My 86 year old mother gave me £90,000 – is this a “deprivation of assets” if she needs care?

I would be grateful if you could clarify whether this situation could be considered a deprivation of property by the local authority.

My widowed mother (86 years old) had to sell the family home to buy an accessible apartment in 2021 because her mobility was being affected.

The title to the house was held jointly in the names of my mother and my brother, as had been the case since the purchase some decades earlier, but my brother, having fallen out with my mother, wanted no interest in the proceeds of the sale. of the house and agreed that all He was paid £180,000.

He bought the flat for £96,000 and gave me half of my brother’s share, £90,000, in 2022.

I put the money towards a rental property to help provide income for our household (me, wife and children) as our self-employment had been affected during and after Covid restrictions.

My mother’s mobility has deteriorated and she may have to enter a care home in the near future, which would mean selling her flat to pay for it and would then be subject to a financial review by the local authority.

Will we have to pay back the £90,000 invested in our rental property to pay for my mother’s ongoing care?

This is Money’s Tanya Jefferies responds: We asked a lawyer with experience in care cases to explain how a local authority might act, based on the facts you have described; His opinion on the matter is below.

If your mother requires residential care and her assets need to be reviewed by the local authority, it would be worth seeking personal help from a solicitor specializing in this area of ​​the law.

You can use the Advanced settings for the Law Society’s find-a-lawyer tool to find a company near you with the right experience.

Ben Tyer, Partner at SAS Daniels, responds: If someone demands that the local authority pay for their care, the local authority may carry out a financial assessment of that person’s current and historical assets.

Local authorities are being told they must ensure people are not rewarded for trying to avoid paying their contribution.

Asset deprivation is when a person intentionally deprives or diminishes their overall assets to reduce the amount they pay for their care.

When investigating any gift, a local authority considers whether 1) the person had a reasonable expectation of the need for care and support when the gift was given and 2) whether avoidance of care fees was a significant motivation.

As for timing, you mention that your mother’s mobility has “deteriorated” and she may need care.

But the relevant time frame is how her mother was in 2022 when she made the gift.

For example, if you were fit and healthy in 2022 and could not have foreseen the need for care and support, then it would be unreasonable for the local authority to decide that this was deliberate deprivation.

However, you mention that your mother’s mobility was already being affected in 2021, so it is not unreasonable for local authorities to claim that your mother was aware of the possibility of her needing residential care in the future.

While a lump sum donation like this is, at first glance, a classic example of deliberate deprivation, given the unusual circumstances described, one conclusion might be that his mother received a windfall of half the proceeds of the sale and I simply redirected this to you .

This half of the sale proceeds was not something she had anticipated getting, so the gift was not motivated by avoiding care expenses.

Unless your mother can convince the local authorities of her intentions, there is a real risk that this could be considered deliberate deprivation.

If so, the local authority may hold you responsible for the difference in charges that your mother would have contributed if she had retained all the proceeds of the sale.

That doesn’t necessarily mean you have to sell the property; you would simply have to finance the liability with other funds.