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Long-
Care costs can result in the family home being forcibly sold when the last surviving owner needs long-term care. The result is that the property owner’s children often see their inheritance significantly reduced or even eradicated completely.
Many people object to this. The reasoning is simple: why should those people who have worked (and thus paid their taxes) and saved during their lifetime have to pay for their care, when others who have not worked or saved during their lifetime (and thus not contributed to the State) have their care costs paid for by the State?
Dilnot Report
The government in 2013 accepted the proposals in the Dilnot Report - which looked specifically at how long-term care can be funded in the future. The government however set the limit at £75,000 per person rather than the suggested £35,000. And even this limited has a number of not commonly known over rights which, in reality, meaning that the proposed limits have little or no effect on the vast majority of home owners.
Legislation
Getting around the legislation is not an easy task; ‘Care in the Community Act 1990’ gives Social Services special powers where people have taken action to deliberately deprive Social Services of “their” monies. And the CRAG rules (Charging for Residential Accommodation Guide) have been updated, and while the new rules come into effect in 2016 there amendments are being backdated to 2014. These new powers give Social Services even greater powers.
As a consequence of this legislation approximately 20,000 cases a year (latest figures for 2011), result in the family home having to be sold to fund the care costs of the ill or vulnerable person. This figure is likely to increase in the future.
Potential Dangers And Possible Solutions
There are definitely things you should not do to avoid your property being forcibly sold to cover care costs (because they can make matters worse). If you use our home-visit will-writing service we will explain these to you.
It is our belief that there is now no 100% guaranteed solution to protect your property from funding the long-term care costs (despite what some of our competitors claim) - but if you use our home-visit will-writing service we will share with you what we know.
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Who Else Wants to Protect Their Property from Being Forcibly Sold to Fund Long-Term Care?
With:
- Social Services being increasingly strapped for cash, and
- with an ageing population placing more and more demands upon the NHS and Social Services
an ever increasing number of people will find themselves being forced to sell the family home to fund their care costs.
CRAG Rules
Many people are, quite rightly, concerned that their property may be forcibly sold in the future to fund the long-
At the present time it is estimated that approximately 20,000 properties per year are forcibly sold for this purpose.
The sale of the property is usually brought by Social Services. The criteria that they use are contained in a document called ‘Charging for Residential accommodation Guide’ (or CRAG Rules for short).
You can read the latest version by clicking here