Published on: 15th June 2020

Appropriate care fees planning

When it comes to writing your Will and ensuring your hard earned wealth goes to those who you wish, one area which can’t be overlooked is care fees planning. Appropriate care fees planning can help you cover long-term care fees in the most efficient and effective manner. By making sure you get the correct advice and by placing your assets in appropriate trusts, you can exempt a portion of a property from being assessed for care fees.

Many people will get to the point where they need round the clock care. If this does happen there are multiple options and Local Authorities will review both what your income is and what capital resource you have available to assess what funding will be available to you.

Weekly care costs can vary considerably with many care homes now being well in excess of £1300/week particularly in the South East. As a result, there is often a shortfall as many who need care will not have a pension and investment income in excess of their care costs. If this is the case, then your capital assets can be used to make up the deficit. Capital assets can include:

• Money held in bank accounts
• Money held in other investments
• Property
• Vehicles
• Stocks and shares

A typical scenario is that a married couple jointly own a property and then one of the couple passes away. The surviving spouse may then need care at some point. With good advice at an early stage before the death and careful care fees planning, it is possible to ensure that only the surviving spouse’s part of the property is assessed as a capital asset to make up the deficit in care costs. This means the part of the property owned by the deceased (usually 50%) cannot be assessed and can then be passed to whoever they wish (usually their children) as the beneficiaries of the trust. Without careful care fees planning, all of the property can be assessed, or even sold, to make up the deficit.

Here at Casey & Associates we can help with care fees planning for our Clients in two ways:

• Testamentary - With this option we add a share and interest of the property in to trust on first death. This means the surviving spouse has the ability to stay in the property and the Local Authority cannot assess the percentage of the property placed in trust (usually 50%) for care fees.
  
  
• In Life trust - With an In Life trust, we place a percentage of the property into trust in life making it extremely difficult for this percentage to be included in any future care fees assessment.

Whatever your situation or circumstance, appropriate care fees planning is incredibly important as if done incorrectly your assets could be used to pay for later life care as opposed to being passed on to your children.

If you’re not sure you have the correct care fees planning in place then we would be very happy to help. Please call 01732 868190 and one of our friendly team will be able to advise, or visit the contact page of our website to get in touch.

=========================

Casey & Associates has adapted its operations in the light of the current COVID – 19 situation.

We are currently offering video and telephone appointments.
Furthermore, we are offering evening and weekend video and telephone appointments for NHS staff and key workers.

All our administration systems are fully operational with some colleagues working from home.

If you need to contact us please consider using the contact page on our website which is here or telephone 01732 868190

Back to all news