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?”
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.
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.
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.



0800 074 8755info@clivebarwell.co.uk