DWP recovery from estates

Rufty1

Keep_pedalling said:

elsien said:

She could still be entitled to pension credit if she was in a care home, as long as their savings stayed below the threshold. which at the moment is 10,000 plus the tariff for anything over that.

But if  a relative was spending £1000 a month to keep below a certain amount – that could where some of these queries are coming from depending on what it was being spent on. It is hard to see how anyone in a care home can be spending £1000 a month on top of any fees.

After probate, what was left of your mother’s estate and who was it left to because potentially any money owed should come out of that. Or from whoever was her appointee if she had one if they didn’t keep the DWP correctly informed. Any errors are on them because they have the responsibility to make sure her benefits have been dealt with correctly. 

elsien said:

She could still be entitled to pension credit if she was in a care home, as long as their savings stayed below the threshold. which at the moment is 10,000 plus the tariff for anything over that.

But if  a relative was spending £1000 a month to keep below a certain amount – that could where some of these queries are coming from depending on what it was being spent on. It is hard to see how anyone in a care home can be spending £1000 a month on top of any fees.

After probate, what was left of your mother’s estate and who was it left to because potentially any money owed should come out of that. Or from whoever was her appointee if she had one if they didn’t keep the DWP correctly informed. Any errors are on them because they have the responsibility to make sure her benefits have been dealt with correctly. 

I think it would be impossible to be on PC and self funding at the same time.

Reading between the lines the £1000 a month seems not to have been spent on the OPs mother, I hope they are going to be able to recover it. 

I know for a fact the money wasn't spent on mom eg bar bills 400 miles away, vets bills, internet shopping (mom had no on-line presence) but I have no hope of seeing any of that.  What concerns me is I may have to pay inheritance tax on it.  Mom had contributions to her full time care because of the reasons she was bed bound.  She also had a loan against the house to pay for it, so it wasn't entirely self funded.  Mom's appointee is the one who was having the money so I have to wonder what was put into the claims.

Rufty1

badmemory said:

I do think that something has gone wrong somewhere from a simple maths point of view.  State pension is around £200 to enable a pension credit payment.  Say £90 a week attendance allowance plus maybe £100 pension credit.  That is under £400 a week.  When we were looking at care homes 13 years ago the absolute cheapest was £400 a week.  With only that sort of income then there would not have been any new savings.

New savings rose slightly over the time I have statements for.   But the original claim was in 2017 and I can only go back 6 years.  They were around £12k at the first statement I have.

Rufty1

p00hsticks said:

One possibility...

Even though it sounds as if your mum was self-funding in care (from the fact that she continued to get AA) I imagine that a financial assessment was done at the time she went in in 2020, which would give some idea of what she had in savings at the time, if you can find a copy (it would have been submitted to by the local authority)

Thanks.  I wasn't sure what the situation was with AA.  She had some sort of loan agreement with the council a few years after going into the home whereby they got half of the house.  She got some help with the care fees because of her medical problems.  I was excluded from all financial dealings while mom was alive.

Shelldean

My memories  are foggy as it ws a while ago.
We got similar letter when a relative died.
Due to the fact she was getting benefits but spending  lot less so savings  built up. Meaning when she claimed she had a  much lower amount of savings.  So when she died DWP wanted to why the figures from first claim and probate differed so much. 
She also have protected  savings sorry can't recall the official  title  of it. But it meant that even if she won a million pounds she'd  still be able to claim pension credits. Being entitled  to this protected  savings  depended on age when first claiming I think. And was only available  for  cert time before they changed  the system.

elsien

Rufty1 said:

p00hsticks said:

One possibility...

Even though it sounds as if your mum was self-funding in care (from the fact that she continued to get AA) I imagine that a financial assessment was done at the time she went in in 2020, which would give some idea of what she had in savings at the time, if you can find a copy (it would have been submitted to by the local authority)

Thanks.  I wasn't sure what the situation was with AA.  She had some sort of loan agreement with the council a few years after going into the home whereby they got half of the house.  She got some help with the care fees because of her medical problems.  I was excluded from all financial dealings while mom was alive.

Some help with the fees was probably CHC funding which is not means tested but that would be a nursing top up rather than the main part of the fees. I doubt there was an agreement they would get exactly half of the house - they would have made a deferred payment agreement but it wouldn’t have been specifically for half. It would depend the care fees due and the outcome of the financial assessment taking the house value into account.
I appreciate that this is information you don’t have because you were cut out of the process, but just so you know how it should have worked. 

https://www.carehome.co.uk/advice/deferred-payment-agreements-to-pay-for-care-home-fees

Rufty1

elsien said:

Rufty1 said:

p00hsticks said:

One possibility...

Even though it sounds as if your mum was self-funding in care (from the fact that she continued to get AA) I imagine that a financial assessment was done at the time she went in in 2020, which would give some idea of what she had in savings at the time, if you can find a copy (it would have been submitted to by the local authority)

Thanks.  I wasn't sure what the situation was with AA.  She had some sort of loan agreement with the council a few years after going into the home whereby they got half of the house.  She got some help with the care fees because of her medical problems.  I was excluded from all financial dealings while mom was alive.

Some help with the fees was probably CHC funding which is not means tested but that would be a nursing top up rather than the main part of the fees. I doubt there was an agreement they would get exactly half of the house - they would have made a deferred payment agreement but it wouldn’t have been specifically for half. It would depend the care fees due and the outcome of the financial assessment taking the house value into account.
I appreciate that this is information you don’t have because you were cut out of the process, but just so you know how it should have worked. 

https://www.carehome.co.uk/advice/deferred-payment-agreements-to-pay-for-care-home-fees

Thank you.  It worked out to be about half the value of the house just because of the timing.   Since found out that although mom had some sort of annual assessment, DWP were never informed she'd gone into care.  So it's pension credit they're investigating.  Do you think they'll want it all back?  Or means tested against savings over £10k?  

Rufty1

Update.  DWP have now written to me saying they want every bank statement going back to 2014 as 'records don't match'.  The bank can only go back 6 years so how can they check the thing that doesn't match?  Any advice please folks?  I feels it's an invasion of my late mom's privacy.  I think they are accusing her of renting her house out while she was in care, but she didn't. She didn't have any income other than her benefits.

elsien

I don't think they are accusing her of renting her house out but they do need to check that she was not claiming benefits that she was not entitled to as benefits can change when people go into care. As part of her claim, she or her representative would have agreed to inform of changes in circumstances. They have every right to check up on that and it is not an invasion of her privacy in that context. With regards to the timescales, the executor can only provide the records that they have access to. 
You could contact the local authority about the information that was given to them for the financial assessment? 

sheramber

Have you contacted the bank to ask for the statements?

They may be held in archives  so can be obtained, possibly at a cost.

Shelldean

Have you checked if she had protected pensions credits as mentioned in my previous post