Summary: The Impact Of Residential Care Home

The impact of residential care home fees on your estate and eventual legacy

This report is going to look at the potential risks to an estate due to the cost of residential care and will look at the actions one can take to minimise the risks and preserve as much of their estate as possible for their beneficiaries.

I am going to outline the background, look at the risks, consider the options and present my conclusion.

Background

In a recent article in the Telegraph, it was considered that reaching the age of 74 was the entry of old age and at this age you could expect to live another 15 years. The definition of old age and its entry point seems to be important for policy makers using a basic assumption that your health will deteriorate over

With the increasing life expectancy and unfortunately, longer periods of ill health the coalition government set out in July 2011 an independent review of the funding of care and support. This is referred to as the Dilnot Commission.

Dilnot’s Commission, an independent organisation, looked at the current position of social care costs which at the time was means tested by councils. It is important to define social care. This meant if you failed the means test applied then you could be liable for the full cost of your care on an unlimited basis.

Dilnot’s recommendations which are relevant for George and Connie’s position are as follows (Dilnot’s recommendations,

With the average cost of residential care in England outlined in a report from healthcare specialists, Laing & Buisson back in 2013/14 being £28,500 (The Money Advisory Service. 2015) and the average length of stay in a residential care as reported by BUPA (Bowden A. (2014) being 2.3 years with the longest being 5.8 years. This means potentially an average cost per person could be £65,550 and based on 5.8 years £165,300 but you need to analysis what the actual reality is in 2015 when an individual needs to go into a residential care