Selling house with spouse in care

YikesSteveH

This is a twist on the usual will I have to sell my house to pay for care costs question..

As I understand it, a house is disregarded as an asset for the purposes of paying care home fees if a person over 60 is still living in it.

My question is, for a joint owned husband and wife property where the husband is in care, can the wife sell the house and move? (son has POA for both parties) or, during the transaction, does that become cash for a fraction of a second and therefore fair game for care costs?

It would seem very unfair for somebody to be unable to move and therefore be trapped away from family and support in this way.

Any thoughts appreciated.

da_rule

The following is lifted from the statutory guidance (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/care-act-statutory-guidance/care-and-support-statutory-guidance#AnnexB):

“Example of where deprivation has not occurred
Max has moved into a care home and has a 50% interest in a property that continues to be occupied by his civil partner, David. The value of the property is disregarded whilst David lives there, but he decides to move to a smaller property that he can better manage and so sells their shared home to fund this.

At the time the property is sold, Max’s 50% share of the proceeds could be taken into account in the financial assessment, but, in order to ensure that David is able to purchase the smaller property, Max makes part of his share of the proceeds from the sale available.

In such circumstance, it would not be reasonable to treat Max as having deprived himself of capital in order to reduce his care home charges.”

Your parents situation would seem to mirror this. The best thing to do is to speak to the local authority concerned and be open with them.

G_M

The above seems both fair, and legal.


But I suspect that if you were downsizing, and ended up with some cash/savings as a result of releasing equity by buying a cheaper property, then 50% of that would be taken into acount in assessing husband's asset.

xylophone

It would seem very unfair for somebody to be unable to move and therefore be trapped away from family and support in this way.

If the person is moving to a more expensive area to be near the family support, it could be that a smaller or more suitable property would swallow the whole sale proceeds?

trailingspouse

YikesSteveH wrote: »

As I understand it, a house is disregarded as an asset for the purposes of paying care home fees if a person over 60 is still living in it.

Slightly off topic - but does that mean that if the person living in it is under 60 they will have to sell their home in order to pay their spouse's care home fees?? That seems a bit rough.

Mojisola

trailingspouse wrote: »

Slightly off topic - but does that mean that if the person living in it is under 60 they will have to sell their home in order to pay their spouse's care home fees?? That seems a bit rough.

No. The house isn't counted in the assessment if the spouse (whatever their age) will still be living there.

unforeseen

da_rule wrote: »

The following is lifted from the statutory guidance (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/care-act-statutory-guidance/care-and-support-statutory-guidance#AnnexB):

“Example of where deprivation has not occurred
Max has moved into a care home and has a 50% interest in a property that continues to be occupied by his civil partner, David. The value of the property is disregarded whilst David lives there, but he decides to move to a smaller property that he can better manage and so sells their shared home to fund this.

At the time the property is sold, Max’s 50% share of the proceeds could be taken into account in the financial assessment, but, in order to ensure that David is able to purchase the smaller property, Max makes part of his share of the proceeds from the sale available.

In such circumstance, it would not be reasonable to treat Max as having deprived himself of capital in order to reduce his care home charges.”

Your parents situation would seem to mirror this. The best thing to do is to speak to the local authority concerned and be open with them.

That sounds more like a tenants in common situation rather than joint tenants.

getmore4less

They can sever the joint tenancy if joint is a problem.

YikesSteveH

Firstly, thank you for the very helpful reply.

>Max makes part of his share of the proceeds from the sale available.

Can he do that without capacity?, can I do it using POA?

>The best thing to do is to speak to the local authority concerned and be open with them.

Yes, the tricky bit is getting through to somebody able to answer such questions - I will persevere.

Thank you.

(I'm going to put another thread up here to do with pension issues where the remaining
partner could be left in hardship after fees are taken from the husband's pension.)

YikesSteveH

>No. The house isn't counted in the assessment if the spouse (whatever their age) will still be living there.

I must say I was under the impression from online research that the over 60 test was the key.
(everything on the internet is true after all...)

lisyloo

YikesSteveH wrote: »

Can he do that without capacity?, can I do it using POA?)

Is It an ordinary POA or lasting POA?

An LPA can be used without capacity.