declaring assets to social services

Given the quality and quantity of care provided by Social Services and how little they are prepared to pay for residential care. I would rather use every resource I have to ensure my comfort than subsist in discomfort but feeling smug because I have either hidden or divested myself of any money or assets I might have.

The phrase 'cutting off your nose to spite your face' comes to mind.

My Mother in Law had £20,000 pounds hidden away in a building society while getting free housing from the Council. She was eventually found out because the Inland Revenue were collecting tax on it and informed the Council. We had a hell of a job sorting it out. Obviously all the money went to the Council and we got Power of Attorney so that she didn't touch any money at all. Till the day she died she complained about the Council taking all her money. She didn't seem to see anything wrong at all. Heaven knows what would have happened if they'd inquired any further because I've got no idea how she amassed that sum in the first place.

I have recently been called in to JobCentre for an interview with a Compliance Officer. I had to produce Bank Statements going back nearly 4 years. I was not concerned as I had already provided detailed statements & invoices to them almost 2 years ago.

Reason for their interest was I sold my property in 2015 & bought another (both are/were my only residence), it appeared that I had about £35K, in fact I could prove legitimate spending.

Upshot of the interview -computer printout assessed I would have £14K - I wish. When Compliance Officer checked my financial records on his computer he could see I had little money left. I am 61 with a Civil Service Pension, I only receive a small amount of benefit. There's no hiding place

If person who issued my letter had only looked at my record instead of simply referring case to be investigated they could have saved us both a lot of time. Interestingly if I had "works of art" or "gold bars" they would not count that

Azie09

How right you are, but it is called fraud, this is why money gets shuffled around and the state pays. There is not a bottomless pit, where do people think the money to fund care comes from? Now it is virtually all in private hands and that is another ball game, money gets taken out of the companies to pay big salaries at the top, look at what happened to Southern Cross. Government has long starved the local authorities of money and this is the result. Where will it all end???

We know some people, let's call them acquaintances, who sold grandma's house and had her to live with them for a short while. They then bought a Canary Wharf flat for their adult daughters and not long after found a care home for Grandma because it was too stressful having her in the granny flat which they generally rent out for holidays anyway. They used whatever was left to pay for the care home but that has now run out and Grandma is doing well, despite being in her 90s, and so the local authority is now being asked to pick up the tabs. Questions were asked about the money from the house sale but they seem to have got away with it. Given how cash strapped the local authority is, it seemed very unfair to us but some seem able to make the system work for them.

If a person is wholly self-funding, Attendance Allowance is still paid. At least up to 3 years ago when I retired from DWP.

I believe attendance allowance stops when the person goes into care NaughtyNanna

Rigby46
You ever tried renting out a house? We rent from need not profit.

Criminals are very clever and easily defraud letting agents with false evidence. Even the most reputable agents end up with benefit claimant tenants when they have stated no hb claimants in their adverts.

Nothing wrong with genuine benefit claimany tenants, it is the criminals who are the problem. Clearly people do not realise the scale of the problem and if they did more resources would go into trying to get limited welfare bill resources to the people who need and deserve it.

Working in a benefit fraud team really opens your eyes and the lengths criminals go to to defraud are endless.

Jaycee5
I speak from working in the service, not on who has knocked on a neighbour's door.

The house is being rented from need not profit, as was clearly stated.

There is a huge amount of benefit fraud, however I did, again, clearly state those people entitled to it should get it, but often people don't claim when they could because of the stigma as they are too proud to claim.

I met a few spendthrifts, but not many. I met many people who had been too poor throughout their lives to save any money or had been hit by a disaster that wiped out all their savings.

(the 200 was of course her spending money ,,,the cost of the cruise was separate ,,,,just in case everyone is rushing to find a cruise for that per week !)

Just out of interest what happens if someone has taken equity release in their main house ? and then spent all the money on having a good time with the money the worked and paid taxes for all their lives ......and leave nothing ? just interested ...no interest in any property in the UK but I bet someone has thought of a way to get round it ! and did I read in the UK press this week something about taking the money after the beneficiary of the care home fees has died from the Estate (presuming there is one !)

Cannot fault something I read online also this week ,,,an elderly lady sold her house for a considerable sum and took to cruising the world to different destinations all the time ...so much so that the staff on the liners all knew her and which cabin she preferred ...her reasoning was that it cost her about 200 a week to live onboard, with all her meals prepared, sheets changed, laundry done, company, entertainment and a general wonderful life ! She had made proviso to be buried at sea during whichever voyage was her last ...as she so rightly said, she could spend the rest of her days in an inadequate care home being isolated and lonely ! No when can I win the lottery so I can do just this > bliss !

As most things these days it seems that if you were prudent and honest all your life it is you that will suffer ,,,,those who saved nothing and own nothing pay nothing ! Justice ?

As a Home Visitor I dealt with several clients who were having their finances checked by both Pensions Agency and local authorities. One lady had to repay £1500 overpaid benefit, although in this case the problem lay with the person who had completed her claim form for her (not me) rather than her being dishonest.

Not directly related to the Op but please, please if you are looking into care homes and fess, consider renting the person's property out.The rental income plus pension(s) and any attendance allowance can often be enough to pay the fees for as long as it takes and the asset (the house) is kept in the family. As this is the wish of many people needing care, it can be a great comfort to know that the house is still there. Self funders also have far more choice of home.

When my father died in 2014, the DWP asked me as the executor to write to each bank/ building society to get statements as far back as possible. This is because he was on pension credit and their information " didn't match" his records. When we asked exactly what didn't match they would not tell us. Most statements went back to 2008, no records were kept by the bank before this. We knew Dad did not owe any money as he had very little. Unfortunately, Dad had many small accounts at lots of different places as he did not believe in putting all his eggs in the same basket. It took my sister and I over a year to do all the paperwork. I think there were 10 different accounts and a small number of shares. The amount of letter writing and getting photo copies you would not believe. As we knew, at the end of the day, Dad owed no one anything but the stress and worry put on my 91 year old mother was awful. I did wonder at the time why we had to do it if they could have done it themselves, but everything was fine in the end.

I cared for my late husband in the last three years before he passed away when his vascular dementia and Tia's had became worse.
His care worker arranged for respite now and then to give me a rest. I had to pay half for this care as MY assets from a small inheritance , not my husbands,. would not allow him full state benefit while in these care homes.I felt extremely insulted when our finances were looked into and the person carrying this out commented it was not unknown for other members of the family to''look after anothers money'' to obtain free care .

Grandmoir Surely your first comment is more important than your second. There will always be shoplifters but that does not mean that all shoppers should be frisked as they go in the store. It does not mean that every topic about shopping should descend into a discussion about shoplifters nor that shoppers should be asked what they are going to do about shoplifting or why they shouldn't find it reasonable to be searched in case they make be one themselves.

I tried to get continuing health care for my husband when he went into care because of Lewy Body Dementia, together with heart and thyroid conditions. Dementia is apparently not considered an illness in Northamptonshire. We paid £1000 a week for his care, during which time he was abused by a care worker, slapped in the face and his lip cut open. She was seen to do it by a co-worker, the case went to court and was dismissed as one person's word against another. We are presently taking the whole thing to court again but have been told there is very little hope of winning.
The guilt I feel at having let him go in cannot be described. He died 7 months after going in by which time he was just a body lying in the foetal position and responding only to my voice. So good luck in getting any help from Continuing Care. If you are in the last stages of cancer you might be lucky, but probably not if you have ever smoked......they would say it was self inflicted.
Margaret

I know of two persons who gave money to daughters in order to claim Pension Credit. I would not be able to sleep at night but there are always people who have no conscience.

Regarding benefit fraud, there are many people nowadays getting their benefit stopped for very petty reasons and food banks are essential for many people. However, there is definitely a small minority who are still managing to twist the system and receive benefits they should not be getting.

Good post Jaycee

I would only add, for general information, that if someone is going into care/nursing home because of a continuing health need, rather than needing social care, then they should be funded through the Continuing Health Care budget and therefore have their needs paid for by the state. Not everyone seems to know of its existence.

So Whitehair you rent out one house and in the basis of that know that there is widespread HB cheating? And you are quite happy to benefit from it as the HB goes to you and is funded by tax. Some landlords won't take tenants on HB - you could decide that and then you wouldn't be condoning this widespread fraud would you?

Whitehaven123 There are over 2,500 people employed in preventing benefit fraud. The number of people employed in preventing tax fraud is less than 200.
People on benefits are already being demonised and accused of being dishonest.
The DWP includes people making a mistake which means that they get less than they are entitled to as fraud and figures are given for 'fraud and error' which includes their own mistakes.
Any large financial system has a certain amount of fraud but the amount in the benefit system is far less than in most others of a similar size.
Authorities do deal with complaints of fraud, the vast majority of which are found to be malign. Maybe 'nothing was done about it' because there was no fraud.
The DWP is very hot on fraud. I had a visit from them asking me about a neighbour who was claiming income support as a single father but not claiming child benefit and they asked me if I had seen him with a child. They are clearly pro-active in trying to cut fraud.
Trying kicking up rather than down.

Have noted comments about fraud etc. All I will say that as a landlord of a private house, my mother's aged 91, living with my sister for care, it is amazing the number of tenants who are committing fraud by claiming housing benefit they are not actually entitled to. What is more amazing is even when these frauds are brought to the attention of the local authority nothiing is done as these frauds are now dealt with centrally by central govt and not local authority. The benefit claims are currently still submitted to the local authority and because of staff cuts they don't have the time to look at claims properly, checking bank account information, reports of people who actually are couples but claiming as two separate individuals etc, so fraud in this area of benefits is rife and we are all paying for it.

My mother pays tax on her modest income, we are not buy to let big boys, just trying to cover the costs of maintaining the house and her living expenses , it makes me sick to see these frauds for quite large sums of money going unaddressed. New fraud teams set up are there to deal with the importing cigarettes and booze type scenarios, fraud detection on benefit fraud is minimal, and only very few cases make it to prosecutions and paper headline status.

So, bit of a rant but more examples of the innocent get penalised because they declare everything honestly and the criminals continue to get away with it.

Having worked for a local authority my comments are from hard facts and not political ideology.

Some people deserve financial support and should get it, many though are frauds and are costing this country a huge amount of money, no wonder the welfare bill is sky high. More money spent on fraud detection would make sure the money goes to the people who deserve it.

Rant over.