Selling your house to pay for care
On average, nursing homes or social care cost more than £30,000 per year and many pensioners need to sell their home to pay for the necessary care. To determine whether someone needs to pay their care home fees, local authorities carry our a means test to calculate income and capital. Some pensioners qualify for funded care if their income, investments, savings and house are worth less than £23,250. If their assets and savings and are worth more than that, they would have to pay the full price. In many cases, you would find that the only solution is selling your house to pay for care fees.
Will your home be taken into consideration in the means test?
On some occasions, your property will not be counted as an asset if you live there with a partner who is aged above 60; if your child under the age of 18 lives there; your house is occupied by another relative who is also aged above 60; a disabled relative lives there. For more information on means test, please contact ageuk.org.uk One way of receiving funded care was transferring your property to family members or children, so the home is not included in the means test. However, if the local authorities conducting the means test find that assets were put in a trust or given away to avoid care fees, they can challenge this as ‘deliberate deprivation’. Although some trusts promise care fee protection, your property may still be included in the means test as an asset, despite the actual ownership of the property. Local authorities are becoming more aware of schemes and companies offering to protect you from paying care fees and question every motif behind putting your home in a trust or ‘selling it to a relative’. If its determined that a property was put in a trust as a deliberate deprivation, then the property may have to pay for the care costs even after the debtors death. To prove deliberate deprivation however, local authorities must have a reason to consider your house sale to be the biggest, if not the sole reason to sell your property. If you have sold your home while you were healthy and could not have predicted the need to go into care, your local council should not consider your house sale as a deliberate deprivation of assets. Unfortunately, if you haven’t done this and your property counts towards the means test, you might be selling your house to pay for care fees in full.
How can We By Any House help?
If you are not in need of care yet, the best thing to do to protect your home may be selling it. Now is the time to act and secure your future assets and eventual nursing care costs. Local authorities will not consider your house sale a deliberate deprivation of assets if you are not in need of care. Should you wait for health complications or other financial difficulties to occur before you sell your home? No, because then you would have to deal with your health issues, try to sell your home as quickly as possible and still pay for care. Our best advise is to get the best deal for your property and use the money to downsize your home. Your home has already been taken into consideration in the means test and you need to pay your care fees, what can you do? Unfortunately, you may need to sell your home to pay the necessary fees. We understand that selling your house to pay for care fees is difficult enough, so we are here to ease the entire transaction and do all the work for you. Our team is here to support you on every step of the process and answer any questions you may have. Our cash sale option is fast, simple and free. Get in touch with us to discuss which sales route is best for you and your situation and how We Buy Any House can help you.
How does it work?
Get in touch with us using the contact form on our website or call 0800 058 8112. We will carefully estimate your property value and offer the best price for your home.
We will be in touch in 24 hours with a no-obligation, free house valuation and cash offer. Each offer is tailored to the home owner and their property.
Take your time to consider our offer and sales options. You can always turn down an offer if you are not happy with our price. We will never urge you to make a decision.
Sell your property for cash with webuyanyhouse.net. We will take care of the whole process and pay all legal fees. It’s fast, hassle-free and will not cost you a penny.
