Hi all,
First post so be gentle.
My dear mum has just been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s at 68. Shes had a terrible run of luck with two broken hips, a spinal fracture, multiple myeloma (currently in remission) and now a very rapid onset of this blasted disease. We were concerned about forgetfulness the past year or so but its really only the last 2 months where there has been a dramatic decline.
Dad is 70 and relatively healthy though struggling massively to cope as she deteriorates. We dearly hope to be able to care for her at home and im currently holding on for redundancy from my job so i can assist full time. I do worry he wont be able to hold on until then though so wanted to try and help him position their finances most appropriately in case she does need nursing/residential care at some point, either soon or way down the line.
It feels awful to be talking about the money side of things when the main priority is clearly her care but having witnessed my nan pay well over 6 figures to the LA for care in a home in which she was often the only self funder, i am very aware that the system is far from perfect.
Anyway, the situation as it stands is that mum and dad jointly own their home and have approx 60k in a joint account (mostly the remnants of dads pension lump sum) , from which all bills go out and both their private and state pensions go in. POA is in place for both parents.
My advice to dad was going to be to open a bank account soley in his own name and transfer half the joint account balance in to it. Then have his private pension paid into his new personal account. His state pension would continue to go in the joint account and all bills and spending would come out of the joint account. The idea being that the joint account would gradually dwindle down whilst his personal account built up.
Does anybody see a problem with this in terms of deprivation of assets should the need for a funding assessment arise at any point? I feel this is quite a conservative approach and although keeping the joint account in both names it wouldn’t matter if the LA considered the whole of it to be hers because of the original fund transfer.
Is there a better way to go about this?
Closing the joint account and setting them both a personal acccount up perhaps? With thebalance/bills/spending equally distributed?
Or is it just simpler to leave well alone and accept that she would have to self fund until the joint balance dropped below £46k?
Every approach seems convoluted and unclear to me and i want to remain as transparent as possible.
The other question is regarding tenancy in common. Ive read a fair bit about it and understand it is a good way to protect half the equity of their home in the event my dad passed away first. (a serious consideration given the stress hes under, precisely what happened to my grandad tbh). Im guessing though that as mum has already beem diagnosed this would not be so straightforward, even with POA, and worry it may be considered deprivation of assets. Anyone any experience of that situation?
Apologies for the long post but desperate to do something to help but dont want to give the wrong advice.
