My elderly mother in law (widowed) suffers from dementia and is being cared for at home by her 2 sons. She is on a pension, and her sons are on unemployment benefits and a disability pension. Within the next 6 months (more than likely it will be sooner) she will need to go into a nursing home. We are looking into the Fair Deal Scheme but have a question. I know that %80 of her pension goes towards the nursing care bill but what happens if she doesn't have any assets? The two sons have and will continue to live in the home house all their lives, so what happens there? They can't be kicked out can they? The local nursing home is around €1000pw and there is no way the family could afford to contribute, so who pays for the shortfall? Any help with this would be greatly appreciated. Thanks
Help with Fair Deal Scheme questions
- Thread starter Cyndi
- Start date
Hi,
I have been involved in a recently approved Fair Deal application for an elderly relative. Only assets are house and a bit of savings. It really doesn't matter that your MIL has no assets apart from the house. Your MIL continues to own her house when in a nursing home. HSE charges her say €200 per week and pays €800 say directly to nursing home. Her home is untouched. Son's assets are fine, they continue to live in the house.
Here is how it works with my relative.......
House worth €100k, savings €35k, pension income €230 pw, extra income €40 pw
have to pay €300 a week to nursing home, HSE pays the rest. There is no further charge on the house on death of patient.
Ye should apply asap for the Fair Deal. It takes a few months to get approval. Also, in each nursing home, only some beds are Fair Deal beds, so there will/may be be a few months waiting for a Fair Deal bed.
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Are you sure this is correct? Read [broken link removed].
Hi,
we queried the €300 charge per week, as total income is €230 + €40 = €270 and 80% of this = €216. The level of savings are below the threshold for calculation.
We were told the 5% asset charge is included in the €300 per week, for the first three years. As an observation, it is highly unlikely that the patient will survive longer than 2 years, too much chronic illness, very high dependency.
If your MIL doesn’t have any assets, then her contribution will be based on her income alone, if her only income is a pension, then it will be 80% of that, the state will pay the balance.
If your MIL owns the house, that’s an asset and she will also have to pay 5% of the value of the house for 3 years. This part of your MIL’s contribution can be deferred and will become payable after your MIL’s death, but can be deferred further in certain cases, from what you have posted, the two sons appear to qualify for this deferral and should be able to live indefinitely in the house after your MIL’s death. Full details of further deferrals are on pages 14 & 15 here;
http://hse.ie/eng/services/Publications/services/olderpeople/nhssbooklet.pdf
10 examples of how the financial assessment work can be found in the link below, from the information you have given; If your MIL doesn’t own the house, case no.1 probably applies, If she owns the house, case no.2 probably applies.
http://www.dohc.ie/issues/fair_deal/fair_deal_examples.pdf?direct=1
In the light of the link I posted above and twofor1's clarification above, which is also my understanding of how the finance of the scheme works, I can't understand how those figures have been arrived at.
Only €35K of the €36K disregard that’s allowed has been used, the extra €1K can be knocked off the house, giving it a value of €99K.
So €99K x 5%/52 =€95.19 added to the €216 gives a weekly contribution of €311.19.
Can’t explain the difference but I think your €300.00 contribution is near enough to right. Our contribution was also on the lower side of what we expected.
Cheers