirmed that the OP was correct in their assumption that having a choice of home, was best. Money gives people choices.

Another poster agreed with what I had written; hence two of "the last 3 posters" that you spoke about, were agreeing with the OP and clearly had read what the OP said.

EDIT: But I didn't read on far enough in the thread today, to see that clemmatis has already said this to you.

MissMoneypenny

redmen1892 wrote: »

@JoandKaz1, both myself and my brother would love nothing better for my dad not to go into a home,

Try not to beat yourself up over that. I moved to be nearer my mother when she got ill and I still couldn't cope as she needed someone 24/7.

redmen1892 wrote: »

but I don't know where the line of demarcation is between social care and nursing care, yes, he is ill as per the diagnoses of VD and he has mobility issues as a result of the strokes but is that enough to warrant nursing care, I don't know?,

There is an assessment for full nursing care, which is carried out again and again every 6 months if they are assessed as needing full nursing care.

My mother has a lot more money than your father as we sold her house when we found her a fantasic (as they can be) private nursing home, but the home suggested she would get her full nursing care paid for and she does. She gets reassessed every 6 months for this to see if she has got better and if she does, she will no longer qualify for this payment. Sadly, she is getting worse.

When she recently needed special equipment to make her life better, we used her money to get her this and speed the delivery up. This sort of thing she would never get on the state. Her money gives her choices.

monkeyspanner

LisaW123 wrote: »

The original poster said his father was likely to be admitted to residential care. Continuing Care is only available for those with complex medical needs. Such individuals would not be placed in residential care. The OP's father is clearly highly capable in some respects. He is still very able to plot to defraud the authorities, despite the OP's obvious objections to this. Another factor which renders it unlikely his father would qualify.

The fact is that this man has hidden assets. If the OP's father is continuing to refuse to 'come clean' now, I would be tempted to inform the authorities myself. After all, it is the OP and any siblings who will be left to sort out this mess in the end. I would certainly not help the father to complete any documentation that contained fraudulent information.

The LA should be given all the facts. The OP and/or his father, could say something about him getting confused previously and thinking that, as ISA's weren't taken into account for tax purposes, they weren't taken into account for other forms of financial assessment. I very much doubt the LA will prosecute, but it is likely they will claim back charges for any services they have provided that the OP's father should have paid for himself.

With regard to the house, the LA cannot force a sale if a partner continues to reside in the property.

CHC funding is available in any setting including your own home and residential care. It is perfectly possible to have a combination of complex qualifying medical needs which can be managed in a residential home. My MIL was awarded CHC in just such a setting.

Regarding his ISA's you make it sound like he was Guy Fawkes. In many government assessment situations ISA's are disregarded although probably not in this case. As he was paying 80% of his at home care costs it won't make a substantial difference. Nevertheless the OP is right if he is to get involved this situation should be sorted out and the assessment for residential care done with a clean slate.