Reclaim Care Home Costs for Free- New MSE guide

Linda_Tiger

Iv also herd good things about Hugh James and think using an expect is the way to go with these cases. In fact I saw an advert for another company still running these claims in Wales in the South Wales Echo over the weekend.

gilkouk

Both my sister and i are just in the process of applying for copys of the records from my mothers care home (sadly she passed away last year ) we had agreed a fee for the retrieval of the documents with the management , but then had a message from the owners that they wanted a payment of £200 just to get the documents and we had to scan then into our laptop whilst paying a member of staff £6.20 an hour just to watch do this ....sheer greed , anyone else had this type of problem

John_Pierpoint

gilkouk wrote: »

Both my sister and i are just in the process of applying for copys of the records from my mothers care home (sadly she passed away last year ) we had agreed a fee for the retrieval of the documents with the management , but then had a message from the owners that they wanted a payment of £200 just to get the documents and we had to scan then into our laptop whilst paying a member of staff £6.20 an hour just to watch do this ....sheer greed , anyone else had this type of problem

The NHS both local doctors records and district hospital levy lower charges than this, if you are prepared to DIY the copying.
But they will try to ration you by time so go prepared to chat (& bribe)
"I'll pay for the coffee and cakes":D

However how much would you expect to pay if you had visited the offices of a solicitor to rummage through similar records??

RachVG

My Mum & Aunt registered their claim for my grandad's care before the 30th Sept deadline. He was in a home from late 2004 until he died in 2009, and after looking through the checklist thought they had a good case. They paid £50 to get his records from the care home and reading this found things that they didn't know had happened which they felt made their case even stronger.

Mam sent everything off earlier this week. There was never any legal Power of Attorney or similar in place regarding my grandad's situation, he also had no Will. After my grandma died earlier in 2004, my Mum & grandad went into his bank and transferred his account into their joint names and she looked after his finances, including paying for the care home, until he died.

She has invoices & statements detailing every payment made to the care home, how it was paid, where it was paid from etc.

Today she received a call from a lady at the PCT letting her know that the claim could not be taken any further as there was no legal proof of Mam's identity in relation to grandad. They apparently have recently had a directive passed down that anybody without the specific forms of identity requested (grant of probate, power of attorney, etc) will have their claim cancelled.

Apparently there are a huge amount of people in the same boat being given this information. It seems incredibly unfair considering Mam sent her passport, birth certificate (proving she's grandad's daughter), marriage certificate (showing change of name) and documents regarding the joint bank account, but apparently there is nowhere else to go with this now. She had informed the first woman she spoke to back in September that this was the case, and the woman told her to just send what she had and they'd take it from there.

This directive has apparently been passed down in the last couple of weeks and smacks of being a cop-out to stop thousands of people from claiming.

If the issue lies (as the PCT lady suggested) with refunding people large sums with no real proof of their identity, then the bank account that was originally my grandad's and then became joint, where the home were paid from in the first place, is still open in my Mum's name only. Any money could have been put directly back into that account and that's the closest to him never having paid it out in the first place that anybody could possibly come!

To be clear, we always knew this would be a hard battle and nothing may come from it for us in terms of getting any money back. We've read the stories on here and know it's difficult, but what none of us expected was the claim to be rejected on such spurious grounds without any form of investigation into the actual case.

John_Pierpoint

The money in granddad & mum's account, (originally grandma's money?), could be assumed to be half owned by each of them - what was the legal position on the death of grandmother?
[I had enduring power of attorney for my mother but I never needed to register to use it for the four years she needed care, as I was "a registered signatory" for her normal bank account at HSBC. Mother's signature degenerated to the point where the "Cheltenham & Gloucester" former building society refused to accept it; fortunately she had enough money stashed elsewhere, to allow me to ignore this difficulty.]

Did grandfather have any other "wealth" in his own name, greater than his outstanding bills (liabilities), when he died ?

https://www.gov.uk/wills-probate-inheritance/overview

What month of the year did grandfather die (?)

Generally speaking the government is not much bothered about the administration of estates worth less than £5 k but anyone with an estate greater than that (or owed an income tax refund), probably needs to obtain "probate" or "letters of administration" - sometimes called "admon" - to cover both alternative legalities..
So what was the value of grandfather's estate?

Banks and other financial institutions [not to mention government agencies/departments;)] may use a higher threshold than £5,000 before they require evidence of the Grant of Probate to release the funds, so it is worth checking with these organisations exactly what they require.

How much might your family be able to claim ?

Doc_N

arnold49 wrote: »

I have had good dealings with Lisa Morgan of Hugh James.
Our case was taken on a no win no fee basis.
She managed to get care fees paid back from 2007 - 2010.
We still have another year to deal with.

I managed 2011 - 2012 myself but only with help from others who had won cases and after reading extensively for about 6 months and applying care notes and medic notes to DST.
I personally think you need to beat them using their tools.

I should say my father was thought borderline.
Even knowing what I know now, I personally wouldn't have been able to achieve NHSCC but for HJ.:)

Thanks - that's very helpful. I'm still considering whether or not to use them. Could you say somthing about the fees they charged, please, by PM if you prefer.

Thanks.

RachVG

John_Pierpoint wrote: »

The money in granddad & mum's account, (originally grandma's money?), could be assumed to be half owned by each of them - what was the legal position on the death of grandmother?

Did grandfather have any other "wealth" in his own name, greater than his outstanding bills (liabilities), when he died ?

https://www.gov.uk/wills-probate-inheritance/overview

What month of the year did grandfather die (?)

I believe that my grandma administered their finances their whole married life, from their joint account. When she died, that account is the one that was transferred into the names of my grandad and mum's names (at the bank with both of them there in person), and Mam continued to look after the finances from there.

He didn't have any property etc as they lived in a council house until grandma died and then grandad went into the care home. The remaining money in his savings - the joint account with Mam from which the care home payments had been coming - was split 6 ways between my mum and her five brothers & sisters. Because the account was held jointly, Mam just informed the bank that grandad had died, his name was removed from the account and Mam shared out the money (I believe they received around £5k each, so approx £30k). This account is still open, in Mam's name, and has her share of the inheritance as she hasn't spent it.

He died in June of 2009.

John_Pierpoint wrote: »

How much might your family be able to claim ?

Now that I'm not sure about, I can't remember the exact figures off the top of my head as Mam has all the details. However I believe we paid around £40k to the care home over the time he was there - what I'm not sure about is how much of that time they were trying to claim on.

The insurance companies paid out after he died without even waiting for his death certificate, so it seems ridiculous that this claim can't even be investigated. It strikes me as the NHS/PCT/whoever higher up has made this decision not having realised how many people were going to try to claim such large amounts so they've now put a restriction on it that will allow them to cancel a large number of the claims outright.

The lady Mam spoke to at the PCT is sending our documents back along with a form letter explaining the decision which is apparently being sent out to everybody affected - lots of people, according to her - so we should have that this week. It seems our claim has now been cancelled because of this anyway, but I couldn't just let it go without posting of our frustration on here!

John_Pierpoint

I think it is one thing to say "we are only recognising claims from legally appointed representatives of the deceased" [There are probably all sorts of chancers having a go after all the publicity]

However I would think that your mother is still entitled to apply for "letters of administration" [there was no will ?!?] and then follow up on the claim for her late father, now that his estate could be potentially a five figure sum.

[When my uncle died I was surprised how the insurance company was prepared to pay out immediately - how much was grandad's policy worth?]

hopeful21

My retrospective claim is now with the appeals nurse gathering information for her do a needs portrayal for the PCT panel. Does anyone know what format this takes? What sort of information is going in there and how is presented? I will get a copy but would like to know before so I'm prepared with information if I need it.
thanks

arnold49

Doc_N wrote: »

Thanks - that's very helpful. I'm still considering whether or not to use them. Could you say somthing about the fees they charged, please, by PM if you prefer.

Thanks.

Hello:)
Hugh James charged 15% plus VAT of the monies recovered.

Good luck.