If you are concerned that in the future you might need long-term residential care, or have to pay nursing home fees, your savings could be used up and your home might have to be sold to pay the fees, leaving little or nothing for your family to inherit.
This is a very complex area as you have to look in detail at:
- The value of your house and savings
- Your income, both now and in the future
- Benefits you might be entitled to if you had to go into care
- Your family’s circumstances, including those of your children
- The statistical probability of you needing care in the future
Care Fee Protection Trusts
A possible solution is to create a Care Fee Protection Trust, placing your home into the ownership of Trustees in whom you have confidence, whereby:
- You can choose to appoint your children as Trustees;
- Your Trustees must hold the property on the terms of the Trust that you set up;
- You can preserve a right of residence (for you and your surviving spouse) for the rest of your life; and/or
- You can ensure that you cannot be evicted in any circumstances.
As your home would not be personally owned by you, if you later go into residential care, the Local Authority’s financial assessment will not treat it as a capital resource, so the risk of a forced sale to pay residential care fees is avoided.
How we can help
At Nelsons, we have an expert team of Trust solicitors who can provide you with specialist advice in relation to planning ahead for residential care, including whether a Care Fee Protection Trust is suitable based on your circumstances.
Our team of Trust solicitors in Derby, Leicester and Nottingham is recommended by the independently-researched publication, The Legal 500, as being one of the top teams of experts in the UK.
For advice on planning ahead for residential care, please contact our Trusts team on 0800 024 1976 or via our online enquiry form.
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