What can you do to protect your assets as you get older? 

Putting your affairs in order often covers several different areas, and if you are concerned about residential care planning or the protection of your assets, you should take a comprehensive view of:-

• Transferring ownership of your property
• Inheritance Tax Planning
• Personal Taxation
• Making an up to date Will
• Powers of Attorney
• The Creation of Trusts

How would your residential care home fees be paid? 

• Once that happens, you would only have to pay a proportion of the extra amount until your capital is reduced to the lower limit
• At this point, the Local Authority would have to pay in full up to weekly fee levels decided by that authority

Capital limits:-

• The upper capital limit is £23,250
• The lower limit is £14,250
• If your capital is above the upper limit, you will not normally receive any help with the care home fees
• If capital is between £14,250 and £23,250, £1 a week for every £250 is taken into account as income - so if you have £15,000 in capital you will be treated as if you had an extra £4 of income a week

Some forms of capital can be disregarded, for example:

• The value of personal possessions
• Payments received from charities
• Payments from personal injury trust funds
• The value of Life Insurance policies
• Savings in a joint account are presumed to be owned in equal shares by a married couple or civil partners

Property

The value of your property will be disregarded:-

• For the first 12 weeks of your stay in a  residential care home, or for longer if it turns out that your stay is temporary
• If it is occupied by your partner or a relative who is aged 60 or over, under 16 or who is incapacitated and for whom you are responsible

Please contact us to discuss how our Wills and Probate team can help you with your Residential Care Planning.