How can I be expected to pay £ 1,000 per month top up for my father.

Hi Jane

I was bought up in a council house and my parents did not have much money but I married a man with a reasonable amount of money and I got a reasonably good job.
Sadly my husband passed away when he was 55.
At the time my father went into the home he did not have £35k but he does now have that amount because he has been NHS funded in the home for over 6 years and he is allowed to keep all of his pensions.
I do not think I am responsible for payment for his care.
I am not pleading poverty but I am not a multi millionaire but I would have been poor if I had done what the social worker requested.
I do accept my fathers case is an extreme but it is not much consulation if you happen to be the son / daughter of a parent whose care needs go to the extreme if you are held liable to pay for them.

Janeainsworth I think the system would be unfair in a number of ways.

Some people who could well afford to pay a lot more than £35k would be benefitting at the expense of the tax payer in a similar way to the wealthy being given free bus passes, winter fuel allowance and so on.

And what if one doesn't need care. Would the £35 still be payable?

As for those who do not work, yes there are people who are just lazy but many others are unable to do so through no fault of their own and in my opinion it is a mark of a civilised society that it looks after it's poor and needy even if they haven't 'paid in'.

Nanadogsbody

The term you were looking for was tennants in common.
As you may know if the offspring goes to live with the parent and half the property is in the name of the offspring the council can not take any of the house even if the offspring had a valuable property in the past.
This is a very contraversial subject but if say the offspring has been back living with the parent for say 10 years it is likely the offspring would have spent a lot of money on the house and the parent and it would be unfair for any of the house to be taken for any of the parents care.

Hi petallus

What do you define as wealthy?.
There are people getting 40k pensions plus a state pension living in reasonably expensive houses.
There is a lot of difference between them and say a pensioner with an income of say £500,000 per year.
What would you do if say a husband passed away and left most of his wealth to his children.
A man may have £5,000,000 for example and may only leave his wife say a house worth £300,000 plus say £100,000 in cash investments. That may be regarded as ok if she was 80+ for example.
Also you could get a lady marry somebody who is a multi millionaire late in life and there may be a pre nuctual agreement saying she is not entitled to any of the wealth.
She may be living a lavish life style but could the husband be held liable for her care fees?.
I think if care fees were restricted to 35k people would be more likely to pay up but if the liability is unlimited people will use every loophole to make their assetts local authority proof.

Someone with a financial advisor as a relative may get round the rules but this is only because Social Services etc do not check up in detail on investment history but the law states that if you dispose of your assets with the intention of avoiding paying for care then Social Services will calculate what you pay towards your care on the basis that you still have that money.

Many people arrive in retirement without savings or investments, not because they were wasteful or profligate or led extravagent lives but simply because they were in low paid occupations or had difficulties in their lives that meant any savings had been depleted before they reached retirement age.

The problem with the government scheme is that they would set a maximum level of care home fees that would be taken into account in calculating the £35,000 and that would soon fall to the ludicrous levels paid by Social Services so you could be paying £800pw for a decent home for an elderly relative but the government would only take £450 a week of that into account in calculating when the £35,000 limit was reached and then would only pay £450 a week for further care so you would still be stuck with paying £350 a week towards care costs.

Hi FlickertyB

Checking investmant history could be very difficult as there are many financial institutions.
Also say if somebody goes and spends his money on expensive holidays suspecting he will have to go into care soon who are you going to make responsible?.
I did hear of a case where somebody was living with his son and was drawing £400 out of his bank account every week in cash and the son did not know what had happened to it as he was at work during the day.
If for example the father was going out for an expensive lunch every day what could the son have done about it?.
Also proving if the person should have suspected he was going to have to go into a home could be difficult. Up to that point they are free to send their money as they wish.
My father spent £1,300 on a new bed a week before he went into hospital which led to him going into care.
I had taken him to the hospital the day before and did not stop him as I was told he only had a water infection and that was affecting his behaviour.
His bed was nearing the end of its life.
I knew what money my father had as he was living with me. Some of the children may not know what money their mother or father has and will only find out by searching their home and this does not give a 100% guarantee.

I can only agree with Bone42 that it can be difficult to predict that your parent will have to go into care.
Care was proposed for my father.
The social worker told me to downsize the house to release funds for my fathers care.
I saw a solicitor and it was confirmed I did not have to downsize.
The social worker was not pleased as Dad only had about £14,000 plus some life assurance policies which we were not obliged to cash in and half of a £500,000 house.
Sadly however Dad passed away before care was arranged.

I do not think the law is there to stop an older person leading an extravagent life to dispose of their assets before they need care but to stop people transferring very large sums or assets like their house, shares, or other savings to their children for example to avoid paying for care. Personally considering how small the amount Social Services will pay homes for care means that anyone depending on state funded care is going to be in the cheapest, nastiest and most inadequate homes that I would rather conserve my funds and be able to pay for a good quality home where I would be well looked after. I have experience of homes at both ends of the spectrum so my decision is based on experience.

An elderly lady I knew who took out a large mortgage to bail her son's business out was refused pension credit, which in theory she was entitled to because her income was so small after making the mortgage repayment simply on the grounds that she was not the beneficiary of the mortgage. If it had been taken out to do necessary improvements or maintenance of her home that would have been acceptable but as it was taken out to be given to her son it was disallowed and she had to struggle to live on a very small income.

Hi FlicketyB

The council did not want to pay anything in my father's case. They wanted me to sell the house my father and myself were living in.
I was going to go for full NHS funding but after asking 3 times the Social Worker admitted that Dad could have qualified for Social Funding.
She then said I would have to pay a top up of £100 per week as the homes which took residents at the local authority usual rates were full and had a long waiting list.
Again my solicitor advised me the offer had to be a genuine one with a place available.
I was going to go back and say the council would have to find a home at their usual rate which was available or pay the extra but I then had a phone call from the hospital to say Dad had passed away.
Really what was annoying was if somebody had taken the word of the Social Worker they may have sold their home and either the relative may have only lasted a few days in care or been like my father and passed away without even getting to the care home.
Really I think social workers just try to con people.
I have visited a person who I worked with about once every 2 weeks over the last 6 months and there has hardly ever been a visit when I have not heard one of the residents has passed away so places are all ways becoming available.

Well, I have already posted a message earlier in this discussion giving my opinion of Social Workers and the depths they will plumb to avoid paying out money even if they are legally required to and I am sure many people have paid out money and financially embarrassed themselves paying for the care of elderly relatives

About five years ago I and a cousin were dealing with an aunt and uncle's welfare when they were both diagnosed with dementia. I was a Home Visitor with Age Concern (as it was then), my cousin was a hospital consultant. We both knew the ropes and were not easily intimidated but even then Social Services rang rings round us and we both said that if we, who were in a better position than almost anyone else, to know what Social Services and the hospitals legal obligations were, were unable to make them fulfill their obligations what hope did anyone else have.