Care home finance query

[Dawg]

Just wondered if anyone knew about the funding aspect of old age care.

My 85 year old mum has reached the point of her needing to go into care - she's been living on her own but her lower back is in a terrible state and her dementia is getting worse...

Her assets are the house (est value of £200k) and 20k savings. She gets a weekly pension of £190 and a work pension of £600p/m - and she gets £380p/m attendance allowance.

I was led to believe that she gets 12 weeks care without having to pay?

We have also found a family who would like to rent her house. Is this a usual way of part funding fees?


thanks in advance

[SuffolkDefender]

Funnily enough, my 85yr old mum went into care at the end of November, due to lower back pain and her dementia getting worse. She turned 86 just before Christmas and I was worried sick about how she'd be, being in a care home over Xmas and NY, but in the end it was fine because she really didn't have a clue. However, it can be a terribly stressful time, makes you feel very guilty, makes you wonder all the time if you've done the right thing but you will soon see that you have. But, if you need someone to talk to about it, feel free to drop me a line.

As for funding, my mum had insufficient assets (sub £23k, which is the cutoff point) and the house was in her husbands' name) so is thankfully state funded, but the costs are around £38k/annum if we we were having to pay for it (South Cambs area). Being realistic about it, now is probably not the worst time to sell a house if you can whilst prices are still relatively high, but if the rent will cover some of the fees, that may also not be a bad idea. I think she should qualify for the 12 weeks as you said but that may be down to local authority.

Edited by SuffolkDefender on Wednesday 4th January 13:26

[highpeakrider]

I'd have a look at this for further info, I found it very useful, a care home I was looking at for mum passed me this info.
https://www.eldercaregroup.co.uk/care-home-funding

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ovl6svN7wZM

https://www.youtube.com/@EldercareGroup

[Grandad Gaz]

I think you have two choices.
Either rent it out and pay the difference yourself, or get the council to defer payment until you decide to sell it.
They will put a charge on the property and take the money out when sold.
You will have to pay a small amount of interest on the total amount owed, but it shouldn’t be a lot.

We are currently paying £4,500 a month. for my mums care home and have been doing so since dad died a year ago and we sold the house for her.

Edit: we would have liked to have rented it out, but, like a lot of old peoples homes, it needed a lot of work to update it.

Sorry, not thinking. £4,500 a month!

Edited by Grandad Gaz on Wednesday 4th January 16:52

Edited by Grandad Gaz on Wednesday 4th January 16:56

[alscar]

A week ?!

[SuffolkDefender]

Grandad Gaz said:

We are currently paying £4,500 a week for my mums care home and have been doing so since dad died a year ago and we sold the house for her.

Jesus H.

If you don't mind me asking, what sort of place is your mum's care home? That's £235k a year.

[Grandad Gaz]

alscar said:

A week ?!

Sorry, not thinking! Edited for stupidity

[ziggy328]

She will get 12 weeks, she should be discharged to an assess bed.

Has your mum been assessed for Continuation of Care by the NHS? If not she should be and if she meets the criteria she should not be paying anything for her care. You really do need to insist on this being carried out. If you want to drop me a PM I will send you a link that explains it all, together with an 8 page or so summary I did of it.

Best of luck

[alscar]

Lol - still outrageous though isn’t it.
As I posted in that other recent thread about care homes my Aunts fees are now £55k pa and whilst she seems happy enough and the staff really do seem to care and look after them well it certainly makes you think.

[PositronicRay]

My mum sold her bungalow and purchased an annuity for peace of mind.

Worked quite well.

[alscar]

Yup I did the same for my Aunt - immediate needs annuity.
Covers 85% of the fees for life but obviously a bit of a gamble.
That said she is nearly at the 3 year stage so just about halfway to the decision being very sensible.
It was almost worth the cost to see the look on her face when I said she never needed to worry about affording the care home fees for as long as she lived.
She then added “ right I shall live to be 100 then “.

[Dawg]

Thanks all. How does it work when her savings are used up, as a house sale might take months to go through…?

[alscar]

Dawg, based on what I sorted for my Aunt my answer would be establish a good relationship with the care home and / or the person at the Council responsible for assessing the numbers.
There was a sizeable wait in paying the care home what they were owed prior to the house sale but I also managed to get the Council to pay the care home during this time and then ultimately pay them back although ( long story short ) actually ended up much better off.
This was all during Covid though and one of the benefits of being wfh in front of a computer meant I could do a lot of this.
Social services were useless though.

[ziggy328]

I can't attach my condensed version of this document I used when dealing with my mum, however here's a link to the 150 page version I based it upon.

You really should read it and refuse to discuss funding with anyone until you have,

https://caretobedifferent.co.uk/wp-content/uploads...

[Phil.]

Op

My mother entered a care home last July, it costs £1200 a week. My key learnings are:

Your contract is with a private care home and they only care about being paid on time, not where the money comes from. So if you need to sell a property to fund the care home costs then do it in good time.

Once your mother’s assets fall below £23k, the local council will fund up to around £700 a week. However, they typically deduct half of the weekly pension value from the £700. In my case this means when my mother would only receive around £500 per week from the council and to fund a £1200 a week care home we will have to fund the other £700 a week from her remaining pension and other family sources. Or move her to a lower cost care home. Make sure you check your local council rules on this as they are all different.

Bottom line, it’s bloody expensive and you don’t get as much local council support as you might believe!

[Phil.]

ziggy328 said:

I can't attach my condensed version of this document I used when dealing with my mum, however here's a link to the 150 page version I based it upon.

You really should read it and refuse to discuss funding with anyone until you have,

https://caretobedifferent.co.uk/wp-content/uploads...

Continuing Healthcare funding is a nightmare to achieve. We attempted it for my FIL who was tube fed, unable to move or speak, double incontinent, was irresponsible/dangerous to himself when making decisions and we still failed, require 24hr fully-time care. We were refused twice after an appeal and using expert solicitors to represent us.

It was apparent throughout the process that those responsible for undertaking the process and making the decision (the NHS) were never going to agree to the funding by the NHS. It became a embarrassing farce as the NHS couldn’t justify any of their decisions but still said no. The last meeting with them took 5 hours during which they squirmed their way through unable to answer the questions our solicitor asked them. They blatantly lied and manipulated their assessment throughout the process which took over a year.

Then he died a few months later which resolved the issue.

[worsy]

ziggy328 said:

She will get 12 weeks, she should be discharged to an assess bed.

Has your mum been assessed for Continuation of Care by the NHS? If not she should be and if she meets the criteria she should not be paying anything for her care. You really do need to insist on this being carried out. If you want to drop me a PM I will send you a link that explains it all, together with an 8 page or so summary I did of it.

Best of luck

This

Phil. said:

ziggy328 said:

I can't attach my condensed version of this document I used when dealing with my mum, however here's a link to the 150 page version I based it upon.

You really should read it and refuse to discuss funding with anyone until you have,

https://caretobedifferent.co.uk/wp-content/uploads...

Continuing Healthcare funding is a nightmare to achieve. We attempted it for my FIL who was tube fed, unable to move or speak, double incontinent, was irresponsible/dangerous to himself when making decisions and we still failed, require 24hr fully-time care. We were refused twice after an appeal and using expert solicitors to represent us.

It was apparent throughout the process that those responsible for undertaking the process and making the decision (the NHS) were never going to agree to the funding by the NHS. It became a embarrassing farce as the NHS couldn’t justify any of their decisions but still said no. The last meeting with them took 5 hours during which they squirmed their way through unable to answer the questions our solicitor asked them. They blatantly lied and manipulated their assessment throughout the process which took over a year.

Then he died a few months later which resolved the issue.

We had an issue where the assessment should have been done but because of NHS/Council bureaucracy it wasn't. We got our MP involved and had the resulting 30k fees returned to us.

[Caddyshack]

Worth checking if Mum owned the house previously with Dad and if Dad died did he happen to leave his half of the house to a trust as opposed to Mum? As you cannot sell half a house the property value would be removed from Mum's "worth" for means testing.

REF: Crag report State vs Age Concern.

[ziggy328]

Phil. said:

ziggy328 said:

I can't attach my condensed version of this document I used when dealing with my mum, however here's a link to the 150 page version I based it upon.

You really should read it and refuse to discuss funding with anyone until you have,

https://caretobedifferent.co.uk/wp-content/uploads...

Continuing Healthcare funding is a nightmare to achieve. We attempted it for my FIL who was tube fed, unable to move or speak, double incontinent, was irresponsible/dangerous to himself when making decisions and we still failed, require 24hr fully-time care. We were refused twice after an appeal and using expert solicitors to represent us.

It was apparent throughout the process that those responsible for undertaking the process and making the decision (the NHS) were never going to agree to the funding by the NHS. It became a embarrassing farce as the NHS couldn’t justify any of their decisions but still said no. The last meeting with them took 5 hours during which they squirmed their way through unable to answer the questions our solicitor asked them. They blatantly lied and manipulated their assessment throughout the process which took over a year.

Then he died a few months later which resolved the issue.

Sorry to hear of your experience. I secured full funding for my mum within a week. The main point I was trying to raise is that the vast majority of people aren't even aware of NHS CoC and yet everyone is entitled to be assessed for it. It's enshrined in case law yet nobody tells you about it.

[g40steve]

Wow this thread opened my eyes!
We lost wife’s parents recently after being placed in a home & later that year the home got covid
I am sure they weren’t accessed & the care home fees as you know are not insignificant!
Keep up the good work, might ask for a copy of documents as could come in handy

I think your local to me Lboro