Care Home Fees - The Terrible Truth

20,000 a year sell homes to fund care Did you see the Daily Mail earlier this week? The feature shed new light on the reality of the cost to your clients of not properly planning for the risk of future Care Home and health cost fees. If you missed the piece, please click here: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1327898/20k-year-sell-homes-fund-care-Families-struggling-pay-soaring-fees.html These figures are frightening We have all long been aware of the risk to clients' homes and assets should they need to go into care in later life, but at these levels, bearing in mind that 1 in 4 of us are going to have long-term health issues, we need our clients to protect themselves - and urgently. Of course, there are some clients who are aware of the risks, and have taken on board the costs of potential health-care. Often they view the costs, as with pension planning, as something they should provide for later in life. I will bet that some clients have asked you to take this into account in their wealth planning. However, are they aware of the costs of Care Home fees? It is not excessive to allow £20,000 plus per year for fees, and with dementia and added longevity now affecting the equation, the time spent in care could be many years - possibly way beyond their planning expectations. There is no doubt that Local Authorities will take a more robust view of forcing the sale of assets and headlines similar to that above will become more regular… and the figure will only rise if we, as a profession, do not take these issues on board. Planning for the Health Care risk Today, the majority of coupe clients who have made Wills (still less than 50% of the population) have taken Will Trusts into account, often by including Nil Rate Band Trusts in their Wills. The way this is done, particularly changing home ownership from joint to tenants-in-common does provide protection. The Local Authority cannot force a sale with only half of a property. Those clients that have planned their Inheritance Tax planning with second death provisions, without changing home ownership, singles and widow(er)s are still open to having their assets seized, leaving little or nothing to pass on. This issue can be addressed with Lifetime Trusts, although those with current health issue need professional advice not to fall foul of the deprivation rules. Your Trusted Advisor This is why it's so important for you to find an estate planning professional with whom you feel comfortable. A fully qualified specialist concentrating on nothing else, supporting your own professional advice and completely up-to-date with the latest regulations and succession products, not a Willwriter who still follows the traditional approach to estate planning. What You Should Do If you're in need of estate planning support, don't sell yourself short. Doing nothing at all will leave your clients with a mess and "do it yourself" estate planning documents will fall far short of your clients' estate planning goals. Take the time to find and engage a qualified estate planning specialist to prepare an estate plan that's uniquely tailored to your clients' current financial and family situations. Life and Law Changes Not only has legislation and Inheritance Tax, as well as compliance requirements for truly professional estate planning specialists changed dramatically over the past few years, but so has your clients' lives. They may have married, or divorced and remarried; had a loved one die; inherited money from a family member or friend; bought or sold a business; retired; had or adopted children; bought a second home or moved to a new country; or - here's my favourite - won the lottery. All of these life and legal changes will have direct implications for their estate plan, and so you need to stay on top of it or it won't work when it's needed the most. Today people are looking for more practical and common sense estate planning. With this in mind, legal estate planning should really be viewed as a lifelong process, as if their lives depend on it, one that needs to be worked at and tended to day in and day out as lives and the laws change. Hopefully their estate planning specialist shares this view and helps to keep them and their plan on track with a formal maintenance and updating program. If not, you should consider having them speak to Wollaston Legal Estate Planning. Have a good month. Regards Martin Wollaston Legal Estate Planning Specialist 0161 486 0653