Care Home financial assessment

clive795

I have two question that I would like help with.

My mother and father lived in a flat as tenants in common. My mother died two years ago and her will left her half of the flat to me and my sister.

My father is soon going to have to go into residential care. Can my sister and I be forced to sell the flat so that his half of the funds are released? Its not about avoiding paying the fees its our desire to retain the property as my sister was due to move into it when the lease on her rented property ends in April.

My second question is about my fathers savings, we have never discussed them and he is now incapable of helping. I have started to search through the stacks of old paperwork he has never thrown away but I don't know where he held accounts. Am I wasting my time and would it be simpler to just let the Council do their financial assessment during which I assume they ask the Banks, etc if he has an account with them. They can then get what they need and being selfish I would then have a record of what there is for when I eventually  deal with his estate.

Thanks

bobster2

How old is your sister? And would she be moving in before he moves into residential care?

Keep_pedalling

Did your mothers will give your father the right to live in the flat for life? If it did what were the terms of the will in the event he had to move out?

I ask because it would be usual for a will to create a life interest for the surviving spouse, and often the will will give the surviving spouse a right to any income from any capital raised from the sale of the house.

Do you have financial power of attorney for your father? If not you are going to need to obtain deputyship for him to deal with all the finances not just the house.

Keep_pedalling

bobster2 said:

How old is your sister? And would she be moving in before he moves into residential care?

I think it a bit late to claim that there is a dependant occupant in the flat, that would almost certainly be treated as a contrived  situation.

His half of the flat will certainly be included in any financial assesment. 

jem16

clive795 said:

My second question is about my fathers savings, we have never discussed them and he is now incapable of helping. I have started to search through the stacks of old paperwork he has never thrown away but I don't know where he held accounts. Am I wasting my time and would it be simpler to just let the Council do their financial assessment during which I assume they ask the Banks, etc if he has an account with them. They can then get what they need and being selfish I would then have a record of what there is for when I eventually  deal with his estate.

Thanks

The financial assessment forms I was given from the council asked me to complete all the details of bank accounts etc. I wasn’t filling in that section as she was self funding and we only wanted to access the Scottish Government funding that she was entitled to so I don’t know what would have happened if I said I didn’t know the details.

Brie

you could try this to track down his bank accounts....My Lost Account

sounds like you'll need to get the court of protection involved to handle his financial and health as you don't have power of attorney for either.  the care home should know how to proceed on this.  

meanwhile - will sister be paying rent on dad's half of the property??

clive795

I will try to answer the various points that have been made - 
my sister is 62
one of my many jobs is to activate the PoA
my mothers will gave him the right to live in the property but there is no instruction about what has to happen should he move out
we are not trying to use my sisters residency to avoid paying care fees, we know his part is likely to taken but we want some reassurance that if my sister moves in she will not immediately be evicted because the value of the property is demanded by the council. She was not going to pay rent as she owns a quarter of the flat already and planned to take on the council tax, utilities , etc and would have been caring for our father. Our intention is to see what the value of his part is and then she and I will buy his half so the fees can be paid but as this may need a mortgage it will not be a quick process.
the lost bank account service my be useful, I don’t think there is much money saved but I need to be sure I have done as much as I can to find it, if I find an account statement I might then see other accounts he has moved money from/to.

i am trying to book an appointment with AgeUK to get some face to face advice.

thanks for the suggestions

bobster2

clive795 said:

I will try to answer the various points that have been made - 
my sister is 62
one of my many jobs is to activate the PoA
my mothers will gave him the right to live in the property but there is no instruction about what has to happen should he move out
we are not trying to use my sisters residency to avoid paying care fees, we know his part is likely to taken but we want some reassurance that if my sister moves in she will not immediately be evicted because the value of the property is demanded by the council.

The value of a home is disregarded in a financial assessment if a relative aged 60 or over is living there.

Keep_pedalling

clive795 said:

I will try to answer the various points that have been made - 
my sister is 62
one of my many jobs is to activate the PoA
my mothers will gave him the right to live in the property but there is no instruction about what has to happen should he move out

Which means the will did create an immediate post death interest trust. In effect the trust is the legal owner of your mother’ share and your father is the beneficial owner. You and your sister do not actually inherit until your father’s death. 

Even though the trust earns no income it should have been registered with HMRC within 2 years of her death. Who were the executors of her will?

we are not trying to use my sisters residency to avoid paying care fees, we know his part is likely to taken but we want some reassurance that if my sister moves in she will not immediately be evicted because the value of the property is demanded by the council. She was not going to pay rent as she owns a quarter of the flat already and planned to take on the council tax, utilities , etc and would have been caring for our father. Our intention is to see what the value of his part is and then she and I will buy his half so the fees can be paid but as this may need a mortgage it will not be a quick process.
the lost bank account service my be useful, I don’t think there is much money saved but I need to be sure I have done as much as I can to find it, if I find an account statement I might then see other accounts he has moved money from/to.

i am trying to book an appointment with AgeUK to get some face to face advice.

thanks for the suggestions

Your mother’s share cannot be used for your fathers care costs but your father’ share will be taken into account so at some point the flat will need to be sold unless your father has significant other assets that will pay for his care costs for the foreseeable future. 

As long as you are actively planning to sell the property or buying out his share then the LA should defer payments until that is sorted out. Evicting people and forcing a sale is an expensive business and would only be done as a very last resort.

Do you know what sort of power of attorney has been sorted? It sounds like the older EPA rather than a LPA.

Savvy_Sue

clive795 said:

we are not trying to use my sisters residency to avoid paying care fees, we know his part is likely to taken but we want some reassurance that if my sister moves in she will not immediately be evicted because the value of the property is demanded by the council. She was not going to pay rent as she owns a quarter of the flat already and planned to take on the council tax, utilities , etc and would have been caring for our father. Our intention is to see what the value of his part is and then she and I will buy his half so the fees can be paid but as this may need a mortgage it will not be a quick process.

One thing you can be sure of is that nothing will happen 'immediately' - MiL's local authority may be particularly inefficient, and the fact that she initially went into a home for palliative care may have made a difference, but once it was clear that she wasn't going to die any time soon it then took them almost a year to carry out a financial assessment. Yes, fees were racking up during that time, but no-one seemed to feel any urgency about the situation. And we were in a position to make the backpayment. 

The situation may well be different if you and your sister identify a care home which doesn't accept local authority funded residents, because they're likely to want the money more rapidly. But as you speak about the council making demands, this seems unlikely. 

The next thing is to recognise is that what's at issue is how much your father's residential placement costs, and how much he's assessed to have to pay towards that. If your sister was well-established in the flat, its value would definitely be disregarded, and even if its value is not disregarded then only half its value is considered. I feel you need to see what the figures are - both what your father has, and what he needs to pay - before worrying, because 

Keep_pedalling said:

As long as you are actively planning to sell the property or buying out his share then the LA should defer payments until that is sorted out. Evicting people and forcing a sale is an expensive business and would only be done as a very last resort.

That is a sensible summary from Kp. 

Do bear in mind that as Attorney, you have to act in the best interests of your father, regardless of your sister's needs / wants. You MAY need to consider whether she should pay rent for living in the flat (but that means you'll have to take responsibility as a landlord), or whether one or both of you should buy out his remaining share. But everything's going to take time, possibly a long time, to get clarification of the financial situation. 

clive795

Thanks for the further replies.
I feel much more comfortable that we are not going to be forced to act quickly.
i can now gather the information I need and speak to the relevant offices.
i may not see further replies as I don’t use the forum much so apologies if you comment further and I don’t.
thanks to everyone.