Care home fees

As your mother owns her own house and has savings, I believe she/you will be liable for the fees. Does she have a care worker through social services? They will be able to advise on this. We had to pay the fees for my mother when we were in a similar situation, but it was a few years ago and am not sure what the latest rules are. Hope you get some help for this and wish you all the best. It's not an easy decision to make, I know.

MIL died during Covid, there was enough money in her account to pay for her care for a few months (£1400 per week) we were told that we would have to sell her house to pay for the fees after that date.

My Sister in law provided proof that we had instructed an Estate Agent to sell the property, she also had to sign a legal contract to say that she would all be liable for the fees until the house sold.
Once the house sold we had to pay the amount owing back to the home, it meant that we sold it fairly cheaply as we had the fees to pay, but it sold fairly quickly considering it was during Covid.

I’m assuming they have been put in the position of people dying and no one has paid the outstanding bill.

I believe social services try to get you to agree to pay for a relative’s care but it is not your responsibility and you should not agree to do so.

You must tell the DWP straight away if she moves into a care home but I’m afraid I don’t know if her entitlement to benefits will change. Someone else here will know.

The house will have to be sold, assuming that your mil lives there alone. Until the sale completes a charge can be put on it to cover unpaid care home fees. Unless someone has power of attorney, which would enable them to sell, it will be necessary for someone to be appointed her deputy by the Office of the Public Guardian in order to sell the house.

What GSM said about not taking responsibility is correct so when they slide that piece of paper across the table, don’t sign it. Same as when you sign the contract if she goes into a care home. Don’t agree to foot the bill if anything happens.

Your MIL’s case sounds just like my Mum’s was. She had very little in the Bank but did own her own house. She got SP, Pension Credit and AA like your MIL. These continued when she went into care.
Mum got 6 weeks in a rehab setting when she left one care home following a serious fall. That was NHS so was free.
She had been there 8 months and we had paid the full whack because she did own her own home.

When she moved to another care home we had to sell her home to pay care home fees which were nearly £1000 a week.
We sold the house but we were offered a deferred payment scheme where your care fees are paid but when the house sells they are paid back but with interest. We didn’t fancy that.

I know it cost a lot for Mum’s 3-4 years in homes but the second one was worth every penny because although I was there every other day, no way could I have cared for Mum like they did. Nothing was too much trouble and they all loved her.
Good luck.

Hi my mum went into care last December, but she didn’t have a house to sell. Mum has lost her attendance allowance and pension credit. Her state pension remains the same, we have to pay the care home fees from that, LA pay the rest. She’s allowed £30 approx a week to pay for clothes snd toiletries.
The LA have been paying the care home so far. They’ve been very slow in sorting out the financial assessment that we need. I will get a big bill sometime 🙈 wish they would hurry up and sort it out.

I am a little bit confused about the way in which Pension, Attendance Allowance and other personal pensions are mentioned. I understand that a small amount of spending money is given to the resident. About £30 apparently. Does it work like this:
Fees £1000 per week (for instance. I will keep to round figures)
Mum has pension of £230.
Her allocated spending money £30

So the rest of her state pension, Attendance Allowance and any private pension goes towards her care home fees.

This would leave £200 per week towards care home fees.

Presumably this means she now owes £800 per week towards her care home fees which will be deducted from the eventual sale of her house?

Another question. Instead of selling the house does anyone know if it's possible to rent out the house while she's in the home, putting the income from that against the cost of care?

Thanks anyone who can shed light on any of this. We are not in this situation yet. We are fortunate in having a fairly active, fairly independent 93 year old mother ...but I know that at this age things can change almost overnight. I dread having to sort any of this and hope we'll not need to but any thoughts on this might be helpful to me and others.

I’m glad to hear that you’ve more or less got things sorted out for your mum Katyj.
I remember you looking for a home for her and how difficult you found it all. It is a bit of a maze.

Phillips my mother first went into a care home after a fall where she broke her shoulder. She was in hospital for two weeks and then discharged into a nice care home at the expense of the NHS. That is supposed to last for six weeks but she ended up being funded for three months because she wasn’t well enough to go home. Then it was decided to end her funding even though she still was unable to go home. The care home wanted us to be a guarantor for her in case her own funds ran out but we refused. I felt terrible for refusing but I felt that when her own funds ran out, that SS should pick up the cost just as they do for other people with no savings. Anyway they would’nt agree to her staying in that home unless we signed and so we had to find another. We did do that and it was a lovely home. She lived there for almost another year before she died. During all that time she was self funding as she had savings, so she still received her pension and Attendance Allowance. We were in the process of selling her little sheltered apartment but the sale was only finally completed after her death.

I would echo the advice of others. Don’t sign anything whereby you agree to pay for your mother because if she can’t fund her own care, SS should pick up the cost. I can’t advise on whether she’ll get the six weeks care provided, but I do think that your mum would probably only get that if she was admitted to hospital as an emergency first. I might be wrong though so don’t take that as definite.

Here is information about the potential renting out of your mum’s house which should help you decide if this is the right thing for you Phillips.
www.payingforcare.org/rent-your-home-out/#:~:text=You%20can%20rent%20out%20your,realise%20the%20property's%20full%20value.

As your mother will be self funding her care home fees, neither her pension, pension credit or Attendance Allowance will be affected. She will continue to be entitles to all of them.

The situation would have been different had she been looking to the Local Authority to pay her fees.

Her £20,000 savings plus pension, AA etc should cover her fees for a few months and, hopefully, her house will be under offer by then if not sold.

Katyj

Hi my mum went into care last December, but she didn’t have a house to sell. Mum has lost her attendance allowance and pension credit. Her state pension remains the same, we have to pay the care home fees from that, LA pay the rest. She’s allowed £30 approx a week to pay for clothes snd toiletries.
The LA have been paying the care home so far. They’ve been very slow in sorting out the financial assessment that we need. I will get a big bill sometime 🙈 wish they would hurry up and sort it out.

Sounds like they are funding your Mum and I don’t think you should be topping it up. It is quite usual for the benefits to be stopped and leave the person with £30ish.

Been a long day so I might be reading your post wrongly but there is no way a State Pension would cover care home fees.

Hi. Yes the LA will be funding mums care. The social worker asked if we were willing to pay top up fees of £200 a month for a larger room, but we refused. I actually prefer the room she has , it’s in a good position, and close to everything she needs.
It’s an awful long slog getting everything sorted out. It’s six months since I gained appointeeship for mum because I didn’t have POA and I’m still no closer to a financial assessment.

Primrose you’re right in that a state pension on it’s own wouldn’t fund the whole of a person’s care, but the pension is used towards the cost of the care if a person is being funded by Social Services. I think that a certain amount is given back to the resident as spending money, for clothes, toiletries, hair cuts etc.

In the circumstances where someone has pension and benefit income, but no capital assets, like a house or more than £23,000 in savings, then the Local Authority is responsible for paying the fees. They will take nearly all your mother's income, bar £30 a week, 52bright and will pay any shortfall.

They will, however, do their best to get family members to agree to pay the extra money, or at least make a good contribution and they will try and morally blackmail, make veiled threats about what care home they wll put her in, suggest you are obliged to make these payment etc etc. Just say No,no.no, no, ad infinitum until they stop asking, you do not have to do this.

So what happens to single people who are no contact with their relatives?

maddyone

Primrose you’re right in that a state pension on it’s own wouldn’t fund the whole of a person’s care, but the pension is used towards the cost of the care if a person is being funded by Social Services. I think that a certain amount is given back to the resident as spending money, for clothes, toiletries, hair cuts etc.

Yes, that’s what I meant but it isn’t quite what katyj said. They take everything off you including your pension and leave you with that £30ish so all your fees get paid. They are heavily subsidised by people who self fund which is completely wrong but another story altogether. I was so tired last night!

Phillips. Sorry I haven’t been much use as my mum didn’t have a property to sell. I do know that you’d be able to rent the house though and use the money to help with the fees.
Mum owes 4.5k now to the council and no one seems to care. They just keep paying her pensions into her bank. Make no wonder they’re virtually bankrupt!

biglouis I am not sure what you mean. If you are incompetent to manage your affairs and have no POA set up, social services will take over the management of your finances,

Your assets, like a house, if you have one, will be sold to defray the cost of your care, and where there is no house or significant asset, then the LA will pay for your care.

I would think long and hard before going down the route of renting out a parent’s house to pay the care costs. It is onerous being a landlord. What is going to happen to the house when the parent dies? If it is going to be sold then, why not now and get it over with? If a family member hope or plans to keep it, think it through. This is not the time for sentiment. Delaying by having a charge put on the house racks up interest too.
I believe AgeUK has excellent fact sheets on funding care costs.

Yes apparently if I had refused to be mums appointee. There would have been a court order made and her financial assessment made by them.
The postman just dropped a heavy letter through the door this morning it’s a financial assessment 🙈 looks horrendous! Just had a quick look they want to know all the properties mum and ever owned and that's just one question. Beginning to wonder if it might have been better to refuse to be an appointee.
Anyone know how far I need to go back, I can’t remember the addresses anyway.

Thanks for explaining Primrose.
My husband talked about renting out mum’s flat, but I refused. I didn’t want the ongoing responsibilities and the possibility that the tenant wouldn’t move out when we needed them to.

My husband is in a care home in wales. They added up his pension both government and private . They ignored any money under £50000 and the house because I am still living in it. His care element of pip was stopped but the motobility part has continued unless he goes into a nursing home. Pensions etc are still put into his bank they then allow him approx £40 per week for expenses and he is billed monthly for the difference roughly a £1000 per month.
This is a council run care home in wales so no supplement to pay.
Hope this helps

Here is the AgeUK link I referred to earlier.
www.ageuk.org.uk/information-advice/care/paying-for-care/paying-for-a-care-home/

They really do harass you to pay for relatives care once their savings have run out. Also, many threats that you must move them to another council funded care home( cheaper).
Just say no everytime. Horrible bullying phone calls continued over several weeks. Very stressful. We told them to stop contacting us & refused to move our relative or pay for her.
Decided to threaten them with newspaper coverage if they continued to harass us. We also got our high profile MP involved. They left us alone after that, and our relative was funded by Social services in the care home we’d chosen for her last few years.
Note- it was a mid priced home- not one of the very expensive types- we knew her money would run out after a couple of years self funding so chose wisely.

SuzieHi Sorry you had to go through that must have been dreadful. The whole thing is like walking through a minefield with very little help.
It’s stressful enough putting your loved one in a care home without the endless hassle.