Parents joint bank and care home....

Batsandstats

Hi, mum (74) and dad (75) dont own a house, they are tenants

Both have just the state pension coming in (about £900 PCM)

Dad looks set to be needing full time care following a stroke

They have a joint bank account with £32,000 balance

They have no savings or ISA's etc

My question is, how do a council apportion the joint balance when assesing help for care home fees? Mum will need money to live on if dad goes into care

TIA

p00hsticks

I think they'll divide the amount in half - so £16k each.. 

with less that £23,500 your father's care would need to be funded by the Local Authority, and they'd take most his state pension apart from a weekly allowance they leave for him to pay for things like toiletries, haircuts etc (it used to be £25 when my mother in law was in care a few years ago, I'm not sure if it still is). 

Once your father is in a care home, then for the purposes of the benefits system your mother is treated as a single person, so she'd be entitled to things like single person council tax discount, possibly pension credit if she is receiving less than the full amount of state pension (although s o

elsien

Have a look at the jointly owned capital section in this link: the 32K they have in the joint bank account will count as savings. 
https://www.ageuk.org.uk/siteassets/documents/factsheets/fs10_paying_for_permanent_residential_care_fcs.pdf

Generally speaking it would be treated as 50/50 as a starting point. 

Both can look at eligibility for pension credit in their own right and your mum can also look at things like council tax reduction as a single person. Plus, she already has her pension in her own right. How is the rent being paid at the moment? Would she have any eligibility for housing benefit once the money in the joint account is split between the two of them?
does she have any care needs of her own which she could apply for attendance allowance for? 
Does your dad still have capacity  his finances or is there a power of attorney for finances in place?

Keep_pedalling

I think for simplicity now would be a good time to put the bulk of that £32k into separate savings accounts and just keep the joint account for their income. It will be earning zero interest at the moment. Avoid ISAs as neither of them will pay any tax on interest.

Does anyone have power of attorney for him?

Brie

The council should take into account that some of dad's pension was being used to keep the pair of them housed and fed etc.  So they shouldn't be taking all of it as that may make mom homeless if she can no longer afford the rent and the rest.  Obviously just because there's only 1 person there rather than 2 doesn't mean the rent is discounted by 50%.