Warning over care home ‘trust’ schemes that promise to protect your property

Be wary of schemes that aim to avoid you having to sell your home to fund health care, experts are warning.

Homeowners are being warned to tread carefully before signing up to any scheme that claims to protect their home from being sold if they need to go into care.
These schemes are aimed at sheltering homes from being included when a local authority assesses an elderly person’s assets to determine how much they should contribute to their care fees.

If their assets are above a pre-set cap, they will be liable to pay for the cost of care themselves. The cap is quite low – just over £23,000 for this tax year – meaning that most property owners will be liable to pay for care, even if it means having to sell or rent out their property to raise the funds.

Many elderly people fear having to sell their home, preferring to pass it on to their children. So it is no surprise that there is demand for schemes that will put your house in trust in a bid to keep it out of the local authority’s clutches.

An asset protection trust will put your home in a trust for someone else. Fees to set up these trusts can run into thousands of pounds.

Read the complete story here on The Telegraph website.