Hear the ultimate from a Social Worker yesterday.

Social workers are trained in social work - the financial gatekeeping has been tacked on. Please do not expect them to be lawyers - they went into the job to care for people.

Mishap

I would have thought that any body with a bit of common sense would have realised by reading the land certificate and the will would realise that the house did not belong to the patient.
Really the least I would have expected from the Social Worker would be for him to take a copy of the documents and possibly say he would refer it to the council's legal department rather than jumping in and saying that the lady was the beneficial owner of the house and it was available to pay her care fees.

Frank

Mishap

The other thing I have just thought of is if say the house was unlawfully sold the council might have to refund the care fees paid with the proceeds of the house.
It is very unlikely the family would be able to get the same house back so if they wanted a house similar to it new furniture would have to be purchased and there would be selling and buying expenses in any case.
I am not sure if the council ie its taxpayers would be liable for that.

Frank

Frank, not only is not within a social worker's brief to interpret wills and other certificates, they are positively discouraged from doing so, and any legal challenges have to be dealt with by their service's solicitors. In my experience, social workers being able to get solicitors to assist them with matters not relating to child protection are on a hiding to nothing. They are being made to do their work with both hands tied behind their back in such circumstances as you describe. Give 'em a break!

Frank, do you advertise your services to accompany people who have house disputes to meetings ?

Frank , you appear to be on a mission to trip up social workers. It seems to make you feel good! There are ways to help people without sneering at the other people offering help because, contrary to your view, that is what SWs do!

In my professional life I have worked with many SWs and, as in all walks of life & professions etc, there are fantastic ones and some less so.

If the SW misunderstood the situation that is probably understandable and not an insurmountable issue. I hope you were nice as you supported your acquaintance to explain the actual situation. A SWs life is not as easy as you appear to think.

ginny / nanaej

I don't advertise any service or take any payment.
There are a lot of people around here who have been in the houses for many years and there seems to be a higher proportion of widowed offspring living with their mother / father and caring for them.

We did make it clear to the Social Worker that the step mother did not own the house and her name was not on the land certificate and showed it to him.

The social worker was convinced the step mother owned the house while she was alive and it could be used to pay for care and the step son got it if there was any of it left after care fees had been paid.
The Social Worker looked as if he was 40+ so I would have thought he had experienced this sort of situation before many times.

Frank

I have no sympathy with the son in law.
It is obvious the house has been inherited from his parents and as the father has got married again the house should be returned to the father and should be used for the benefit of the step mother until death including payment of her care fees and the son in law should just get what is left at the end.
Just giving a life interest to the step mother is a fraud on the tax payer.

Gerry

The father is dead, Bentley. The house is now owned by the son. It's not fraud at all.

Ana, having seen another posting by 'bentley49' and then reading other folk's comments, I have arrived at the conclusion that some people....naming no names ('cos thats just nasty).......enjoy a bit of 'stirring'.....I'll say no more.

Ana

You are correct. The ownership of the house passed to the son in law as soon as his father died on condition that his step mother was allowed to live in it until she goes in to care or dies.
She has now gone in to care so the son in law is entitled to do what he wants with the house.
Looking at the wording of the will it would appear that the step son could sell the house even if the stay in the nursing home was only going to be for a few weeks and it was intended she would be going back to the house.
The will was drawn up by a solicitor so I am not sure if he did not think about this type of scenario or if there is some legislation to cover it.
This is however very unlikely to happen.

Frank

As far as I am concerned the step mother is still alive and is entitled to use of the house until she dies.
If the house can not be sold to pay the fees it should be rented out until her death and the rental income taken towards the fees and the son in law should be responsible to pay the maintenance.

Gerry

I used to work as part of a legal team advising on Wills. In most cases, this type of arrangement is set in place by the person dying because they wish their child(ren) to inherit their estate.
They have a caveat that they do not want their partner to be disadvantaged by the decision to let the child(ren) benefit.
Hence leaving the property with a clause allowing the partner life residency.

If the wishes of the deceased were to be ignored by allowing the partner to wholly benefit from a large portion of the estate (albeit as funding for care) this would totally over-ride the intent of the Will which stated that the child(ren) was to benefit.

If such a thing were to be allowed, it would re-write existing Law ....and be the thin end of a very worrying wedge, in terms of rights to dispose of our assets in a manner of our choosing, when we die.

I am not sure anyone would want the State telling them how they could leave their assets. Would they?

I think Gerry would...