fbpx

Ombudsman Acts Against Slipshod Council

27th December 2018 By Arman Khosravi

When people need to go into care, the local councils that end up supporting the care costs are well known for their doggedness in attempting to ensure that the person being cared for supplies as much of the funding as possible.

This will often involve a review of how they managed their finances prior to their need for care and, in particular, whether they acted in a way that was intended to remove assets from their estate or control so that the council would pick up a greater proportion of the total care cost than would otherwise have been the case.

Where such ‘deliberate deprivation’ is alleged to have occurred, the council will seek recompense based on the capital that has been given away. Accordingly, if you intend to make substantial gifts of capital to family members or others, this should be considered early – preferably well before any residential care need arises. Additionally, a gift that is made more than seven years before death will normally not be considered to be within your estate when the eventual Inheritance Tax liability is calculated.

In a recent case, a family was successful in overturning a decision by a local council that deliberate deprivation was behind an elderly couple’s gift of funds to one of their children in order for her to buy a house. The couple had, since the 1980s, given help to three of their children to buy homes. The husband, who suffers from dementia and Parkinson’s disease, was placed in a nursing home soon after he and his wife had given financial support to their fourth child to buy a property with her husband.

The council decided, without providing the wife with ‘a properly reasoned decision showing the evidence it has considered in accordance with statutory guidance’, that the couple should carry the full cost of the husband’s care.

The family complained to the Local Authority Ombudsman, who upheld their complaint that the council had not taken all relevant facts into account, including the couple’s desire to be fair to all their children as evidenced by their prior course of action over some time, or provided the couple with the reasons for its decision. The council was ordered to apologise and pay the wife £250 for her distress.

Source: Concious

Latest News

Tenants Can Purchase Freehold When Landlord Cannot Be Found

11th June, 2024 By

The Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993 gives qualifying leaseholders the right to join together to buy the freehold of their properties – a process known as collective enfranchisement. A recent case demonstrated that this right can be exercised even when the landlord cannot be found. The leaseholders of two flats in a terraced house wished to purchase it from the landlord, but were unable to ascertain his whereabouts and therefore could not serve notice on him under Section 13 of the Act. They therefore applied for an...

Court Refuses to Set Aside Divorce Order Applied for by Mistake

6th June, 2024 By

While the courts have a range of powers to set aside orders, they will only exercise them in limited circumstances. In a somewhat surprising case that has attracted much comment, the High Court declined to set aside a final order of divorce that had been applied for by mistake. A couple separated in January 2023, after more than 21 years of marriage. In October that year, while financial remedy proceedings were still ongoing, the wife's legal representatives inadvertently applied for a final order of divorce in respect of her instead...

Waiting Time for Grants of Probate Falls

3rd June, 2024 By

Following concerns last year about delays in processing probate applications, recent figures from HM Courts and Tribunals Service show that waiting times for grants of probate are continuing to improve. The average time from submission of a probate application to probate being granted fell to 11.3 weeks in March 2024, a decrease from 13.7 weeks in February and 13.8 weeks in January. This is the lowest figure since March 2023, when the average was 10.8 weeks. The longest waiting time since then was in November, at 15.8 weeks: that month,...

Late Appeal Against Tax Penalties Rejected

31st May, 2024 By

It is incumbent on taxpayers to make sure they fully comply with their obligations to file returns and pay any tax due. The point was illustrated by a recent case in which a taxpayer whose return had not been received by HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) failed to persuade the First-tier Tribunal (FTT) that he should be permitted to appeal against the resulting penalties. On the evening of 31 January 2014, the man had completed his 2012/13 Income Tax return on HMRC's website. Shortly afterwards he went to Cyprus, and...