Care Fee Planning & Advice

Nobody thinks they will end up in a care home. Nobody can accurately identify when or if it might happen.

Often people leave it very late to decide that there is the possibility that they may need the services of a care home and at that point it is not possible to avoid the inevitable need to use assets to pay for the care home fees.

It is very common for us to have to deal with people that have been placed into a care home due to a lack of capacity and as a result their assets are used to pay the care home fees. Often, once a person has lost capacity, we are appointed as attorneys upon the half of that person. (Lasting Powers of Attorney)

With planning during your lifetime it is possible to avoid the need to pay such care home fees. The local authority instead will pay the care home fees upon your behalf.

To achieve this however early steps need to be taken during your lifetime. It cannot be left because if it is then the local authority can apply to set aside any transactions that you have made. If relatively close to the time when you go into the care home it will be claimed by the local authority that such a transaction is simply to avoid having to pay those care home fees. They often can go back quite a number of years and set aside transactions upon this basis.

It is therefore very important that you consider a care home fees as part of your overall lifetime planning particularly as you are approaching retirement or your later years.

It is possible to avoid the need to pay a care home fees however it is imperative that you get early advice

Contact a member of our Private Client Team for further information

Please see our Publications on:

Can I protect my home and other assets from Care Home Fees?

How does the current Care system work?