Loan via Deferred Payment Scheme re Care Act

Bellabella_2

sourcrates said:

Bellabella_2 said:

I'm not sure if this is the right section to post this, but....

I'm just wondering if anyone has, or knows someone who has, applied for a loan via the Deferred Payment Scheme, which is an aspect of the Care Act, and been refused or even just had their application knocked back at the start. Basically, you can borrow money to pay care home fees against the value of your property for a low interest rate. Local Authorities are legally obliged to give these loans to anyone who qualifies.

Hi,

You are mis-understanding how a deferred payment arrangement works.

You do not get a loan as such, under a deferred payment agreement, the council will pay your care home fees and secure the loan against your property.

You can delay repaying the loan until you choose to sell your home or until after your death.

So no money changes hands, like with a conventional loan, they simply put a charge on the property used as collateral, and the loan is repaid from the proceeds of the eventual sale.

I have such an agreement currently with our local council, with regards to my brothers house.

sourcrates said:

Bellabella_2 said:

I'm not sure if this is the right section to post this, but....

I'm just wondering if anyone has, or knows someone who has, applied for a loan via the Deferred Payment Scheme, which is an aspect of the Care Act, and been refused or even just had their application knocked back at the start. Basically, you can borrow money to pay care home fees against the value of your property for a low interest rate. Local Authorities are legally obliged to give these loans to anyone who qualifies.

Hi,

You are mis-understanding how a deferred payment arrangement works.

You do not get a loan as such, under a deferred payment agreement, the council will pay your care home fees and secure the loan against your property.

You can delay repaying the loan until you choose to sell your home or until after your death.

So no money changes hands, like with a conventional loan, they simply put a charge on the property used as collateral, and the loan is repaid from the proceeds of the eventual sale.

I have such an agreement currently with our local council, with regards to my brothers house.

I'm not misunderstanding. I know that's how it works. But the council themselves refer to it as a 'loan', which in effect it is. It's just not given out in a chunk of money (like ER) but rather over time and paid directly to the care home. Trust me, I understand what it is; I've read huge amounts about it. My point is though, has anyone else experienced problems in applying for this? It looks like there was a screw up in my application in that it didn't get processed, and yet I sent two emails reminding SS and asking for an update, and then I got a call from finance trying to persuade me not to apply. Then when I asked for the delay, etc. to be looked into, the manager who committed to do that failed to follow through and even ignored my emails asking for an update. Just wondering if anyone else has had problems like this. 

Bellabella_2

Basically, I think that if LAs are legally obliged to offer loans (or whatever you want to call them - staggered loan paid to care home) via the Deferred Payment Scheme to anyone that qualifies, it follows that they are legally obliged to accept all applications, and not try to fob applicants off, as without accepting and processing (to an extent) applications, they won't know whether the applicant qualifies or not. Is my situation a one off screw up or are others having a similar experience?  

sourcrates

Apologies, I wasn`t sure if you were aware of the process or not.

I don`t know the legalities of it, but my brother was assessed, he had no savings, but did have an asset in the form of a house.

His pension and various benefits go partway to paying his care bills, but basically only about half of what it actually costs.

The rest of the payments are deferred until his death, at that time the house will be sold to cover any outstanding care bills, as I said previously, there is a charge on the house to secure this.

There is also a clause in the agreement where by you never have to pay more than what the house sells for, so no unexpected surprises later on down the line.

I don`t know if your experience is typical or not, if you haven`t already done so, you can request an explanation from the council as to why it was denied.

Nebulous2

I've no experience of this scheme, but I have some experience of shambolic local authorities and problems in accessing social care. 

Ultimately they cannot ignore you and ignore your complaints. It may take some time and effort to get there however and may add to your stress. You need to decide whether it is worth doing.

Find and read their complaints policy. Write to the council, copy in some senior people, head of social services, chief exec, head of finance etc. 

State that they appear to be failing in their statutory duty to provide a deferred payment scheme, and they have failed to follow their own complaints procedure in not responding to the concerns you have raised. 

That should get them to follow the complaints procedure and give you a response within a recognised timescale. 

Ultimately if unhappy with the complaint response you can go to the ombudsman. Home - Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman

The problem you are likely to have however, is that you or the person you are pursuing the complaint on behalf of, didn't qualify. The council will have faced dealing with reductions in service, dealing with the Covid pandemic and disrupted working conditions. They may argue that a delay in responding, while not desirable, was to be expected because of the pressures they were under.