Care Fees Planning

You would still have the right to live there. You would need the consent of all of you to sell the property, but if you are confident about your relationship with your children, the advantages could be:

• Certainty, because by transferring ownership now, you avoid potential disputes – and delays – over a will or if you died intestate
• Saving on probate fees, because probate in relation to the property would not be needed
• Preventing the family home from being taken into account should care fees become an issue in the future, providing you have no reason at the time of the transfer to think you would need to pay care fees

There is much discussion in the press about this last point. The timing of the gift of your property is crucial. It is worthwhile highlighting this passage from the statutory code that local authorities have to take into account if a property has been transferred away from your ownership in part or in whole:

‘It would be unreasonable to decide that deprivation had occurred where if at the time the disposal took place …(you)…were fit and healthy and could not have foreseen any need for care and support in the foreseeable future.’