Selling house for care home fees

Johnny_Doe

Hi All,

My elderly father (90) is currently in a care home for 4-6 weeks to be assessed as to what care needs he has (currently NHS funded). We are almost 100% sure he'll need care home/24/7 care as he has dementia and doesnt recall my visits each day amongst numerous other symptoms (amazingly still no diagnosis though!)

In terms of finance, he has a home and savings which will be used to pay care home fees. We have been investigating the option of CHC (and nuring FNC if CHC fails) as he has a primary care need. The odds appear low on this and have approached a lawyer who quoted £8k with a 50% chance of success which I'm not prepared to do (another story).. NHS CHC success he quoted around 12% but I'm not sure how accurate these are (he's a lawyer after money so my trust in him is low)

My Main query is regarding this which I found on government website:

Moving into a care home permanently

If you move into a care home permanently, your home won't be counted in the financial assessment if any of the following people still live there:

• your partner, spouse or civil partner
• your estranged or divorced partner if they're also a lone parent
• a relative who is 60 or over
• a relative who is under 60 who has a disability
• a child of yours aged under 18.
• 
  

My sister is 59 yrs old, owns her house. Could she move in with dad, hoepfully until 60th birthday so home isn't counted towards financial assessment. She also has quite severe anxiety so not sure if also comes under 

• a relative who is under 60 who has a disabilty

Would she need to sell her house, then move in with dad? Would it be seen as avoidance of paying fees?

Any advice greatly appreciated!

Thanks

elsien

No, that wouldn’t work.
 If your sister was already living with him then you would have an argument but her packing up home and moving in with him just before her 60th birthday purely to remove it from the financial assessment is not going to fly.

I am 99% sure that those circumstances would count as being deliberate deprivation of assets because she has no valid reason to move into his property when she already has her own place and he has already moved out. 

Does someone already have power-of-attorney for him?

Johnny_Doe

But if she needs to move in with him now to provide 24/7 home care, up until a point where he would need more advanced care from a care home

elsien

He’s already in a care home. There is already a clearly foreseeable need for a care home in the  very near future, even if he does come home temporarily. 

And if you are being honest her primary purpose in moving in would not be to care for him, it’s to protect the assets. Otherwise she would move in with him on a short term basis and then return to her own property as when he goes into care in the future which from what you said is likely to happen sooner rather than later. 

And putting all that aside do not underestimate the strain on a single carer, particularly one who already suffers from anxiety, of looking after someone with dementia 24/7 who may be up all night and is not safe to be left on their own. It gave my aunt a stroke looking after her husband in those circumstances. 

elmer

Im a care home assessor and unless your sister has sold her house I wouldn't accept it either

Why do you want your Dad to spend his remaining years in  a council home rather than picking the best home HE can afford 
Its not what I want for my mum

Albermarle

Johnny_Doe said:

But if she needs to move in with him now to provide 24/7 home care, up until a point where he would need more advanced care from a care home

I would very much think that she could not look after him 24/7, and would at the least need carers to come in regularly, maybe even overnight. If she has severe anxiety now, it would inevitably get a lot worse in that situation.

The whole idea seems like a non starter.

Johnny_Doe

elmer said:

Im a care home assessor and unless your sister has sold her house I wouldn't accept it either

Why do you want your Dad to spend his remaining years in  a council home rather than picking the best home HE can afford 
Its not what I want for my mum

Thanks So if she had sold her house you would accept it?

I didn't say he would remain in a council home. If the sister option is a non starter then we would move him to the best home possible which as it stands is around £80K yr.. 

elmer

As elsien says if she was already living with your Dad before he was admitted to hospital having sold her own home to do so and she was already 60 then I would consider not taking the house into consideration but you have already missed that boat so any attempt by your sister to now move in will be disallowed for the care home assessment as he is already in care so your sister won't be giving care and she currently is 59

Keep_pedalling

I would expect your sister selling her house and moving in would be considered a contrivance to avoid care costs and would be rejected. Frankly you should be looking at getting him the best care you can rather than trying to protect an inheritance. 

Johnny_Doe

ok thanks all - so on the subject of CHC - anyone had experience of this and what are the chances of success? Do I need a legal support? MSE article suggest not..

We have found a very nice care home which is suitable (in a higher than normal price range £1800 wk)

elsien

Full CHC funding is very hard to get. It isn’t based on diagnosis, but on the complexity and predictability/manageability of the need. It is always worth applying for, but unless your father has particularly complicated support needs related to physical health or dementia, then you need to be realistic. I would probably only get legal support for an appeal if you felt it was a very finely balanced decision following the assessment. 

It is more usual for the care home to be paid the funded nursing care top up, while the person pays the underlying fees. 

There is a full fact sheet if you scroll down to the end of this link. 

https://www.ageuk.org.uk/information-advice/health-wellbeing/health-services/nhs-continuing-healthcare/

If you are choosing a care home that is a lot more expensive than the local authority rates then you also need to think about your dad’s assets and how long they will last in terms of his likely life expectancy. Which is a horrible thing to have to think about, but does need to be on your radar. 

Because the local authority is very likely to look to move him somewhere cheaper at the point he stops self funding if the gap between what they will pay and the care home rates is too high. The LA  may pay a small top up and sometimes the care home will reduce their rates  to meet in the middle to allow someone to stay.

Option B for family to pay a voluntary third-party top up. There is no obligation to do this and it’s not affordable a lot of families. Just putting it out there because it might be for yours. 

If your father is going be a self funder then make sure he’s claiming attendance allowance, if he isn’t doing so already,