Council charge

Sawrus

Hope somebody can give some advice,

I'm the Administrator of Estate for an elderly relative who was in a care home for several years.
I've just got a letter from the council asking for payment for "Home care visit" for £60k. The relative was in a care home but this has been paid for through their pension.
The house is in a bad state of disrepair and is properly worth approx £80k with paying off their debit I will be out of pocket. The question I would like to know is what are the rules and regulations regarding home care visit and what contribution is expected from the person who has received the care.
Of course I want to pay any genuine outstanding debits but how do I get all the information to prove what was agreed with the council

Keep_pedalling

They would need a very large pension to pay residential costs so it seems strange that they could not have paid for home care which would have been significantly cheaper.

Have they dated the period the charges relate too?

You should not be out of pocket for any estate debts, as these should come out of the estate, and if there are insufficient funds to pay all debts then the estate is insolvent so some would need to be written off. It seems after this £60k there is still £20k left so why would the estate be insolvent?

Yorkshireman99

Sawrus wrote: »

Hope somebody can give some advice,

I'm the Administrator of Estate for an elderly relative who was in a care home for several years.
I've just got a letter from the council asking for payment for "Home care visit" for £60k. The relative was in a care home but this has been paid for through their pension.
The house is in a bad state of disrepair and is properly worth approx £80k with paying off their debit I will be out of pocket. The question I would like to know is what are the rules and regulations regarding home care visit and what contribution is expected from the person who has received the care.
Of course I want to pay any genuine outstanding debits but how do I get all the information to prove what was agreed with the council

How will you be out of pocket? Debts are payable from the estate funds not the administrator's. The council need to justify the charges and the checks they made as to the liability of the deceased for the charges.

Sawrus

The relative was disabled and was unable to look after theirselves, hence the home. And because of the disability the home carer were required

The period relates to 2015 - 2016

There are other debits to pay, plus the solicitors fees to pay and would eat into the £20k

Sawrus

Yorkshireman - There are other debits and solicitors to pay which will eat up the £20k

"The council need to justify the charges and the checks they made as to the liability of the deceased for the charges." - how can I check and get the information to see how the council came to the arrangement?

Bogalot

Sawrus wrote: »

Yorkshireman - There are other debits and solicitors to pay which will eat up the £20k

"The council need to justify the charges and the checks they made as to the liability of the deceased for the charges." - how can I check and get the information to see how the council came to the arrangement?

Ask the question! The council will have assessed her need and ability to pay.

Are you sure there is not a charge on the property?

Sawrus

Sorry Bogolot

"Are you sure there is not a charge on the property?" I doubt there is a charge, its get a bt complicated as the deeds to the house are in my relatives Aunts name (The property was left to them in the Aunt's will, back in the 70's)

I don't live in the UK, so I'm afraid I find it a bit difficult to get my head around some of the wheres and why fores

Tuesday_Tenor

As you're not familiar with the systems here:

'Home care visit' to us would mean domiciliary care, i.e. a care visit to her in her own home.

Why would she have been having domiciliary care visits in 2015/16 if she was in either a residential care home or a nursing care home? There may be a complete mistake here that you need to clear up.

Or perhaps there are some longstanding debts relating to home care she received years ago.

Or perhaps this relates to the residential care but is wrongly worded.

You can only get to the bottom of this by asking for clarification from the council.

Note that is also a difference between residential care homes and nursing care homes. It is very unlikely that pension and the 'attendance allowance' benefit would cover residential care fees let alone more expensive nursing care, so possibly she was using up savings and then the council step in to cover, temporarily, the costs to the care home. This will have been on the basis that they will be repaid when the house is eventually sold. This will usually mean that the council will have registered its interest in the property on the Land Registry records of ownership. This is known as a charge on the property.

Hope some of those terms will start to help you ask the right questions.

securityguy

Sawrus wrote: »

Yorkshireman - There are other debits and solicitors to pay which will eat up the £20k

That's not the point. The estate can't pay out more than it has (other than in incredibly exotic circumstances which don't apply here). If the debts exceed the value of the estate, the debts won't be paid in full, and it's your responsibility as an executor to ensure that the right amounts are paid to the right people in the right order. It is not your responsibility to make good any shortfall. The usual advice is that if an estate is insolvent you should walk away, but it sounds like you might have put yourself in a position where it's a bit late for that. You are, however, not obliged to pay out any money other than that which is in the estate.

Keep_pedalling

She would have stopped being self funded once her assets dropped below £23,250, so it is possible that these charges related to the period before that happened. Once she hit that level her pension would have been used to cover part of her care fees, and the rest made up by the LA.

Who was managing her finances while she was in care?

konark

60 grand is a lot to pay for home care in less than 2 years, was this round the clock?