claim on deceased persons estate

[debluca]

hi all, hope someone can enlighten me.

My uncle passed last year leaving his estate to myself and siblings.
Anyway my reason for post is, the home he lived in for more than 20 years are making a claim on his estate?
They claim he owed them £22500 for items bought for him (not fees) for the last 14 years...yes you've read correctly.
items bought......clothes, cigarettes, fish & chips etc????
Oh, and they don't have receipts that add up to this???
Anyway, I would love someone to confirm for me that as a care setting...CQC, auditors etc would have jumped on ANY debt over 1 year, never mind 14. and if he wasn't paying, then the home should have seeked help from his social worker to help obtain monies owed.
I feel 100% certain that NO care setting would allow someone to run up these debts and to be honest...there's no proof....Financial abuse of a now deceased person? is top of my thoughts.
By the way, a solicitor is his executor and has just informed of this unbelievable claim today.

Thank you for reading

[charitynjw]

Re: claim on deceased persons estate

Hi debluca & welcome to LB.

Was a section 27 notice published?
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/.../19/section/27

I would hope so if a solicitor was the executor.

[enaid]

Re: claim on deceased persons estate

Was your uncle self funding or was the care cost paid by the LA?
If self funding all personal spending should have been added to the fees and shown on the invoice for whoever dealt with your uncles finances.
If LA funded a personal allowance which is currently £24.90 per week can be spent on anything the person wishes to spend it on.
I am sure records must be kept if it was the care home in charge of this allowance and I would get the solicitor as executor to demand to see the records.

PERSONAL EXPENSES ALLOWANCE (PEA)Legal basis1. The PEA is the weekly amount that residents are assumed to need asa minimum for their personal expenses and local authorities must applythis. The PEA is specified in regulations made under section 14(7) ofthe Care Act 2014 (“the 2014 Act”). This amount will be uprated eachApril.2. The PEA applies in relation to all persons whose care and support in acare home is arranged by a local authority under section 18 or 19 of the2014 Act.New PEA amount from 6th April 20153. The Care and Support (Charging and Assessment of Resources)Regulations 2014 (“the 2014 Charging Regulations”) will be amendedto provide for the PEA to increase from £24.40 to £24.90 with effectfrom 6th April 2015.4. This is larger than the usual formula increase (50p per week ratherthan 15p per week). This is because DWP is making a number ofincreases to pensioner benefits from April 2015. The changes tobenefits should result in a gain for local authorities in income fromcharging.5. The intention of the above formula increase in PEA is to enableresidents to keep some of the increase they are receiving in benefits,for their personal use. The increase to PEA has been set at a level thatis expected to keep broadly constant the proportion of care home costsmet from charges on residents.The purpose of the PEA6. The PEA is intended to allow residents to have monies for personaluse. Based on a financial assessment of an individual’s resources,under the 2014 Charging Regulations, individuals must be left with thefull value of their PEA. It is then up to the individual to determine howthey spend it.7. Local authorities, providers of accommodation and residents arereminded that the PEA should not be spent on aspects of care and 4support that have been contracted for by the local authority and/orassessed as necessary to meet individuals’ eligible care and supportneeds by the local authority or the NHS. Neither local authorities norproviders have the authority to require residents to spend their PEA inparticular ways and, as such, should not do so. Pressure of any kind tothe contrary is extremely poor practice.