A Whitehall report says that the majority of pensioners who were forced to sell their homes to pay their care home bills are being charged more than fellow residents.
Residents can pay up to £30,000 a year for their care and home.
The inquiry by the Commission for Social Care Inspection says that 58% of homes charge more when the person is paying their own bill. Councils are able to get lower fees because of their monopoly power.
The report follows years of concern over the means test system that makes those who have worked and saved all their lives give up everything when they go into a home – while someone who has never worked or saved gets the same help free.
At the moment, anyone with savings or property worth more than £20,000 must pay their own care home bills. More than 40,000 people a year have to sell their homes to meet the costs.
It is such a shame that given correct planning through wills, many people would be able to avoid losing their homes to the care home providers and the council would have to pay the bills.
This involves meeting with a professional consultant from LSUK well before one could even consider the possibility of going into a care home. Correct legal planning can then ensure that protection is maintained for at least 50% of their property and in some cases, full protection.
It makes sense to plan and prepare correctly to defend one’s rights to own their own property and see it passed on their heirs. The current system is unfair and unjust, but it is the current system and until a government is brave enough to change the system and put some moral code back into the process, then it is the one we all have to deal with.
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