If you need help to pay for your place in a care home, the local authority will do a financial assessment to work out how much you should pay towards the cost of your support. They take your income and capital into account. Capital is the value of any cash or savings that you have together with anything you own that could be sold apart from personal possessions. If you have capital less than £14,250.00 it will be ignored and the amount that you pay will be assessed only on your income. If you have capital between £14,250.00 and £23,250.00 the amount that you pay will be assessed on both your income and capital. If you have capital over £23,250.00 you must pay the full cost of your care. That is all very well, but what about the value of your house? The rules about that have changed since the Care Act 2014 came into force on 1 April 2015. First of all, the value of your home is not included in the means test in relation to any temporary stay in a care home. For permanent care however, your interest in your house will generally be taken into account as capital. There are however some important exceptions to this rule. The value of your main or only home must be disregarded where you no longer occupy the property but it is occupied in whole or part as their main or only home by: -
- Your partner, former partner or civil partner (except where they are estranged from you);
- A lone parent who is your estranged or divorced partner;
- A relative of yours or a member of your family who is either aged 60 (or over) or a child of yours aged under 18 or who is incapacitated.
In most cases, for that mandatory disregard to apply the property has to have been continuously occupied by one of those listed above since before you went into a care home. The term 'relative' is widely defined and includes parent, parent-in-law, son, son-in-law, daughter, daughter-in-law, step-parent, step-son, step-daughter, brother, sister, grandparent, grandchild, uncle, aunt, nephew and niece and is some cases their spouse, civil partner or unmarried partner. The rules also provide local authorities with a discretionary power to disregard the value of a property where it is the home of someone else not included in the above list, for example, a relative under 60 who has been caring for you for a substantial period or a friend who is over 60. The rules also give the local authority a discretion to disregard the value of your home if a qualifying relative moves into the property after you have entered a care home. If your spouse, partner or other relative who lives in a disregarded property moves out of it, the local authority will then take into account the value of your share in that property although note that if you make part of your share available to your spouse or civil partner to buy a more suitable property then the local authority will usually disregard that amount. The same sometimes applies to unmarried partners and other relatives if they wish to move. The above represents a rather generalised summary of the position since 1 April 2015. The specific rules are rather more complicated than that. If you need any advice or assistance in relation to any aspect of the treatment of your residential care costs you should contact Nick Lambert on 0114 2666660 or any member of our Private Client Team, all of whom are based at our offices at 68 Clarkehouse Road, Sheffield S10 2LJ.
