Care home fee debt

[Bingbongsong]

Hello I’m hoping for some advice:

Mum went into a nursing home around 4.5yrs ago following two strokes, which advanced her already existing Alzheimer’s.

When Mum went into the home, we discussed fees, and told both the manager and the social worker that we would
like to do a deferred payment via the Local Authority. However, following the 12 week property disregard period, when we made an appointment to sort the financials, we were told by the home manager that the home no longer offered deferred payment plan via the LA. Our original contract states that funding must be discussed before a resident was admitted to the home. (Which we had). Further down the line, when we refused to sell Mum’s house and they threatened to evict Mum, they claimed there was no
contract and tried to force us to sign a new one, with the statement about deferred payment removed (that was the only alteration to the contract). Luckily my sister had a copy of the original contract, which showed them to be dishonest. They insisted that we pay a higher rate than we would have paid with a DPP via the LA, but agreed we could do it once Mum was no longer here. We didn’t feel we had any choice,
a they were threatening to evict Mum within days, which in her advanced co durum would have been very damaging and distressing.

When the paperwork came through with a request for the Deeds to Mums house we refused to send them. We were in discussions with a solicitor and of course there was the black hole of COVID, where the home was all but silent.

Fast forward 2 years, and we have just lost Mum.

We have now received an aggressive letter with a Pre Action Protocol for debt recovery, in which they are demanding we send them the deeds for Mum’s house.

While we don’t expect to have the debt wiped, after all, Mum has had care for over 4 years, which we expect to pay a fee for. We didn’t agree on the weekly cost. In fact we made it clear that we disagreed with their figure, and made that clear. When they sent the new terms through, we did not sign or return the document, and we did not sign any credit agreement.

My question is, where do we stand? Are we obliged to send the deeds to Mums house to them? Are we in a position to negotiate the outstanding invoice (roughly £155k). Finally, what sort of solicitor should we seek? Will a wills and probate lawyer be okay, ir should we be looking for someone experienced in contracts and dispute resolution?

Many thanks in advance for any advice or input on this.

[twohoots]

I don’t fully understand your post. It reads to me that nobody has been paying your Mum’s care home fees for all the time she has been in the care home. Personally if it were me I would avoid involving a solicitor as their fees soon rack up. I think you still have the house to sell so I would write to them and say when you sell the house you will pay the bill in full (which sounds about right to me) and say since they never confirmed what was going on about deferred payments you feel this is fair.

[Bingbongsong]

Thank you Twohoots. Yes that’s correct, the debt has been accruing, with no signed agreement in place, though they have sent documents for us to sign and requests for the deeds to Mums house, we have never done so, and they have not pursued strongly enough for us to oblige.

The difference between what should have been paying if they had honoured their initial agreement to allow a Deferred Payment scheme via the local council reason, and what they are actually charging amounts to around £35k over the period. On the DPP they would have been paid by the council monthly, and we wouldn’t even be in this situation at all. The debt would be with the council and we’d sell Mum’s house to pay the debt (35-50k less, as the home have also added interest at £500 per month). They threatened to evict Mum within 7days if we didn’t agree, but after that they left it with their solicitors, who were unsuccessful in getting the paperwork sorted.

I’d like to know if the home now have the right to demand we send the deeds to Mums house over? Should we reply to their solícitor (that’s who the demand has come from), or to the home directly? Ideally we’d like to pay the debt when Mums house is sold (we’ve started the process), but would like to negotiate a reduced invoice, in line with what we would have paid had we been allowed the DPP with the LA.