Blog | Posts Tagged 'Care Fees'

Aspects of the Dilnot Commission are incorporated into the Care Act 2015, including a “cap” on care costs and an increase in the asset threshold. Will this help you? The Government’s “smoke and mirrors” approach to this is exposed!

Many people try and shelter their assets in the belief it will mean the Council will pay for their care. Is this a myth?

Underpinning the funding elements of the Care Act 2014 are “Eligible Care Needs”, which are explored in this article.

In this article I introduce the Deferred Payment Scheme (“Equity Release” offered by the Local Authority in lieu of selling Granny’s home to pay for her care).

If you are needing help with deciding what is the right care package for you or a loved-one this article introduces you to MySupportBroker, who can do all the leg-work for you and probably save you money into the bargain.

When you reach that stage in your life, or the life of a loved one, when you realise that you need help, there is a bewildering array of options available to you. Which one do you choose?

Whilst Granny’s home doesn’t have to be sold during her lifetime, it may well still need to be sold after her death to repay the debt.

You may consider that Granny can no longer safely live in her own home and that she needs to go into a Care Home, but if the Local Authority doesn’t share that view, there will be no contribution to costs, regardless of whether Granny would qualify on financial grounds alone.

Elsewhere I have discussed Asset Protection Trusts, Wills and other means of sheltering assets so that an individual becomes eligible for Council help with care costs, but will that help actually be forthcoming?

One of the factors I have discussed in each of these blogs is Deliberate Deprivation and, if the Council can prove that this has occurred, then help with care costs may not be forthcoming. However, there are other factors that need to be taken into account, which are the Social Care Eligibility Criteria.

My post box recently had the following question:

“My Wife will soon be going into permanent care. At present our home is in “Tenants in Common” format. At some stage in the future I will probably want to sell and move to a smaller property. Can the new property be held under “Tenants in Common”?”

My mail box recently had the following question in it regarding a “granny annexe” and I thought the answer would be of interest.

The question was on behalf a friend. The father, late 80s, with Alzheimer’s Disease has recently lost his wife. The family is considering the possibility of the father selling his house and using some of the money to build a granny annexe to the home of one of the children.

My mailbox recently had the following question in it and I thought I should share my answer as it is a commonly recurring theme…

“My question is, no doubt, the most common one; should I put my 88 year old mother’s house (approx value £220,000) in our joint names; she has no savings? My mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s 5 years ago, but the illness is progressing slowly and she is unlikely to need care for 2/3 years. Would this fall under the ‘deprivation’ rule?”

Only the minority will live in care long enough to reach the cap.

Granny has come to a point in her life where she would be better with some extra support to assist her daily living. This situation happens to many people in the UK as demands on families increase.

Not all elderly care homes are equipped to provide specialist care for Dementia and all its various guises. Patients diagnosed with Dementia need specialist nursing care and these specialist homes, often called EMI Homes (Elderly Mental Infirm), will have Patient care under the professional support of a Registered Mental Nurse.

The three main drivers of care costs – location, location, location! Use the following blog post to check average care home fees in your area.

If someone permanently enters residential care, owning their own home and they are subject to means-testing, their home is disregarded for the first 12-weeks. What “disregard” means in this context is quite literal – for the purposes of means-testing the home does not exist for those first 12-weeks. All other qualifying assets will be taken into account, but not your home.

Understandably, families who are watching their inheritance disappear whilst an elderly relative is paying for care home fees are keen to put the burden on the NHS. How?

Giving your home away is an extremely bad idea for a number of reasons. Firstly, when you give your home away, you do exactly that, it is no longer your asset, it belongs to someone else.

For example, if one Spouse is in care and the other is living at home, but then the one living at home dies, all the couple’s wealth will be in the hands of the patient and available to pay for their care. How can this be avoided?