Avoid paying care home fees – The Truth behind these ‘Trusts’ & giving away your property.
With the average nursing home fees now costing around £1,000 a week the question of paying for care in old age has become an increasingly hot topic.
A common question I get asked is ‘If I give away my Assets, will the Local Authority pay my fees?’
Giving away assets to your children or other relatives may seem like a good idea but if the Local Authority decides that the reason you cannot fund your own care is deliberate, you could be charged with 'deprivation of assets' and you may still be assessed as if you still owned the assets that you tried to give away.
Recently, I have had an increase in clients telling me that a salesman has arrived on their doorstep, or they have seen adverts in the local paper, promising to sell them a kind of Trust which is guaranteed to keep their property away from care fees.
Of the copies of documents and correspondence that I have seen distributed, I have yet to see anything the Local Authority could not, and in all likelihood, will not challenge.
A recent statistic is that only 3% of people over the age of 65 years are actually in a care home. So you have to consider, is it worth paying up to £3,000 for a document that may be useless given the relatively small risk?
There are legitimate steps you can take to minimise the impact of care fees, including planning in a Will that does not cost anywhere close to £3,000.
The best thing to do is to seek proper legal advice from a qualified and experienced lawyer, possibly in conjunction with an Independent Financial Advisor, to get appropriate advice about your personal risk of going into care and paying care fees.