This is Mr and Mrs Jones, they have 2 children, Alex and Jane, they are both happily married and each have two children.
Mr and Mrs Jones have a house worth £300,000. They have savings and investments worth around £40,000.
Therefore, the total value of their estate is £340,000. They would like to make sure that as much as possible is passed onto to their children.
They are concerned about care fees and what might happen in the event one of them needs long term care in the future.
Mr and Mrs Jones have a Property Protection Will. They own their property as tenants in common, so they each own a half share of the house. Mr Jones sadly passes away. The 50% of the property that he owned passes into a trust. All that this means in practice is that his children (as Trustees) are added to the deeds of the property. Mrs Jones still owns his 50% as normal.
Therefore, Mrs Jones now owns 50% of the family home and £80,000 in savings. The total value of her estate is now £230,000. (note: this is not the correct calculation for inheritance tax- only local authority care funding. The total value of the houses would still be taken into account for any inheritance tax calculation.)
A few years pass and Mrs Jones has a serious stroke. She is no longer able to look after herself and her family decide that it would be best if she moves into care.
As Mrs Jones has assets worth more that £23,250 the local council say that she is responsible for funding her own care.
As Mr and Mrs Jones set up Property Protection Wills, the local authority could not take the full value of the properties into account, only the half owned by Mrs Jones.
Mrs Jones needs care for ten years before she also sadly passes away. Her care was costing £1,000 per week (around the average cost for care in England) so the total cost of her care was £520,000!
If Mr and Mrs Jones had standard mirror wills the full value of their estate would have been used to fund care, leaving their children to inherit £14,250- this is the amount the local authority must leave, once the estate gets down to the last £14,250 they will take over paying any care fees.
However, due to the Property Protection Wills, Mrs Jones actually paid £215,750 for her care. Still an extraordinary amount of money but it means that their children and grandchildren still inherited £164,250.
Mr and Mrs Jones’s Property Protection Wills cost them a total of £300. Why not spend a little now to safeguard what you have worked hard for all of your life, for your children not a care home owner?
What would have happened if Mr Jones didn't need care but had remarried after his wife passed away? Read more here.
Contact us today to book your free appointment or request our free information pack.