Mother in law in care home

portchieboy

Sadly, MIL is in a home, having Dementia, and not being able to look after herself. She has never had much money, but she has about £18k in savings. She is 94 by the way.

She is in a private home, there having been no council places 2 years ago when she went in, and the council pay their max??? stipulated figure per month, we top up with about £465 pm. The family agreed when she went in that we would pay the top up, and reclaim it from the estate in due course.

Reason for this is that the council said that MIL cannot use her £18,000 to pay the top up herself. What I do not understand is that if mIL had no money, they would pay the full total. However, if she cannot use her money to pay the top up, then she will never run out? Yes, she could gift money to the family, but surely then the council would say that we were cheating the system.

Something seems wrong here. In little over a year the offset funds will run out, and frankly we as one of 3 families cannot afford to bear the burden. The others will not/cannot contribute. Can anyone clarify the whole shooting match for me please?

teddysmum

Most councils use private homes as they have very few of their own. My late father was put into one (Parkinson's Disease), then moved to another private one, as the first couldn't cope with dementia, which he was developing.


He was self funding as he had some savings and owned his house, so had he lived longer, he would have had to pay the full fee until his assets dropped to the then maximum allowance, after which they would give more and more help until his assets reached the minimum about £14K (amounts have changed since then) after which they would pay full fees.


However,these were private homes nominated by the council (they more recently put my mother-in-law, a self funder, into a BUPA home). The council pays a low fee which care homes say is not enough, so the self funders are overcharged to make up for this (very unfair as they pay fully for their own and then another person's fees).


If you chose a more expensive home, they may be assuming that m-i-l is not able to choose ,so you made the expensive choice so have to cover the extra.


Does the lady not own her own home ?

xylophone

https://www.ageuk.org.uk/information-advice/care/care-homes/paying-for-a-care-home/

arielsmelody

portchieboy wrote: »

Sadly, MIL is in a home, having Dementia, and not being able to look after herself. She has never had much money, but she has about £18k in savings. She is 94 by the way.

The best place to start is the Altzheimer's forum - the posters there are very up to date with anything to do with care home fees etc.


If your MIL has £18K savings, then she is part-funding. To the best of my knowledge, she should be contributing almost all of any pension etc income, and making a contribution towards the fees (which goes to reduce the amount paid by the local authority, not the top up fee). As her savings go down, eventually she will hit the lower threshold - which I think is about £14.5K - and won't have to pay out any more from her savings, although she will have to continue paying her pension.


If she doesn't have a property to sell (or which could be used to arrange a deferred payment agreement), you will have to continue paying the top up fee or she will have to move to a new cheaper home which will accept the local authority payment without a top up. It might be that since she has been in the home for a while, you could persuade her current home to accept her on the local authority rate, but if they said no you couldn't force them to.


You need to have a chat with the rest of the family, find out exactly what her financial position is now, talk to her social worker and the local authority to find out what they recommend, and make a decision on whether to carry on paying or try to arrange a move.

portchieboy

Sorry, cannot find an Alzheimers forum?

pmlindyloo

May I suggest that you give this organisation a call. (Click on Support for helpline)

https://www.independentage.org/news-media/press-releases/councils-flouting-new-rules-on-care-home-fees

The regulations about 'top up' fees have been tightened considerably and it may be that the council acted illegally as regards your 'top up' fees.

p00hsticks

portchieboy wrote: »

Sorry, cannot find an Alzheimers forum?

I suspect that arielsmelody may be referring to the forums on the Altzeimers Society website, not a board on this forum

https://forum.alzheimers.org.uk/

Spendless

'Third party top up fees' There's precious little about it on this site and seemed to be a minefield finding out info. My parents were told they'd have to pay too, despite my Nan owning a property (I believe now they were incorrectly informed). It never made any sense to me either, why can't they pay their own fees.

Larac

My Mum was self funding when she went into a CH. The contract I signed, confirmed that if my Mum ran out of money, the family would pay the top up fees - which is the difference between what the LA pays and what a self funder does. The CH she was in, was at the lower end of what you can pay in fees c£800 a week and the top up for the family was in the region of another £120 every 4 weeks. If she had gone in to the CH where the weekly fees are £1500 a week - and believe me, they are around, the top up would be c£2000 every 4 weeks. You need to be very clear, what is the contract and what your committed to. She sadly passed in November 2017 - but feel for anyone who goes through this.

SandraScarlett

When my late husband, who had Alzheimer's, had to go into a Care Home for his last few months, I spent hours reading the Government's very lengthy CRAG report, which goes into all the whys and wherefores of Care Home fees. If you Google it, it's online.


Because Social Services had said that he should go into Care, the Home charged SS, and then I had to pay all his SRP, half his private pension, and more, to Social Services.


The Care Home said I would have to pay top-up fees directly to them, but at that time, I discovered that it was actually illegal for them to charge more than had been agreed with the council.


I don't know if the rules have changed, but it's worth the time to look into these things, as much as you possibly can, as mistakes can be made. One friend was told by the Council that she had to pay them her husband's SRP and all of his private pension, which is completely wrong.


And if a person receives DLA, although they have to give up the care component, after 4 weeks in a Care Home, they can keep the mobility component indefinitely.


Hope this helps.

Larac

I am not an expert but the Crag report got superceded by the Care Home Act 2014, which seems to give LA more flexibility on what they can now recover from families .