How to Protect Parents Assets and avoid 'Deprivation of Assets'?

Pennylane

Mojisola said:

Keep_pedalling said:

Had she had the resources to self fund for a couple of years then I could have got a placement there several months before it came round to an emergency placement.

I had a similar experience with Dad - the council were willing to fund four visits a day at his home - the ward sister and the OTs said he needed 24-hour supervision.  They said he would be back in A&E because of a fall within days if he was sent home.  He was stuck in a hospital bed while they argued back and forth.
Dad needed a deferred payment scheme from the council to become properly self-funding but, in the end, we signed the paperwork with the home and moved him out to a home.  He had deteriorated while stuck in the hospital and we couldn't watch him decline further.

It’s just awful watching loved ones decline isn’t it?  We had a few months poor care in a home which was spotlessly clean but it was run like a prison and the staff had no interest in residents so they parked them in front of the TV all day.  Meals were mainly things they could heat up.  Long story but when a much better self funded place was found,  the care was 100% better and our parent gained weight, looked happy, loved the homecooked food and loved life again.  

BooJewels

The last few posts illustrate exactly why care provision for loved ones can't be 
considered as a purely fiscal exercise.  It can get extremely complicated, emotionally fraught and a true worry - not to mention the guilt.  It depends on the needs of the individual - both medical and pastoral and whether they're ready to take that step, or resisting.

Often, it comes in the aftermath of a medical emergency when it becomes evident that they can't manage at home and need more support than visiting carers can provide - something like a fall, resulting in an injury.  Then there's the lottery of finding somewhere acceptable that has a place - the good ones often don't.  We struck very lucky with both parents.

Then there's the funding battle with the LA and/or NHS.  My Dad died three years ago this week at the height of the first big lockdown - and we still haven't had a final decision about continuing health care funding - it was abandoned due to Covid, but in a retrospective audit, they decided it should have been dealt with better and it's gone to some review committee.  If they decide he should have had it, we'll get some of his privately funded fees back.  Anyone you deal with in respect of funding has absolutely no sense of urgency whatsoever - until you owe them money.

Spendless

Keep_pedalling said:

p00hsticks said:

theshed said:

All relevant but I would not call sub £100,000 'wealth' and it would certainly not last long in paying for private care
What happens when the money runs out. Shipped out to another home ?

Probably yes, if it is cheaper.
With little consideration given as to how it may affect the resident, or whether it is close to or convenient for relatives.   
The option that some of those frequenting these boards refer to as 'over my dead body grange'. 
 

£100k does not afford the luxury of choosing any care hope you wish without that danger, however as long as you chose one that takes LA funded clients as well as private ones that is unlikely to be the case.

When I first started looking round care homes for my mother I found a great one that had a small number of places for LA funded clients but as she was relying on LA funding from day one I could not get her a place there when she had to be discharged from hospital to a care home. Had she had the resources to self fund for a couple of years then I could have got a placement there several months before it came round to an emergency placement.

Exactly what happened in my Nan's case though to her advantage as she had a property to be sold so was self-funding. My Mum got the last place for her available for her. This is why I said at the beginning of the thread, my Mum got a bit more choice in where she sent Nan to live. 

JakeHyde

p00hsticks said:

I'm sorry for your loss - it must be a very difficult time for you. 
But I think you need to take a step back, perhaps in a while when things aren't so raw, and consider what you are actually asking.

Many people don't require residential care in later life. 
You hope that you will be able to care for your father if he needs it, and maybe you will. 

But if it comes to a point where he does need more care than you can realistically provide at some point in the future, wouldn't you both want that to be the best care available ? Where he gets to choose what care package he has and where he goes, ideally close to you ?

That will be achieved by him having the resources to be able to pay for his own care, either in his own home or in a residential home, rather than him being at the mercy of whatever the Local Authority decides they can afford to offer him. 

Thanks, this sounds great. yeah of course I would like to have him close by so I can care for him as best as I can, and when the time comes, pay for whatever care he needs.  He doesn't want to go in to a care home, so I want to be able to do the best I can for him, and of course carry out his wishes. 

JakeHyde

Spendless said:

Buying a funeral plan upfront is not classed as DOA (or never used to be, double check). That was advice given to my Mum when my Nan entered a care home and Mum got POA. Be careful of what you purchase because I believe some policies became invalid as they weren't regulated.

My Nan was in a care home due to dementia  for 8 years, 90 when she went in, nearly 99 when she died.. I know people say most don't enter a nursing home or are there an average of 12 months.  To me you need to hear from people who have had relatives in homes for  longer.

Nan's property was sold to pay for her care and my Mum was able to choose a home for Nan that was nicer than some she looked at and got more of a choice.

When Nan died earlier this year, the money she had left from her property was in-between £14, 250--£23,250 which meant she contributed to but didn't pay all of her fees.

Having the funeral plan meant that the costs were mostly taken care of without going further into her estate to pay for it. The bill over and above the plan has come to under £500, which included a wake (small gathering though this wasn't due to financial reasons). Funeral plans you pay at tomorrow's costs, so when purchased 8 years ago the amount paid was more in line with what a funeral costs today. If Nan had died sooner then the cost of the plan would have been more than just paying it at the time, but that is the gamble you take. For our family it worked out because Nan has been able to leave her beneficiaries more money than she would have done without it.

Nan also left a little more money because she already had 3 insurance plans that paid out after her death. She had cancelled 1 after paying 2 years premiums ironically the one that was 'with profits' for reasons we'll never know, so only paid out just over £100, the other paid out a set sum - Nan had probably paid more in premiums for this! The 3rd was a penny policy taken out by my G-Gran 99 years ago to pay out £10. That was looked into expecting nothing and paid out over £500. None of these were still being paid for at the point my Mum became POA. These payouts from insurance companies were able to cover what I called Nan's final bills, such as copies of her death certificates to send to various institutions, the funeral costs over and above the plan, her final care home bill.

So though you can do nothing to stop any care home bills if needed  and nor should you because you would want your Dad to be in the best and most suitable place for him, it's not always possible to give care at home,  it is possible that you don't have to get down to the current £14k(ish)  and then take the funeral costs from that. I believe there's also a possibility that in future the amount may go up from the current £14, 250 before you need to pay all costs, but my parents said recently that that idea had been put back. Haven't looked at any news stories so I can't say.

Thanks for taking the time to respond.
It was very insightful. We've both been dealing with a lot. The plan is to get him a little bungalow near me, and take it form there. He's 'only' 80, and hopefully he has a lot left in him.  Defo need to look into POA. 

JakeHyde

BooJewels said:

I'm sorry for your loss.

I too don't understand your idea that the Government will absorb his savings and family home.  If your father has 'substantial savings' then he's very lucky in that he's in a good position to be able to afford his own care at a place of his choosing - should he need it, which as pointed out, many actually don't.  My aunt who recently passed, lived totally independently to 95 - she only gave up driving her sports car at 93 when she smashed her hip.  My mother-in-law was driving and living independently until 3 weeks before she died at 92 in January.

Both of my parents were in a care home at the end - the same one, at different times - and it was really lovely - a privately run old country house in its own grounds.  My Dad had a lovely en suite room looking over a large lawn and woodland and had deer grazing outside his window, his own bird feeders on the window and piles of his own books, a music player, TV etc.  The staff were fabulous and are still the same ones there after several years.  They both paid privately and whilst it means that I personally inherited much less from their estates, I truly do not care, as the care (and my peace of mind) they had at the end of their lives was absolutely priceless.  The Government didn't feature in any of it - other than I got Attendance Allowance for him to help with costs.

So I think the take home from this is that your father is actually very lucky, as having funds will buy him choices - and in this area, that is a substantial tick in the plus column.

One of the things you might look at is an immediate needs annuity - this page explains them:  https://www.moneyhelper.org.uk/en/family-and-care/long-term-care/immediate-needs-annuity  we applied for quotes for Dad - I think you'd need to go through an independent financial adviser - but due to medical stuff that doctors were very slow to respond to, it didn't get sorted in time for us.

In the meantime, if you want to put his substantial savings into better earning accounts, then he's perhaps best to do that whilst he can do so himself (with your assistance as required) as trying to do so under an LPA (which I hope you already have, if not, that's something you really can do now) is much more problematic, as we've discussed this in the savings forum here.

Wonderful, I will show this post to Dad. I think it might settle his nerves about care homes. 

JakeHyde

Gers said:

There's a very clear article about this in the Guardian today.  Well worth reading it.

Brilliant!