Paying care home fee's .

alfmurph

Let me say right up front this post is asking how we can keep our house inheritance and avoid care home fee's .
I think we are basically stuffed on all levels but i will ask anyway .
Father is 90 with moderate to severe dementia . I have power of attorney .
We live in scotland .
He is a very stubborn man and when i asked him ten or more years ago to sign house over to me he refused saying he would always be fit and healthy but now as he gets worse it is a toss up whether he needs a care home or not and i know he will only get worse .
My only two hopes to keep the house seem to be .
1 - When the house needed modernised with new central heating , double glazing etc i paid for this and then i gave him cash in hand to help pay his morgage but i have no receipts or ways of proving this .So is any part of house mine .
2 - i have heard of a charity called chips [ care home inheritance plan ] who say they will take over your home , rent it out , collect rent and pay maintenance fee's for 3 years but i do not know what happens after that .
My dad has arund £50k which i have taken out of his name and put in mine to hopefully shield it away  .
Any advice would be helpful please .

Pennylane

You will be in big trouble if you get found because this is classed as Deprivation of Assets. It’s his house and his money by the way.

There’s a lot more I could say but I am leaving it there and see what others have to say. 

Brie

I would think that a lot of what happens in England is relevant to Scotland - I'm sure others will correct me but I only have my English experience to go by.

You appear to be talking about deprivation of assets.  If you were down south even if your father willingly signed over the house to you, or sold it for a nominal sum it's value would still be taken into account for care home fees.  It might not need to be sold but the local authority social services would put a lien on it so it would need to be sold at some point to pay them back.  This can even happen if you actually are living in the house yourself - depending on your age.  If you are under 60 the house could still be sold and you made homeless or there would be a lien so that when you eventually sold it they would get their share.

I would suggest that renting might be a good option so that the income could go towards the care fees.  I don't know why you would need to go through a special company to do this - any rental agency might be ok but I have no experience of them so a local referral might work better for you.

As for cash in the bank - again - they might come after you if you say he has no money - his pension will be going into an account somewhere and they may insist on seeing a number of years of statements to ensure all is being dealt with correctly.  With us the cut off point of allowed savings is something like £23k so less than half of what your dad has/had.

p00hsticks

Basically 'you're stuffed on all levels.'

Brie

As a thought also - have a look to see what a reasonable care home costs on a monthly basis.  How far off is his income from covering this. 

When MiL was in a care home for a few months the charges were (as I recall) about £3000 a month.  On that basis if your dad (even if it's in your bank account) has £50k he'd be good for about 18 months assuming there was no other income (which I doubt is the case).   Of course this varies for area and the level of service provided.  Her brother was in London and had to pay closer to £6000 a month.  Fortunately for MiL she was able to return home and we still look after her at 95.  Her much older brother didn't live very long after moving to the care home but then again he was a ripe old 101.

The alternative to a care home of course is in home care - it may be slightly cheaper but that will depend on how much assistance he needs.  Someone with severe dementia may need constant companionship which is easier to provide in a group setting unless like like us the family is living all together.

And I'll say it before someone else does - why should you inherit his money if it's needed to provide a good quality of existence for his last few years?  

elsien

alfmurph said:

Let me say right up front this post is asking how we can keep our house inheritance and avoid care home fee's .
I think we are basically stuffed on all levels but i will ask anyway .
Father is 90 with moderate to severe dementia . I have power of attorney .
We live in scotland .
He is a very stubborn man and when i asked him ten or more years ago to sign house over to me he refused saying he would always be fit and healthy but now as he gets worse it is a toss up whether he needs a care home or not and i know he will only get worse .
My only two hopes to keep the house seem to be .
1 - When the house needed modernised with new central heating , double glazing etc i paid for this and then i gave him cash in hand to help pay his morgage but i have no receipts or ways of proving this .So is any part of house mine .
2 - i have heard of a charity called chips [ care home inheritance plan ] who say they will take over your home , rent it out , collect rent and pay maintenance fee's for 3 years but i do not know what happens after that .
My dad has arund £50k which i have taken out of his name and put in mine to hopefully shield it away  .
Any advice would be helpful please .

Well there’s the safeguarding and removal of power of attorney, for starters. 

Care to explain how stealing his money is acting in his best interests? And how you’re planning to explain a missing 50K when asked to produce accounts? 

74jax

The 50k,even though in your name now, will still be classed as though your dad has it, so be careful not to spend it,if he will need it back. 

We were in a similar position - brother didn't want to sell the house we would inherit.  So between us we agreed to pay the care home fees. The money doesn't have to come from the house, as long as your dad gets the care you all want, the care home doesn't care who pays for it.

elsien

74jax said:

The 50k,even though in your name now, will still be classed as though your dad has it, so be careful not to spend it,if he will need it back. 

We were in a similar position - brother didn't want to sell the house we would inherit.  So between us we agreed to pay the care home fees. The money doesn't have to come from the house, as long as your dad gets the care you all want, the care home doesn't care who pays for it.

Shouldn’t that more accurately  say “be careful not to spend it because it’s not yours?”

Brie

elsien said:  Shouldn’t that say be careful not to spend it because it’s not yours? 

And potentially it will need to be accounted for as part of his estate should he not survive very long. 

You say "we" when you talk about inheriting but don't say who that is.  Not an issue perhaps if it is just you but if there's a will and anything being potentially left to others it could cause issues even if that isn't your intention.  My mom has already divided up a lot of her "estate" even though she is still alive but it does cause friction as not all siblings have advantage of this.  (Not UK so different rules apply)

elsien

Ref the CHIPS suggestion, it only kicks in at the point he needs care, if he ever does. It covers the gap between his pensions and the care home fees for 3 years. They say if he lives linger than that they will continue to pay, however the word discretionary is in there, which would need clarification. 

It also says the following: 

The customer’s beneficiaries can, at any time following the death of their benefactor, buy the property back from the company on payment of a lease break fee. This lease break fee reduces year by year to nil: typically after ten years as the rent from letting the property repays all the care and related costs met by the CHIP®.

So there will be associated costs for the beneficiaries, depending on the timescales. 

theoretica

The best way to preserve the house is to have enough money to pay for care from other avenues. Your dad's £50k will pay for a fair while, and as pointed out his pension would help.  If a charity could rent the house out, then so could you - but there are a *lot* of requirements to being a landlord and you would need to look into whether it is something you would in reality want to take on. And, of course, whether the house would be easy to rent.