FOI: Plan to retrieve care costs from house sales based on 'shaky foundations'

clock • 2 min read

Plans to make greater use of 'deferred payments' to claw back social care costs from the value of the sale of a family home could fail unless the existing 'deferred payments' system is improve, Royal London has warned.

This is the conclusion of an analysis of 140 replies to Freedom of Information (FOI) requests sent by Royal London to English local authorities.   Despite access to a Deferred Payment Agreement being a legal right, ten local authorities told Royal London that they had not entered into a single arrangement since the scheme was introduced in April 2015. Under existing rules, people living in residential care can (in certain circumstances) ask a local authority to meet their care home bills.  In return the council will recover the money plus interest from the later sale of a family h...

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