Joint account or not to protect savings if one of us is in a home

westv

MarzipanCrumble said:

Devils Advocate here:  How are you going to protect your assets if one of you dies first without care need then the other surviving partner needs care?  Your home is no longer 'protected' nor are your 'savings'.

Just a thrown spanner.......

If you are in care, are you going to care??

Doctor_Who

MarzipanCrumble said:

Devils Advocate here:  How are you going to protect your assets if one of you dies first without care need then the other surviving partner needs care?  Your home is no longer 'protected' nor are your 'savings'.

Just a thrown spanner.......

This is exactly what happened to my parents. My dad died in hospital, everything was left to mum in the will (she had dementia) and she had to move in to a care home (we had PoA to make these decisions for her). At no point did we consider 'protecting assets' since these were mum's assets and were there to provide her with the best care possible. We were able to get a place in a nice nursing home, which wasn't cheap, but her assets covered the costs for the 4 years she was there.

Keep_pedalling

MarzipanCrumble said:

Devils Advocate here:  How are you going to protect your assets if one of you dies first without care need then the other surviving partner needs care?  Your home is no longer 'protected' nor are your 'savings'.

Just a thrown spanner.......

Not interested in putting asset protection ahead of having to rely on the LA to meet my care needs.

Keep_pedalling

Grumpy_chap said:

Keep_pedalling said:

Grumpy_chap said:

Contrary to the "fully shared" lives that mature people enjoy, it does make sense for cash assets to be in separate accounts for the purpose of how much is contributed to pay for care home fees (self-funding above £23,250 for an individual).

The assessment of how much is each individual's is done repeatedly each period.

Say a couple have £100k. 
This is assessed as £50k each. 
In the first month, the care home fees have depleted this to £95k.
This is assessed as £47.5k each
Second months, another £5k fees leaving £90k.
This is assessed as £45k

Say a couple have £50k each in separate accounts.  £100k total.
In the first month, the care home fees have depleted this to £45k plus £50k for the spouse (still in separate accounts).  Still £95k in total.
This is assessed as £45k plus £50k (spouse's value is ignored)
Second month fees £5k, leaves £40k plus £50k.  Still £90k total.
You can see how, once the value of the first spouse drops, then the LA contributions to care can kick in while total assets are £23,250 plus £50k = £73,250
If all the funds were held in joint accounts, the value would need to deplete to £46,500 before the LS contributions can be assessed.

In practice it does not work like this financial assessment is not continuous and the care fees only reduce the person in care share. It would make it a lot easier to manage if at the point that residential care looked likely, all joint savings were split. 

That was exactly how it worked in practice when my father went into a nursing home.  The LA assessed the joint funds and halved them every assessment period.  Different LA's may apply this in different ways, hence your experience may have been different.

Based on that experience, then the advice would be to close the account as soon as it becomes likely that care could become an issue and mov3 to separate accounts.