Care Home Costs

Milletr

Hi, this is a little complicated, but I will be as brief and concise as possible.


I am executor and beneficiary to My Mothers estate who passed away in January
My Mother was in a care home for 5 years.
Because she was a part owner in the house she lived in, she was liable to pay for her care.
Because the house was partially owned by my cousin, we could not easily sell the house.
The council agreed to "Defer" some of the payments.
Now that she has passed away the Council want there money (around 35K)
Initially they sent an Invoice which I disputed as it was not correctly calculated.
It then took them nearly 6 months to send any further communication (no e-mail, no acknowledgement, nothing).
Now they have finally got round to responding, I have received a new corrected invoice with a deadline of 57 days, after which 8% interest will be charged.
The house is currently being rented and my cousin still does not wish to sell and we had been advised he is within his rights to refuse.
My Mothers estate has some money in balance, but not enough to cover the amount owing to the Council.
Myself and my brother are the main beneficiaries, but we do not have an easy way to make up the difference.


My main Questions:
Are they allowed to put a time limit in place and charge such an extortionate amount of interest ?
To my knowledge, they never made us aware of these terms. They talked about putting a charge on the house, but because of their inefficiencies and their inability to follow anything through, this did not happen.


As they took nearly 6 months to even respond, do we not have the right to take longer to pay back the money without charge of interest ? If they were so keen to get it back, they should have followed this up months ago.


We would be prepared to pay back any amount left in her estate after all the costs have been met, but would need a much longer period of time to pay the balance or maybe force the sale of the house.
This to me would be an acceptable compromise, but I wasn't sure if this would "hold any water" with the council.


If they don't accept this and still impose the timescales and interests rates, what options do I have as executor?

Thanks Rob

elsien

Looking at it from the other perspective, you've had 6 months knowing you'd have to come up with the money at some point and where you could have been trying to resolve the issues with your cousin.
You may be better of taking proper legal advice on this rather than asking for opinions on a forum.

Edit - did you/she not have a deferred payment agreement when it was first set up setting out the terms and conditions?

missbiggles1

Have you looked at the possibility of forcing a sale?