Care Fees & Asset Protection - Trusts, Jointly Owned Property & Deliberate Deprivation

Introduction

Understanding how care fees interact with asset ownership and protection is an increasingly important part of advising older and vulnerable clients. Where an individual’s assets include trusts, jointly owned property or other interests that may be difficult to value or realise, determining what can be taken into account when assessing their contribution towards care costs can be particularly challenging.

For practitioners advising clients, their families, attorneys and deputies, it is essential to understand how local authority financial assessments operate and how different forms of asset ownership are treated. This includes the treatment of trust interests, jointly owned property and assets that may not be readily accessible to fund care. It is also important to recognise the limits of legitimate asset protection planning and when gifts, transfers or changes to ownership arrangements may be regarded as deliberate deprivation of assets.

This practical short webinar will examine the key rules governing care-fee funding and asset protection, helping practitioners identify potential issues, understand the implications of different ownership arrangements and advise on the options available. Using practical scenarios, it will also consider the particular responsibilities of attorneys and deputies when managing financial affairs and planning for care costs.

What You Will Learn

The webinar will cover the following:

• When a local authority is required to contribute towards care costs, including the treatment of income, capital, property interests and disregarded assets
• How trusts are considered in financial assessments and why the nature of an individual's interest is critical when determining whether trust assets can be taken into account
• How jointly owned property is valued and assessed, particularly where a person's beneficial interest does not correspond directly to a proportion of the property's open-market value
• The implications of severing a joint tenancy and whether this necessarily changes the value of an individual's beneficial interest
• Whether jointly owned property can be used to meet care costs, including the availability and practical limitations of deferred payment arrangements
• How care fees are assessed where an individual has insufficient accessible assets, and the distinction between owning capital and being able to realise it
• The limits of asset protection planning, including when gifts, transfers into trust or changes to property ownership may constitute deliberate deprivation of assets
• Practical examples of how different trust and property arrangements affect care-fee funding, including the considerations for attorneys and deputies managing an individual's financial affairs