Safeguarding savings and home if Care is required

oliveoil54

Advice needed urgently we are moving & have to sign Solicitor’s forms today and need to decide on Joint or Tenants in Common in England? We have savings in my name and has been for a number of years, but my pension is minuscule so we live on my husband’s works and state pension. I don’t qualify for state pension for few years.

Has anyone any advice on the best way to safeguard the house and savings should my husband need care, he has Vascular Dementia and is deteriorating, Im struggling as it is now? As I understand they will take his pension and then I will have to top up? Although we have reasonable savings they will not last long if I end up having to live on them and top up his care costs? Currently the most important decision being Joint or Tenants in Common? We own our house no mortgage.
Would really welcome any advice?

dunstonh

Once it is known that local authority means testing is likely to be needed, it is too late to do most things. And anything done for the reason of avoiding means test can be disregarded and included back into the means test. Regardless of when you did it.

Would really welcome any advice?

What does your solicitor advise?

somethingcorporate

What would you want to do with your savings if not give the best care and comfortable life for you and your husband?

Linton

oliveoil54 wrote: »

Advice needed urgently we are moving & have to sign Solicitor’s forms today and need to decide on Joint or Tenants in Common in England? We have savings in my name and has been for a number of years, but my pension is minuscule so we live on my husband’s works and state pension. I don’t qualify for state pension for few years.

Has anyone any advice on the best way to safeguard the house and savings should my husband need care, he has Vascular Dementia and is deteriorating, Im struggling as it is now? As I understand they will take his pension and then I will have to top up? Although we have reasonable savings they will not last long if I end up having to live on them and top up his care costs? Currently the most important decision being Joint or Tenants in Common? We own our house no mortgage.
Would really welcome any advice?

If the savings are jointly owned your 50% is safe and wont be required for top ups. His 50% may be a factor. The house is disregarded for the care costs calculation if you live in it.

https://www.moneyadviceservice.org.uk/en/articles/means-tests-for-help-with-care-costs-how-they-work may be useful.

sheramber

While the house will not be taken into account while you live in it your husband will be placed in a care home of the local authority choice which may not be to a standard you would chose or in a location that you would chose.

oliveoil54

somethingcorporate wrote: »

What would you want to do with your savings if not give the best care and comfortable life for you and your husband?

Would love to theoretically, but care homes can cost over £600 per week, so my dwindling savings will last 2/3 years at most, paying for care home, I will be left with no money, and I don’t get my State Pension for over a year. We live totally on my husband’s State and Works Pension, which they will also take to fund his care! Then if I need to move house to possibly somewhere smaller or more manageable for me, they can also take up to 50% of his share of assets in the house to pay for his future care, leaving me with just 50% left to buy a suitable new house. I currently live in a small 2 bed cottage in the Scottish Borders where the value of housing isn’t high. So it’s not like I’m going to have massive equity in the house!

So yes to answer your question I’d love to use my savings to give the best care and comfortable life for both of us. But I don’t think that golden retirement we both envisaged is going to happen. The reason for safe guarding savings was to give me some money to live on when they take my husband’s pension income, as apart from £134 p month I will have nothing till I reach State Pension age. Before you ask looking after my husband is a full time job, and I have ill heath!

Think you need to read the facts before you give such a glib answer.

oliveoil54

dunstonh wrote: »

Once it is known that local authority means testing is likely to be needed, it is too late to do most things. And anything done for the reason of avoiding means test can be disregarded and included back into the means test. Regardless of when you did it.



What does your solicitor advise?

He’s suggested with my husband’s consent that we put the new property in sole name. But have read what other posters below have said and am very concerned about this.

LHW99

It may just be worth talking to a member of SOLLA
https://societyoflaterlifeadvisers.co.uk/
even if only for an initial (generally) free discussion. There are things called "immediate care needs annuities". They are not (particularly) cheap, and the cost will depends on your husband's health. You would effectively "lose" what is paid over - like any conventional pension annuity but it gives certainty that if your husband life is longer than expected that the care bills can continue to be paid.

oliveoil54

sheramber wrote: »

While the house will not be taken into account while you live in it your husband will be placed in a care home of the local authority choice which may not be to a standard you would chose or in a location that you would chose.

I agree totally, but they cost so much money to fund weekly that in a few years we will be in that situation anyway, and I would be faced with having to move him anyway? He’s only 67 and apart from his Dementia is relatively fit and healthy.

We’ve been through so much over the last 8 years with his cancer, stem cell transplant, Nystagmus and balance issues, which are all now under control, to be faced with the Dementia and his huge mental deterioration!

oliveoil54

LHW99 wrote: »

It may just be worth talking to a member of SOLLA
https://societyoflaterlifeadvisers.co.uk/
even if only for an initial (generally) free discussion. There are things called "immediate care needs annuities". They are not (particularly) cheap, and the cost will depends on your husband's health. You would effectively "lose" what is paid over - like any conventional pension annuity but it gives certainty that if your husband life is longer than expected that the care bills can continue to be paid.

Thanks for that, Will definitely check them out.

badmemory

To be brutally blunt, if his dementia is bad enough he will neither know nor care that he is LA funded. You will notice when visiting but if the dementia is bad enough the care will not differ.



The expensive home we visited had a seperate dementia wing, all very plush, all locked doors (although not their individual rooms) & no common room, so no interaction with others at all! No access to an enclosed garden like the rest of the home.


ETA Are you currently claiming carer's allowance & attendance allowance which is not means tested?