Financing care for elderly person with assets

Errata

Cute_n_Quirky wrote: »

A Guardian is a totally different thing to Power of Attorney.

That friend of mine was told that as a Guardian the house could not be sold, only by PoA which would cost £20K to obtain.

There are a lot of problems associated with elderly relatives but, unfortunately, it is not always possible to get your hands on their money from property in this way.

Could I suggest that anyone who is confused by the differing information given on this thread can find accurate and up to date information on the postion given by the OP visit the Age Concern and Court of Protection websites. HTH the OP.

minimadtrix

Errata wrote: »

Could I suggest that anyone who is confused by the differing information given on this thread can find accurate and up to date information on the postion given by the OP visit the Age Concern and Court of Protection websites. HTH the OP.

See, I told you someone would come along and help on the power of attorney side of things!

Age Concern website is http://www.ageconcern.org.uk/

and Court of Protection website is http://www.guardianship.gov.uk/formsdocuments/publications.htm

There's also another one that looks good here http://www.adviceguide.org.uk/index/family_parent/family/managing_financial_affairs.htm

Obviously things have changed a lot in 5 years!

sylvi_2

Hi I have just gone through the same thing very difficult to get the right answers from people. Before selling think of renting andtopping up with pensions if possible. I was told that the social services I think it was would pay the home and this debt would be taken off the sale of the house when the time comes to sell the house. However, I think they must stop charging you when there is only aprox £16000 left. This money also has a 7% interest charge on it when the time comes to sell. You are given a short time to sell before this comes in to force. Then the home request the council to pay. If you want to sell then I think you need to have already had a poa in place this then needs to go to the court. I don't think it is that expensive. If you don't have a poa then it will cost alot I think this is where you are getting the 20k from. I think you will be best renting if pos. You can only rent a minimum of 6monthly periods and a solicitor may help you more. I am not sure if you could aproach any of the organizations who pay you for so much of your house to release equity. You would definately need to speak with a solicitor about this.

Errata

sylvi wrote: »

Hi I have just gone through the same thing very difficult to get the right answers from people. Before selling think of renting andtopping up with pensions if possible. I was told that the social services I think it was would pay the home and this debt would be taken off the sale of the house when the time comes to sell the house. However, I think they must stop charging you when there is only aprox £16000 left. This money also has a 7% interest charge on it when the time comes to sell. You are given a short time to sell before this comes in to force. Then the home request the council to pay. If you want to sell then I think you need to have already had a poa in place this then needs to go to the court. I don't think it is that expensive. If you don't have a poa then it will cost alot I think this is where you are getting the 20k from. I think you will be best renting if pos. You can only rent a minimum of 6monthly periods and a solicitor may help you more. I am not sure if you could aproach any of the organizations who pay you for so much of your house to release equity. You would definately need to speak with a solicitor about this.

Local authorities place a legal charge on the property, but not all will charge interest and many will be very reasonable about the length of time a property takes to sell as long as they can see that the property is being properly marketed.

wowzetov

Thanks to you all. All the comments are really helpful and valuable for helping to minimize the distress of such uncomfortable considerations. One other question, though: If there is believed to be a will somewhere, and the home is assumably mentioned in the will is taht of any significance? Does the existance of a will need to be considered at this point?

Errata

A will is a will and won't be executable until the person is dead. If it mentions property and the property was sold during the person's lifetime, there's no pproperty to inherit.

wowzetov

Is there any reason or possibility to have the will checked now to see if the person needing care has specified a preferences regarding what they'd prefer if they ever came into this kind of situation?

Errata

A will won't be of help as it is a document designed to bequeath the dead person's assets after their death, not to describe how they want to live their lives.
There is something called a Living Will which people can write, or have drawn up, which describes what health care people want to receive if they are unable to make decisions for themselves but this is most commonly done by people with serious mental health problems who do or do not wish to receive a particular treatment(s). As far as I know Living Wills don't have complete legal standing at the moment.
Wowzetov, I'm having a bit of difficulty in sensibly responding to your queries as I'm not completely clear about what the problem is. Do the relatives of the person concerned want to preserve the person's assets and not have them used to pay for the care the person may need?

wowzetov

Thanks Errata,The situation is that the parent is in a care home and unfortunately is no longer in sound mind and other than the house all of the savings have been used to pay for the care so the next of kin feels that it is necessary to sell the house in order to finance continued care but is concerned whether it will be possible to sell it in these circumstances. Apparently there is no POA yet.

Errata

Just written a long reply and it vanished !
What I would do: urgently speak to the parent's social worker or the council's social work team for older people. This is not an unusual situation and they deal with similar cases on a daily basis and are consequently very knowledgeable about the processes and will help and guide you as much as they are able. At this point I would only have a session with a solicitor if they were fully experienced in cases such as this, most aren't.