Paying for care home if you have a partner

onlyroz

Does anybody have any experience of paying for a care home if the spouse is still alive and living in the family home? I have read the following:

http://www.ageuk.org.uk/home-and-care/care-homes/paying-for-care-if-you-have-a-partner/

And the bit I am not sure about is this part:

3.2 Only your own assets should be taken into account
The statutory guidance confirms that your local authority cannot include capital or income belonging to your partner in your financial assessment. This is because it does not have the power to assess couples or civil partners according to their joint resources - each person must be treated individually.

Local authorities should therefore not generally use joint assessment forms that ask for details of both partners’ finances. However, a local authority may ask for details of your partner’s finances on a separate form to ensure they will be left with sufficient resources to live on when you go into a care home.

This is saying that if A and B are married, and A has to go into a care home, then only money belonging to A is considered in the financial assessment. But surely any money is jointly owned by both A and B?

So if A has (say) £50k in his bank account and B has £100k in her bank account, then will only the £50k be taken into consideration? If so then what is to stop A from giving his £50k to B?

Gavin83

onlyroz wrote: »

So if A has (say) £50k in his bank account and B has £100k in her bank account, then will only the £50k be taken into consideration? If so then what is to stop A from giving his £50k to B?

If the above is in their sole names then yes, only the £50k will be taken into account. If he was to give the money to B this would be considered deprivation of assets and he would be assessed as if he still had that money, so in this situation the local authority wouldn't fund the placement.

My memory is a little hazy on this but I believe if the couple have money in a joint account then 50% of the value is taken into account, i.e: the residents share. Any property will be ignored.

onlyroz

Gavin83 wrote: »

If the above is in their sole names then yes, only the £50k will be taken into account. If he was to give the money to B this would be considered deprivation of assets and he would be assessed as if he still had that money, so in this situation the local authority wouldn't fund the placement.

But when would be the cut-off point before which it is acceptable for A and B to transfer money between each other? And surely most married couples don't think about "my money" and "your money", but "our money", and so don't really worry about whose account the money is sitting in?

onlyroz

And as for this part:

However, a local authority may ask for details of your partner’s finances on a separate form to ensure they will be left with sufficient resources to live on when you go into a care home.

How do you define "sufficient resources"? If A and B are moderately well off - for example say they frequently go on expensive holidays, or eat in expensive restaurants - would B be left with enough money to continue to go on expensive holidays once A is in a care home? Or would B be expected to rein in their lifestyle with the money instead being diverted to pay for A's care?

Gavin83

onlyroz wrote: »

But when would be the cut-off point before which it is acceptable for A and B to transfer money between each other? And surely most married couples don't think about "my money" and "your money", but "our money", and so don't really worry about whose account the money is sitting in?

I'm just telling you how it works. It doesn't really matter if you or the couple in question disagree with this or it doesn't fit in with the way they do their finances.

As for the cut off point, there is no hard limit. The law states they can't transfer money for the purposes of avoiding paying for care. A payment made 10 years ago is likely be ignored. 10 weeks? I doubt it.

Gavin83

onlyroz wrote: »

But when would be the cut-off point before which it is acceptable for A and B to transfer money between each other? And surely most married couples don't think about "my money" and "your money", but "our money", and so don't really worry about whose account the money is sitting in?

Just to follow this up slightly if the resident has an account in his sole name but they can make a case that the cash is a joint asset then it will be treated as such.

troubleinparadise

onlyroz wrote: »

But when would be the cut-off point before which it is acceptable for A and B to transfer money between each other? And surely most married couples don't think about "my money" and "your money", but "our money", and so don't really worry about whose account the money is sitting in?

When it comes to assessing funds for paying for care, the cut-off point is usually adjudged to be when the likelihood of needing care, whether at home or residential, becomes official - such as a diagnosis of a degenerative disease, such as dementia.

If funds start being transferred away from the person - which is easily traceable through account activity - after that time, then it is possible that funding will not be given by the Local Authority. And LAs can go back over a fair amount of time to assess financial activity.

As LAs are now struggling with funding, it is also becoming more likely that they will place a charge against the portion of the house owned by the person, whereas a while ago it was very likely to be disregarded.

So a step you should take is to ensure that your property is owned as "tenants in common", and to ensure you make a will leaving your share to your children perhaps. This change of ownership can be made after a diagnosis - that is probably covered in the Age UK information, and can be done through a solicitor.

onlyroz

Thanks all. This mostly makes sense.

Mr_Toad

I have been through this with my parents.

Dad had dementia and needed to go into a home as Mum could no longer care for him, they were both in their eighties at the time.

The rules are that any assets in Dad's name and half any joint assets were taken for care. The house was disregarded.

Due to the way many people of their generation operated 80% of the money was in Dad's name. They did a financial check and any transfer of funds is seen as deprivation of assets. They even took half the money in the joint bills account. My parents were fairly well off so this check was very thorough, statements were demanded from all the banks and investments to check that there was no hiding or transfer of assets.

Social care funding is very costly so they take the financial side of things very seriously.

Mum was advised by both Age Concern and her solicitor to divorce Dad, purely to protect herself financially, as she would then get 50% of all the assets, she wouldn't hear of it.

As it happens her pension was enough to pay the bills and live on.

onlyroz

Mr Toad that doesn't sound very fair. It seems to me that a 50:50 split of all liquid assets, and then a charge put on 50% of the house would be the fairest thing in these circumstances. It's bizarre that this is one of the few circumstances where a 50:50 split isn't taken as the starting point.

Gavin83

Mr_Toad wrote: »

Mum was advised by both Age Concern and her solicitor to divorce Dad, purely to protect herself financially, as she would then get 50% of all the assets, she wouldn't hear of it.

Financially speaking this would probably be the best thing to do, despite how stupid it sounds. I can totally understand why she wouldnt went to though. The other issues here of course is a divorce takes time, I'd imagine one party not being able to provide consent would complicated it and frankly people don't tend to live long once in residential care so would probably die before it went through.

I actually used to do this as a job and while my memory is a little hazy on the details I do remember getting a resident who's partner was still alive was actually surprisingly rare. Most people going into care were widows. I've got my own theories as to why this was.