Care home fees

badmemory

elsien said:

Even if there was a power of attorney, if mother-in-law had capacity, it was her choice who to share that information with. LPA does not give carte blanche to access information about the person without their permission.
And given that the OP says MIL managed to own money, we are presuming capacity.

I totally agree.  But someone does not have to have lost capacity for them to be used.  Having them can avoid someone being bullied into doing what suits other people as in this case.

GrubbyGirl_2

I suggest you contact Age Concern who are usually good at helping older people with finances if only to help them understand what happened

stripling

@Littlemo11
My mum in law was put into a care home against her wishes in 2023, by the nhs. It was only supposed to be temporary.  About 4 weeks before she passed in October 2024 she had a social worker round to do an assessment of her finances.  She had round about £16,000 in her account.  Said social worker then came back to her and said she could have £25 a week to live on. This really stressed her out. As she wanted home. She passed away a couple of weeks later.

Hello... 
How long was she in the care home? These details matter.  Far the past few years the NHS has been using care homes as discharge spaces. This is meant to be a temporary situation while, as you said, a home care package is organised. This is how the NHS gets its 'bed blocking' numbers down.  It's because there's a shortage of domiciliary carers.  Our care system is utterly broken and unfortunately it then piles pressure on the NHS. And our local councils are in pieces too. Blame it on years of privatisation. 

My understanding is that the first few weeks are covered by the NHS not the council but only a very short few. How long after she arrived in the care home was she assessed by social services?
Where's the paperwork?
How did they 'prove' her finances to make an assessment?
Did they ask for a contribution from mum? If so how much? Based on what (care home) costs? 
How long was her total stay?
Who was supposed to be organising domiciliary care - care at your mum's home? 
Did they check your mum's home for care needs? Did she need a physio or whatever? 
Why did she not go home? 

If you can get answers to these questions it should help. Even if your mum had any liability to pay it would only have been a contribution, not the full cost because of the £14,500 assets rule and despite what the social worker said about only being allowed £25 'pocket money' certain other expenses may have been permitted for your mum if needed.  The assessment would be made on pension income but only your mum's share not your dad's. Your dad was never liable for mum's costs and half of all family income was definitely his and should never have been considered in her assessment. Likewise any money in the bank was legally half his. 

I'm sorry you have to deal with all this, it is grim. It's always those with the least who have to pay while the wealthier often put their money in family trusts or buy their little darlings homes. I think the council are on pretty shaky ground. You do need to get all the paperwork, the care home bills, council invoices, assessment documents etc.,  so take a deep breath, ask the council for copies of paperwork and take it from there. Best of luck. 

in_my_wellies

I'm not sure if local or national but the 6 weeks the NHS pay for on discharge from hospital changed to 2 weeks around June 2022 in Leicestershire. My mother was discharged the day after so the 6 weeks I expected became 2.

My mum was self funding but getting the final bill from the council took forever. I'm have sympathy with the OP after all this time. It shouldn't take this long

It took nearly four months and I was waiting to apply for probate. The bill when it came was wildly incorrect, they tried again still wrong. Third time lucky was the one I paid and to this day my brother, the solicitor nor I could work out how it was arrived at. Should have been simple maths as the hourly rate for care at home was known. 

Unsurprisingly they amended the council tax bill within the week albeit addressed to 'The Executors of in-my-wellies', leaving mum on but removing me - two and a half years later and I'm still trying to get my name back on council lists. Because I'm 'dead' they won't speak to me! 

Keep_pedalling

Creditors have 6 years to pursue a debt. That debt passes to the estate on death, and it is down to whoever wound up the estate to deal with that debt before distributing the estate. If this was your husband they can indeed pursue him for this.

Flugelhorn

I wonder if, there being no POA, as to whether it simply took quite a while to find out who was managing this lady's estate and there was unlikely to be probate etc?  agree it was a long time, communication  can be very bad 

I guessed that there was likely to be a bill from a rather hopeless care agency for my mother, honestly not sure what happened over it - they knew I was less than impressed by their organisation and wondered if they were as disorganised in billing - they had left all the paperwork in my mother's file in her house.  I kept some money back but the bill never came. 

@in_my_wellies your experience sounds rather familiar

I don't think  the council however will go away - they will be wanting to see  a statement of the estate finances and where the money went. in priority they will come after the funeral expenses and before the grandchildren - 

elsien

badmemory said:

elsien said:

Even if there was a power of attorney, if mother-in-law had capacity, it was her choice who to share that information with. LPA does not give carte blanche to access information about the person without their permission.
And given that the OP says MIL managed to own money, we are presuming capacity.

I totally agree.  But someone does not have to have lost capacity for them to be used.  Having them can avoid someone being bullied into doing what suits other people as in this case.

Without knowing anything about the mother-in-law’s support needs, it’s not possible to say whether whether going home was a realistic possibility or not. There are a lot of people in care homes who want to go home but can’t do so safely with the four calls a day that tend to be the most a lot of local authorities will provide. That is not bullying. That’s the reality of our underfunded and broken social care system.

And family can still support the person to ask questions or ask on their behalf, with their consent, without a power of attorney being in place. 

elsien

@Littlemo11,  this is not a criticism. It’s an attempt to understand what happened. 

MIL was in a care home, where she didn’t want to be, for about 12 months. What did she/ family do during that time to try and get her home?
 Did she try and contact social services herself- if she had had a home care package before going into the care home she would have had previous contact with the local authority. 

Were you aware of any assessments at all, either by the social worker or by an OT or by anyone else? What level of help did she need – could she still move around independently for example, did she need one person or 2 to help with personal care, that sort of thing?

People can get dumped in care homes and be forgotten about but someone will have cancelled her home care package and confirmed the place with the care home.  So if she wanted to get home, what did she/you think she was waiting for for that to happen? Was anyone trying to chase people to speed things up?

As per my previous answer you need to challenge the local authority version of events. But to do that, you need information and a clearer picture of why she was still there after that length of time, and why no one was working to get her home, and what contact there was with social services over that time. That includes what she tried to do about it herself, if anything. 

Financial assessments should come after all the other care assessments - were any of you present when the financial assessment was carried out? 

Given the time that elapsed it may be difficult but could you contact the care home to see what agreements were signed, and what their understanding of the situation was? That would need to happen in writing.

Although when I say you, I actually mean whoever administered her estate. 

bazdvd

if the debt from the estate has to be repaid hopefully you can recover it from the granchildrens share (if not spent). 
I know this will be the last thing OP wants to do but had all debts been paid from the estate their inheritance might have been zero.
Remember funeral costs come first then debts. As long as you have a paper trail of the debts being cleared you might not have too much to worry about if the grandkids only got a minimal amount and not more than the £3k you owe.

badmemory

Well if we hadn't had a POA they were going to move my mother into a care home & were refusing to tell us where.  They would tell us nothing even though it was obvious that whilst being in hospital she was starting to suffer from dementia made worse by dehydration.