Sorry this is long winded , it’s taken us nearly three years after my dad’s death to get a care package in place for my mum we have been fobbed off constantly. Now it’s finally been put in place we received a huge bill from our local council saying my mum has to pay £459 a month for her care package . My mum only receives disability living allowance and employment and support allowence so I called and explained. Council did a financial assesment prior to this without gaining any information off my mum about her finances and outgoings etc. She has a mortgage to pay and disability related expenditure such as bed pads because she is incontinent. She sent all the finance information back and had a lady from the brokerage team yesterday on the phone who was so rude I was literally in tears, she told me I was holding it all up because we never sent receipts in for her food shopping. I explained we don’t really keep receipts everytime she does a food shop and she was sneering down the phone at me saying even she does. I was completely baffled because they never originally asked for any of this and it never asked for it on the financial assesment letter otherwise my mum would have sent it off. My mum hasn’t left her bed for over a week hardly she is so stressed out and terrified she is going to lose her home. The lady was on the phone saying how we needed to make sure this money was in the bank for her care and was threatening to cancel the direct payments and saying we will have to re-apply when it’s taken us so long to get to this point . My question is I suppose is can they send my mum a whopping bill when no financial assesment was done before the package was put in place ? They did it off Thier own backs and assumed from her benefits she could pay this amount without checking. When I have challenged it all they did was send a form which we had to fill in her income and outgoings. Now if I don’t provide food shopping reciepts they are going to cancel the package. I have sent her mortgage letters, household bills forms in etc. If anyone can help it would be appreciated because I feel like I’m banging my head against a wall my mum is so upset and stressed, she has a history of attempting suicide and I’ve had to take her medication out the house and take it to her to keep her safe. It’s impacting on my life as well. Can I also ask to deal with someone else because this brokerage lady is horrible to say she deals with vulnerable people she was completely mocking me down the phone pretty much 
Hi Susan.
My immediate thought was for you to seek expert advice … AGE UK would be my choice :
Financial Assessment for Care Explained | Age UK
Whilst your experience may be unique to you , not uncommon acoss the UK … hence my recommendation to
involve AGE UK before taking the next step.