Help urgently needed

jimmy_mumu

my father was admitted to hospital in July and now has been transferred to a permanent nursing home, we've just had his financial assessment done and the council will be paying for his care due to lack of funds. i was told to ring dwp up and cancel his dla and pension credit. that's going to be a lot of cash , maybe more than he has . his basic funeral was paid for with the money being paid in. how the heck is he going to pay back the dwp. he will only have £24 pw spending money . any thoughts please

marliepanda

Why pay back?

Did you not inform them of his hospital admittance in July?

jimmy_mumu

not at all, up until late november he was still coming home. i didn't know anything about this till the assessment today.

Caz3121

jimmy_mumu wrote: »

not at all, up until late november he was still coming home. i didn't know anything about this till the assessment today.

there is some information here re which benefits stop when you are in hospital
eg DLA would have stopped after 4 weeks
Pension Credit would continue apart from any severe disability addition
http://www.disabilityrightsuk.org/benefits-hospital

I assume you are asking about repayment of these benefits that were still paid when they should have stopped some months ago...is that correct?

jimmy_mumu

Yes that is correct, I have no power of attorney or other legal powers but I was the one paying his bills from his account so he would get paid and I would pay his bills and what was left would be saved, after a while I suggested paying for his funeral in advance. Now it looks like he'll have to payback some cash. I understand that and don't have a problem with it except that there may not be enough to cover that and his care home fees.

parkrunner

If he has no savings just tell the DWP that, I don't see what they can really do unless they take a proportion of the £24 each week until the money is paid back.

teddysmum

Where has the money gone, as he would have State Pension too ?

While in hospital there would be no food or heating/lighting costs ; just , possibly, rent, council tax, water rates and standing charges for energy.

tomtontom

parkrunner wrote: »

If he has no savings just tell the DWP that, I don't see what they can really do unless they take a proportion of the £24 each week until the money is paid back.

I would expect they will ask for bank statements and look into where the money has gone.

jimmy_mumu

rent, coucil tax ,debts home insurance , credit card , clothing a basic funeral plan etc none of it has been squandered and most of his debts and finance was because he was conned and didn't know it. took it up with action fraud and because he gave his bank and card details freely he only got £300 back. no one knew about any of this till i started looking after him. when i started looking after him he had no money whatsoever and was overdrawn at the bank, up until he went into hospital we was doing a great job of sorting everything out. poor chap worked all his life and has nothing to show for it.

anmarj

The £24 pocket money is what the local authority will leave as spending money. He may still be enitled to pension credit, without any extra premiums on it. Any potential overpayment can be taken direct from PC if he gets it, whether the local authority will in effect make up the difference is down to them. If your father can no longer manage his affairs, then the dwp can make you an appointee to handle his benefits on his behalf.

jimmy_mumu

And what will happen if they won't help. I was told that he will receive a flat pension of £152 ish without pension credit. If they take his money he will have no care