Care home 12 week property disregard

trich_2

My father had a fall and broke his hip last year, unable to walk and suffering delirium the only option was to admit him to a nursing home. A year later and he has improved however not enough to go home so have had to accept that his nursing home will be his permanent home. He was a self funder with a home so I have been running his savings down to cover the fees. Approaching the 23k threshold i contacted social services in March and asked for a care/financial assessment to be carried out. 3 months later I was finally allocated someone. His savings are now under 23k and reducing fast (fees are over 4k per month). Social services have told me that the 12 week property disregard rules have changed and that my father doesn't qualify. Having run his fees down while I was waiting for support it leaves me in the position of having to make decisions about his house and finances before his savings run down to zero. Having to cope with sorting his finances is stressful enough but i'm now concerned i have no time to breathe as the clock is ticking. I'm afraid he will be told to leave if the money runs out and i will make the wrong decision as i may be forced to go with the quickest option. Apologies for the long winded mail but does anyone know if what social services say is true, the 12 week property disregard doesn't apply if you are already in a home or should i be challenging (and if yes any advice on how)?

Keep_pedalling

The disregard only applies if your savings are below £23,250 at the point where residential care is considered as being permanent, so how much was left at that point?

He is not going to be thrown out once the cash run out, they will defer payment against the house,miso you should not be rushed into a fire sale.

xylophone

http://www.ageuk.org.uk/Documents/EN-GB/Factsheets/FS10_Paying_for_permanent_residential_care_fcs.pdf?dtrk=true

Have you seen the above? If not, it may be worth a read.

Torry_Quine

Do you have power of attorney to be able to sort his finances?

xylophone

http://www.ageuk.org.uk/Documents/EN-GB/Factsheets/FS38_Treatment_of_property_in_the_means-test_for_permanent_care_home_provision_fcs.pdf?dtrk=true

See also the above.

agarnett

On behalf of more and more people, thanks xlophone for those two links ... a couple of extraneous spaces have crept into both your links I think ... second still works, but in the first case it stops it working ... corrected URL: http://www.ageuk.org.uk/Documents/EN-GB/Factsheets/FS10_Paying_for_permanent_residential_care_fcs.pdf?dtrk=true (no space before question mark).