Your financial assessment for residential or nursing home care

Your savings and assets

If you have over £23,250

If you have over £23,250, you’ll have to pay the full fees charged by the care home. This amount includes any savings you have from delaying taking your pension, also known as deferred pension savings.

If you have to pay the full fees, you’ll need to arrange to pay the care home yourself.

If you own a property you can still get a financial assessment to find out if you can get help to pay for a care home.

If you have less than £23,250

If you have less than £23,250, we'll offer you a financial assessment which will tell us how much you can afford to pay.

Get help to pay for your care

If you or someone you care for needs care and support, you could get benefits to help with the cost, even if you have savings.

Check you're getting the correct benefits.

If you own your home

If you’re still living at home, we won't take the value of your property into account in the financial assessment for the first 12 weeks from the day you move into a care home. This is called a 12 week property disregard.

At the end of the 12 weeks, the value of your property is counted in the financial assessment. You’ll then have to pay the full cost of the care home fees. You’ll need to arrange to pay the care home yourself.

The other reasons your property isn't included in the financial assessment are, if:

you’re receiving short-term or respite care
your spouse or partner lives there

If you own a 2nd property, we'll assess the value from when you move into the care home.

Selling your property to pay for your care home fees

If you've been living in a care home for more than 12 weeks, and you don't want to sell your property, you can ask for a loan from us to pay the home care fees. This is called a deferred payment.

Find out more about deferred payments and how to apply.

Before deciding how you'll pay for your care, you can get independent financial advice, and read the charging policy for care services.

Your Income

We take the following benefits into account:

Pension Credit

Income Support

Employment and Support Allowance

Incapacity Benefit

Universal Credit

Industrial Injuries Benefit

PIP (Personal Independence Payment)

Attendance Allowance

Disability Living Allowance (DLA)

We take the following Pensions into account:

State Retirement

War Widow and Widower

Superannuation

other Private Pensions, including Deferred Pension Income

Other income we take into account:

rental income

annuities and trust income

any other available income

We do not take the following into account:

Disability Living Allowance

PIP mobility components

War Pensions

earnings

Allowances and deductions

The following are the allowances and deductions we make for outgoings:

all nursing or care homes residents can keep a personal allowance of £30.65 per week
a further £10 is disregarded for people in receipt of war widow or widower pensions
savings Credit Allowance of up to £7.05 per week

Additional things we will consider as part of the financial assessment

It's not possible to include all the rules on calculating charges, but the following are important:

if any savings or property has been transferred to someone else prior to needing residential or nursing care, it may still be taken into consideration in the financial assessment
in some cases like short term residential care, maintenance costs for your property may be allowed for a limited period, this includes rent, mortgage, water charges, council tax and home insurance
we have the right to check information, for instance with the Department for Works and Pensions (DWP)
we must protect public funds, so may use information for the prevention and detection of fraud

What we'll do next

We'll take all the above into consideration, and use the information you provide to calculate your financial contribution.

We'll then send you written confirmation of the charge you need to pay.