We often provide help and support to our clients and their family when they are looking at future care options; including considering help at home and looking at other more supportive living arrangements. As part of that process we are often signposting people to other specialist areas of advice, in particular legal advice relating to later life such as Wills, Trusts and Power of Attorney.
In this guest blog Solicitor Katherine Miller discusses some common concerns and issues that arise during this process. Katherine is a Director at Renaissance Legal, a local law firm that help clients plan for later life. Over to Katherine: 
“Many clients and their families worry about the practical aspects of managing the home and finances when it becomes harder to do so. If staying in your own home for as long as possible is what you would like to happen, then it’s important to put plans in place for when you may not have the mental capacity to make decisions involving your care; or if you feel that you need additional support from a person who you trust even if you are capable of making these key decisions about your future.
Putting plans in place
A Lasting Power of Attorney (LPA) is a legal document which allows you to appoint a person or people you trust (known as your attorneys) to handle your affairs if the time comes when you can’t make decisions for yourself or feel you need the support to do so. There are two types of LPAs; Property & Financial Affairs and Health & Welfare. A Property & Financial LPA covers your financial affairs, taxes, assets etc. and a Health & Welfare LPA covers medical treatment, care and personal matters. You can give your attorneys full power to make decisions on your behalf or you can include some restrictions – if it’s the latter you need to make sure it is clear what the restrictions are. It’s also extremely important to document your wishes to your appointed attorney(s), for example how you would like to receive care in your own home and how they can use your income or savings to pay for any care that is required.
Paying for care
Clients also tell us that they want to protect their children’s inheritance and don’t want to be forced into selling their house to pay for care if they were to need residential care. It’s understandable that you want to leave as much money as possible to help your children, relatives or friends after you pass away. However, the law states that people with assets of over £23,250 are expected to meet the cost of their own care. If you own your home, you will very likely fall into this bracket and may have to meet the cost of all or some of your care in the future.
There are schemes on the market to try and avoid care fees, however these usually involve giving assets away or putting them in Trust so you no longer own. These schemes can involve a large amount of risk and they are now on the radar of many Local Authorities so, where a person has given up ownership of assets to bring down their asset capital for the purpose of qualifying for care funding, this is known as a ‘deliberate deprivation of assets’. If the Local Authority finds evidence of a deliberate deprivation, they can take these assets into account when assessing the contribution to care fees.
It’s also important to consider that where you may not have the ability to meet your care needs financially, it is likely that decisions will be made by your Local Authority. If the Local Authority are paying for your care they will firstly have to assess your needs and then decide how best to meet those needs. Although they are required to meet these needs, they have a huge amount of discretion as to how this is done and the cost of doing so can play a large part in their decision making.
Some issues we see are:
− your perception of your needs may not match their assessment;
− they may decide that residential care is more suitable to meet your needs even if you would prefer to receive care at home;
− the care facility they offer is one you wouldn’t choose to live in yourself
− the care facility could be further away from your family and friends than you would like it to be
If you are financially able to have the option and the choice in your future care, consideration needs to be taken about the priority of this over inheritance; thinking carefully about the reality of not paying for your care fees and what the implications of this could be is extremely important. There may be things that can be done to protect some of your assets, but again this needs to be weighed up carefully against what care you would like for yourself in the future.
Whether your situation is that you are able to stay in your own home or if you are considering residential care it’s key to put in place the legal processes to ensure that your wishes can be followed.”
Katherine Miller can be contacted on: e-mail info@renaissancelegal.co.uk or 0845 505 60 50 or Renaissance Legal