Care Home Top Up Fees

Hi

I can answer your question as we have just done this.

Under a DPA the council will pay the ENTIRE cost of the care home. They will invoice you once a month for your Mothers contribution.
This will be ALL of her state pension, any private pensions, and Attendance Allowance ( which she is entitled to). However, you can elect to keep back a certain amount to cover any property related expenditure (buildings insurance, mortgage, repairs, gardener, etc - we keep back £400 per month for these expenses in Mums case)
The entire difference between the monthly home fees and your Mums contribution will accrue under the DPA and will be repaid when the property is sold.

You do not have to make ANY top up contribution.

Also, should you wish to do so, you can look to rent out your Mums property to assist with the home fees and reduce the amount totting up under the DPA.

Also, as your Mum is in care, council tax on the property will be suspended from the point she went into care.

Hope this helps

martin1959 wrote: »

Also she has £10k so that’s 10 months worth of money.
Can’t the house be sold in that time?

£10k will last 10 WEEKS not Months.......

No it is months in this case. It’s not straightforward as the numbers are similar which is where i suspect you’ve confused. the weekly fee is £1050 but if the council pay £800 then there’s a shortfall of £1000 every 4 weeks.

lisyloo wrote: »

Also she has £10k so that’s 10 months worth of money.
Can’t the house be sold in that time?

I am selling my MILs flat. We were lucky as we got asking price before it went on the market (EA already had a buyer lined up).
Have you spoken to estates agents.
If no family can make a loan (and it’s safe as houses) then make the price attractive to sell.
Auction is an option but with 10 months I’d try a discounted price.

It doesn't work like that. The council start paying when your funds fall below £23,250, but you will be assessed and need to pay a contribution. So out of that £10,000 they should pay a contribution but not the full amount.

To the OP: Don't be mad and take out a loan, £1000 a month is £12,000 per year and your MIL could live for god knows how many years.

Why do you want to keep the house, it sounds like the best solution without putting yourself into a very deep hole is to sell the house.

I'm actually surprised the council hasn't already taken the home into account and wonder why they are paying the £800 already? You need to give a much clearer picture of what is going on if you want a good answer re your options.

I work in the hospital and arrange placements for many people every week so hopefully can advise.

martin1959 wrote: »

Also she has £10k so that’s 10 months worth of money.
Can’t the house be sold in that time?

£10k will last 10 WEEKS not Months.......

The shortfall in post number 1 is £1000 per month. I am referring to the shortfall/top up not the entire fee.

I would not recommend renting the place out.
If a tenant doesn’t move out then evicting them is a slow process (my landlord friends tell me courts are at least a 4 month wait in our area).
They may not help with viewings in fact it’s not reasonable to expect them to live in a museum.
The rent is relatively small compared to the fees.
Simply not worth it IMO as it could cost you a sale.

Also the person in the nursing home cannot do the physical parts of being a landlord even if they were capable of the admin, so you would need someone to do those.

bridging loans are very expensive.
How long has the property been on the market?
When did it go on the market? (just asking for time of year).
Have you discussed with EA what you can do to get a quicker sale? (odds-on the answer is going to be drop the price).


Our buyer was very keen to buy our flat.
She dropped the price of her house £20K on the advice of the EA and got a sale very quickly.


Ask your EA how much you need to drop the price to get a quick sale, then you could compare with the costs of a loan or going to auction.
Have you considered putting the property up for auction?

Can none of her family look at increasing their mortgages?

That would be a much cheaper loan and they could look to secure a charge on her property so it's literally safe as houses.


If you are dropping the price I'd talk to the LA.
If she runs out of money she may need to be LA funded one day so you wouldn't (well I wouldn't) want to be accused of making bad decisions.


BTW - I completely sympathise with your situation.
We visisted many homes and some were dreadful.
We also had a big fight with LA as they wanted to split up MIL and FIL who'd been married 60 years. He was largely bed bound and her wheelchair bound, so they wouldn't have seen each other very much if they'd been in seperate homes.
We won but a big factor was that FIL was in hospital bed blocking and I understand LAs can be fined for that so they had a financial motivation to resolve it.
As it happened he only spent 11 days in the home before he died but they were peaceful days with MIL instead of noisy, disturbed days in hospital.