Mother died any grants to help with funeral costs etc.

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question1

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Hi my mother recently died. She was in a nursing home and was under the Fair Deal scheme but because she was only in the nursing home 3 months the Fair Deal has been cancelled. We now have to pay the cost of the nursing home which will be around €15K as well as her funeral costs.
She has some savings that will cover some costs but not it all. She did not have life insurance, not sure why this was. She did have it throughout her life but they wouldn't insure her after a certain age. She was 74.

Can anyone tell me if she is entitled to claim anything from the state? Or if there are any grants out there than can help?

thanks
 
Hi,

Not sure what your mothers circumstances were but did she own her own home as this would form part of the estate. Dont worry to much about the bills etc at this stage as they do not rush you into making payments in regards to these.

You would need to check all of her assests to see how much her estate is worth and then see how much is owed out to the nursing home and then the funeral home.

You can also contact your social welfare office to cancel any pensions to your late mother and also in regards to what grants you are entitled to in relation to her passing.
 
Hi, thanks for the reply. my mother was buying her own house and my brother has been living in it all his life. so the house can't be sold.

i see on the Med1 form there is a section for nursing homes, do you know if she can cliam on the Med1 form also?
 
Sorry to hear of your loss.

Speak to your funeral director as they will be very familiar with all the grants that are available & should have a good idea of what ones you will be entitled to.

HTH
 
question1 said:
Hi, thanks for the reply. my mother was buying her own house and my brother has been living in it all his life. so the house can't be sold.

i see on the Med1 form there is a section for nursing homes, do you know if she can cliam on the Med1 form also?
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Sorry for your loss. Whoever paid the nursing home costs should claim them on the form med1.

Relief is @ 20% - i.e you get a credit for 20% of the amount paid.
 
Nursing home fees qualify for tax relief at the person's marginal rate of tax (this is an exception, other medical fees are only relieved at 20%).

However, are you actually liable for these fees? Unless there was an agreement with the nursing home that the children would pay the fees, this is an expense of your mother's estate.
 
Sympathies on the death of your Mother. Relief on nursing home fees is now only available at the standard rate. This changed when the Fair Deal scheme came in. I don't understand why the Fair Deal was cancelled because she was only in the home for a few months. I don't remember reading anything about this in the terms and conditions of the scheme.
 
Hi,thanks for replies. I'll explain bit further.
My mother is buying her house from the council and my brother has been living there all his life, 36 years :) She has been out of her home for last 9 months due to illness, she was in the hospital until we could get her into the nursing home. we got her into the nursing home under the fair deal scheme. This scheme takes 5% of the house value for the first year in a nursing home and this increase the longer her stay. Normally the payment is paid if she dies and the house is sold. The Fair Deal get back nursing home fees and also their % fee in relation to lenght of stay in nursing home. They know my brother is in the house so i think the deal was when he dies they will get their money. However because my mother was only there for 3 months we decided to cancel the fair deal and pay nursing home directly. Fair deal haven't paid up all anyways as of yet for her full stay. The nursing home costs €172 a day. So it amounts to nearly €18K. So we are looking to see what grants we can get to assist us paying the fees. Her estate, i.e. her home, will not be sold as it is my brothers home and he will have no where to go plus he has being paying mortgage for last 9 months or so.
 
It is probably too late to advise you of this but I think you may have been a bit hasty to cancel the fair deal scheme. I am familiar with the scheme as my Mam has been in a nursing home for 3 years now. The maximum you would have had to pay under the scheme would have been 80% of her income (if this was the state pension then approx 180 a week plus the 5% of the value of the house spread out over 52 weeks. If your house was worth say €150,000 then this would work out at about 130 a week. These are approx figures but you would only owe the nursing home €310 a week (estimate!) rather than €172 day.Had your Mum been accepted on the scheme and if so who advised you to cancel this deal as I think you may have been badly advised? You shouldn't have to pay up in full for these fees.
 
question1 said:
we got her into the nursing home under the fair deal scheme. This scheme takes 5% of the house value for the first year in a nursing home and this increase the longer her stay. Normally the payment is paid if she dies and the house is sold. The Fair Deal get back nursing home fees and also their % fee in relation to lenght of stay in nursing home. They know my brother is in the house so i think the deal was when he dies they will get their money.
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Something strange here - if she didn't actually own the house at the time, how could she have an agreement to pay them a & of the value later?
 
Complainer said:
Something strange here - if she didn't actually own the house at the time, how could she have an agreement to pay them a & of the value later?
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That's true. If she didn't own the house outright and also because her son was still living there she may have had no liability to pay anything other than 80% of her income for her care. This would mean that even less would be owed to the nursing home. I would certainly question this before I would pay up in full.
 
Hi, thanks for your posts. my mother was paying 80% of her state pension per month and this amount is deducted from the amount owed to the nursing home per month and the Fair Deal pay the remainder. This amount paid by Fair Deal still has to be paid when the person dies. Then there is the 5% fee they charge for paying this money for you becuase you don't have it at the moment.
so we still have to pay the fees for the nursing home to either the nursing home or Fair Deal but with Fair deal we would have to pay another 5% charged by them for them paying the remainder of the money for us monthy while she was alive.

so say 5% of house is 7500, at end of Fair Deal we would have to pay:

7500+(what ever the monies owed paid by Fair Deal towards nursing home fees)

where now we would just pay
the monies owed to nursing home - the 80% of her pension she paid monthly to them.

does this sound correct??
 
To be honest it doesn't sound correct.Firstly it still isn't clear if you mother would owe that 5% per year as she doesn't seem to have owned her own house. If she does owe it, the fact that sadly she only lived for 3 months in a nursing home then she would only owe 1.25% of the value of the house for the short length of time she was there. I suggest that you ring the nursing home support office and get proper advice on this matter. Definitely don't pay up in full to the nursing home until you have established clearly what part of their fee your mother is actually liable for.
 
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my mother was buying her house and i presume that the mortgage should be paid off when she dies, this is another question I have to ask as the council says it is not and my brother can continue paying - even though house is in my mother and fathers name (both deceased), so in Fair Deal eyes she would own her house? They knew my brother is living there and I don't think legally he would be asked to leave as he has lived there all his life.
Basically we don't want to go down the route of selling the house as my brother would have no where to go as he is on the sick on the dole and he has lived there for 36 years and it wouldn't be right.

thanks for all your help. i will ring nursing home support office. I am the only one working and the other siblings are on the dole.
 
question1 said:
my mother was buying her house and i presume that the mortgage should be paid off when she dies, this is another question I have to ask as the council says it is not and my brother can continue paying - even though house is in my mother and fathers name (both deceased), so in Fair Deal eyes she would own her house? They knew my brother is living there and I don't think legally he would be asked to leave as he has lived there all his life.
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Sorry for your loss, but I'm still confused about this. Had she actually bought the house or not at the time that she died? If she hadn't bought the house, there is no mortgage to be paid off.

The question of whether your brother can stay in the house is a question for the council's social housing dept.
 
You'll have to be clearer on the exact situation. Did your mother actually own the house. There was a mortgage on it. In whose name is that mortgage and with who is the mortgage. Was there life insurance. Do you know what rights your brother has. He may have been paying the mortgage but one could equally say he was paying rent to your mother.

Not familiar with the fair deal scheme but it seems this has been cancelled. Who decided that? And who decided to pay the nursing home directly, I'm asking this as I cannot understand if all your sibling are on the dole how they plan to pay the nursing home. Who has in writing agreed to pay the nursing home. Basically is it the debt of her children or your mother's estate?

I know it's a difficult time but if you give more detais you will get better answers.
 
Hi,

My mother and father were buying a council house i.e. they had a mortgage from the council. my father died a long time ago and my mother continued to pay the mortgage. The mortgage was still being paid until she died. My brother has been paying it for last 10 month while she has been sick in hospital/nursing home.

Does paying a mortgage mean you "own" a house or does the mortgage have to be paid off in full to be declared as "owning" a house? I am paying a mortgage off my house like many others so does this means we do not own our house? Technically does a mortgage have to be paid off in order to own your home?

The Fair Deal scheme pay the excess of 80% of state pension per month(as my mother was paying this) to the nursing home using your assets as guarantee so when you die they take the monies from the assets and also a % fee pro-rata, based on the length of stay in the nursing home.
We were advised to cancel the Fair Deal scheme as my mother had only been in nursing home 3 months
 
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