Sale of home to fund care

Thank you to those of you who answered my question. My father really wants to return to his home, but has a one bed flat. It's early days, and hopefully he will improve enough to be discharged to go home and have carers coming in.

There is so much confusion and misinformation about all this. I would strongly suggest that you go onto the Age Concern website where they explain all the details ... and keep these up to date. You will get accurate information.

There are situations where you do need to sell your home to pay for a care home ...... if your care is permanent and there is no elderly relative still living there. But it is all outlined on the website.

It is worth saying that virtually all care homes are privately run. Local Authority provision has died out. Some residents are "self funders", some are being funded by the LA ( to whom they make contributions).

I saw this happen to a relative. The care costs spiralled but the care home couldnt touch the last 23 thousand. It is a lucrative thing running a care home. A licence to print money.

It might be better and cheaper if people hired nurses or carers to keep a loved one at home. There is 24 hour care that can be in someones own home.

Great, work hard, save hard, pay taxes the government takes the majority to pay for the care- on the other hand you piss/ smoke your money up the wall, don’t work, it gets all handed to on plate free of charge

The proposed cap was never put in place. In any case it was never meant to cover the ‘ hotel’ costs, just the ‘ care’ element.

As far as I am aware, if a house is sold to pay for care costs, you become self-funding and ‘pay as you go’.
My mum died just seven months after moving into care, and the family used some of mum’s savings to pay; the money from the sale of the house was not needed. The local authority couldn’t touch it.
I suppose it could be a bit different if your money runs out and you are waiting for the house to sell.

However I would rather my savings / house money be used to pay for my care and be comfortable than have to rely on the local authority’s poor provision.

Once people are down to 23,000 which includes the value of any property, they will get some help. Not a lot, not enough, but this could have been done and dusted by our erstwhile Tory government which did nothing. No surprise there.

There never was any cap as far as I know, it’s been debated but never implemented.

Labour has removed the£86,000 cap on care home fees.
They will only offer some help if yoursavings are below about £23,500 fees. When they are right down to £14,000ish they will help more.

Thank you, biglouis, for answering my question.

You would be wise to speak to a soliciter who specialises in such matters then s/he will be able to advise you on the best strategies to save as much as you can.

There is no cap any more. I did see that taking the average care home stay and the average cost, people will be paying an average of £17,000 more than £86,000

Just read on community care, that Rachel Reeves has cancelled the cap on care fees, this is to fill in the black hole of £1.1 billion

Commonground

I think I remember reading somewhere that,when a property is sold to fund care, the local authority takes all but £100k. I've tried Googling this, but all I get is info on Johnson's proposed £86,000 cap. Can someone help, please?

I think labour have/or are getting rid of the £86,000 cap, just having a look myself, my dad now needs care