If you own your home, we normally take its value into account 12 weeks after you go into a home permanently, or from the date your home is sold, if this is before the end of the 12 weeks. You will still need to pay towards the cost of your care during these 12 weeks.

We will not take the value of your main or only home into account when we assess how much you need to pay if:
• your partner continues to live there;
• a relative who is aged 60 or over, or is incapacitated continues to live there; or
• a dependent child (who is under 18) who you are responsible for continues to live there.

We do not include your home in our assessment if you are only staying in residential care for a short time. We may ignore the value of your home in certain circumstances, for example, if a friend or relative has given up their own home to move in with you and care for you. If you want them to continue living in your home, we may not include its value in your financial assessment.

If we do include the value of your home in our financial assessment, we will take account of it 12 weeks after you have gone into care permanently. In normal circumstances, this will bring your savings and investments above the £23,250 limit and you will have to pay the full cost of your care.

Deferred payment

If you cannot pay the full cost of your care – either because your home has not been sold yet or because you do not want to sell your home – you may want to consider a ‘deferred payment agreement’. This means that we will pay the difference between the amount you can pay and the full cost of your care to the residential home on your behalf as long as you pay a contribution based on an assessment of your available income and savings.

We will ask you to sign a legal document (similar to a mortgage) which means we can place a ‘legal charge’ against your property. You will also have to pay administrative charges to cover the cost of legal fees, ongoing monitoring, property valuation (if this applies) and land registry fees. The administrative charges are:

• initial charge – £670;
• property valuation – £326; and
• ongoing weekly charge – £10 per week.

When your property has been sold you must pay back the amount owing on the deferred payment. We will charge interest on this amount in line with the national interest rate that local authorities can charge. The national interest rate changes every six months.

The interest charged from 1 January 2024 to 30 June 2024 is 4.65% a year. To find out the interest rate from 1 July 2024, please ask the member of staff working with you or contact our Adults’ CarePoint.

Interest will apply from the day you enter into the deferred payment agreement. It will be compound interest. This means that we will calculate the interest and add it to the loan every day.

There is a leaflet called ‘Deferred payments: What do I need to know?’ (WS2067) which you can find on the Adults’ social care publications page of our website or you can ask for a copy by contacting our Adults’ CarePoint.

Please also see ‘Can I pay for more expensive care and accommodation?’ and ‘Who can contribute towards the cost of more expensive care and accommodation?’ in the 'Common questions' section.

How do I arrange to pay for my care?

We will agree the arrangements for paying for your care with you, or with someone acting on your behalf. Normally, the residential or nursing home will collect all or part of your contribution, which will go towards the cost of your care. If the home does not collect all of your contribution, we will invoice you, or someone acting on your behalf, for any part of your contribution that is still owing.

You should make arrangements with the home about how you are going to pay your contribution. If you should not pay the contribution direct to the home, we will let you know and tell you how you can pay the contribution.