Deferred payment scheme
Deferred payments allow homeowners to pay care home fees using the value of their property, rather than selling it immediately. The council will pay the fees and then receive the money back when your house is sold or you pass away.
Deferred payments in its simplest form is paying for some of the care costs from the value of your house or property and you won’t need to do this during your lifetime.
The Deferred Payment Scheme would not usually apply to your circumstances if your home does not belong to you, or if it must be disregarded from the financial assessment.
This includes situations where your spouse or partner continues to live in the property, or where the property is occupied by a dependent.
For these purposes, a dependent includes a child under 16, or a relative who is aged 60 or over, or who is incapacitated due to illness or disability. In these circumstances, the value of the property is normally ignored, and a deferred payment agreement is not required.
If you have to pay the full cost of care Residential Care and you own your own home, we can lend you the money. You then repay us when you chose to sell your home or after you pass away.
You can apply for Deferred Payments, if the following applies to you:
- You own your house or property
- You have less than £23,250, which is not including the value of your home.
- We have agreed that you could move into a care home permanently, which is after we talked to you about your needs. (During your assessment).
‘If you would like to talk to us about the Deferred payments scheme you can contact the Financial Assessment and Benefits Advice Team between the hours of 9am and 5pm from Monday to Friday’. For more information see our Contacting us and your information page.
The details of how the scheme works are available in the Deferred Payment Policy.
If your application is accepted, we will send a Deferred Payment Agreement to you or your legal representative, which will need to be signed and returned.
You will need to continue to make payments from your income or assets which we call your contribution, whilst under the scheme. We work this out by completing a Financial Assessment. The rest of care costs you do not pay will be the debt that is covered by the scheme.
Care costs usually increase each year in April and may also increase if your needs increase and you need more care.
Being accepted onto the scheme will mean that there are additional costs which will be explained in the agreement.
These include:
- Legal Costs
- Land Registry costs
- Land search fee
- Administrative fee
The agreement explains what we’re responsible for and what you are responsible for, which includes home insurance and maintenance.
The Deferred Payment scheme is providing you with a loan to cover the costs of your care, which means that there will be interest added to the debt. The interest percentage is set by the government and a statement from us will show the loan amount and the interest.
The Deferred payment agreement can be ended at any time, if the loan amount is repaid immediately.
If you sell the property, the loan will need to be repaid, and it would also need to be paid after you pass away.