State funded long term health care eligibility risk

Blodbof

In the recent Money Tips email the advice made was "Got a partner? Save in the lowest taxpayer's name"

This got me to thinking, if say, one partner, let's say Mr A, puts all his savings (£50K) in his partner's name, let's say Mrs A, and then Mrs A becomes unexpectedly ill and has to go into long term health care. Does Mr A then lose his savings to fund Mrs A's long term health care due to his savings meaning that Mrs A now effectively has £50K of savings in her own name thereby putting her above the £23,250 savings limit? Or is there some way to show that this was Mr A's savings? My understanding is that as far as local authority health care is concerned, a married couple is treated as two separate individuals for assessment purposes.

Pollycat

Hi
I didn't see that in the money tips, which date was it?

Do you have a link?

I can certainly understand the concept behind maximising savings, we have our savings in my OH's name as he is not currently a tax payer.
But we are reasonably young and probably not likely to be looking at care costs in the next few years (hopefully at least).

I may be wrong but in the scenario you outline, then I think yes, Mr A's share of savings (which has been put into Mrs A's name to generate more interest) will be deemed to be Mrs A's savings and used to fund her care costs.

When my Dad had to go into a care home, all savings were in joint names and they split it down the middle to determine if Dad had enough money to self fund.

I'll watch this thread with interest.
There's actually another thread on a similar subject:
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=4032431

Blodbof

Sorry, I've deleted it now, it was from a couple of weeks ago, I'll see if I can find it. Thanks for that link BTW.

Blodbof

Hi Pollycat, found it now, it was in the 13th June Martin's tips.

Dunroamin

Blodbof wrote: »

In the recent Money Tips email the advice made was "Got a partner? Save in the lowest taxpayer's name"

This got me to thinking, if say, one partner, let's say Mr A, puts all his savings (£50K) in his partner's name, let's say Mrs A, and then Mrs A becomes unexpectedly ill and has to go into long term health care. Does Mr A then lose his savings to fund Mrs A's long term health care due to his savings meaning that Mrs A now effectively has £50K of savings in her own name thereby putting her above the £23,250 savings limit? Or is there some way to show that this was Mr A's savings? My understanding is that as far as local authority health care is concerned, a married couple is treated as two separate individuals for assessment purposes.

I don't think you can have it both ways.

If you put savings in someone's name to save tax then those savings belong to the other person. If that other person goes into care, runs off with the milkman or dies and leaves it all to the cat's home, then so be it.

It's a risk you take when you manipulate the system.

[Deleted User]

Be aware also that moving money around which results in lack of funding to pay care fees could be deemed as deliberate deprivation of assets - even if that was never the original intentio.n The onus will be wholly on the person requiring state funded care to prove that it was not - easier said than done.

You should seek professional advice about how to move money about if you think there is a possibility it may one day be needed for care fees.