Help with care home costs

Find out what you will pay towards your care home costs and how we work it out. 

How it works

After your care needs assessment, we will ask you to complete a financial assessment to work out how much you can afford to pay towards your care home costs. The amount you will have to pay depends on the type of care you need and the property, savings and investments that you have.

If you have property, savings and investments of less than £23,250, you could qualify for help to pay for your care home. 

Complete the assessment form

You can complete the assessment yourself by downloading the Financial assessment form (PDF). 

You will need Adobe PDF Reader to edit these documents, or you can print them off. 

You must return your completed financial assessment within 14 days or you will be charged for the full cost of your care home.

Get someone to help

If you need someone to help you with your financial assessment, you could ask:

• a friend or family member to represent you
• an advocate to help you understand 

You will need to sign the form if you are able to. 

What you’ll need to include (supporting documents)

You will need to include copies of documents to support your assessment. These may include:

• bank and building society account statements 
• savings accounts statements 
• statements for any ISAs or other investments
• documents for income such as private pensions 
• letter from the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) with details of: 
  • state pension 
  • any other benefits 
• documents showing the sale of any property in the last 7 years
• rent and mortgage repayments
• Council Tax bill
• power of attorney documentation (if you have registered someone to look after  your money)

Where to send it

You can send your completed assessment by email or post, along with copies of your supporting documents.

Send by email

You can send your completed assessment to asc.financialassessments@kingston.gov.uk.

For each document you send, we need the following information:

• file name 
• type of document (bank statement or electricity bill) 
• number of pages in the file

You can write this in the email.

Send in the post

You can post your completed financial assessment form to: 

How it’s worked out 

The financial assessment will look at your:

• savings and investments
• income and state benefits
• any property or land you own

Savings and investments (Capital)

We look at your savings and investments, such as:

• bank or building society accounts
• property 
• land
• national savings certificates
• premium bonds
• stocks and shares

Find out if you qualify

If you have capital of less than £14,250, we will not include this in our calculations. This means you’ll be left with at least this amount if you have it. 

If your capital is between £14,250 and £23,250, you may still qualify for help to pay but we'll include this in our calculations.  

If you have capital of more than £23,250, you will need to pay the full cost for your care. When your capital falls below £23,250, you can ask to be reassessed.                         

How it's calculated

If you have capital above £14,250, we will assess every £250 over this amount. 

Every £250 (or part of £250) above £14,250 is looked at as an extra £1 per week of income. 

So, if you have capital of £4,000 above the lower capital limit of £14,250, we'll take into account £16 as income a week.

Full details of how we work out costs in a financial assessment are explained in our Charging Policy (PDF).

Income

What we count 

We will take into account any pensions and benefits you receive, such as:

• Income support
• Pension credits
• State retirement pension
• occupational or private pension
• Employment & Support Allowance (ESA)
• Severe Disablement Allowance
• Armed Forces Independence Payment
• Disability Living Allowance (DLA) care component
• Attendance Allowance 
• Personal Independence Payment (PIP) daily living component
• Industrial Injuries Disablement Benefit
• Universal Credit

What we may ignore

The financial assessment might completely or partly ignore things like:

• charitable or voluntary payments 
• War Disability Pension
• War Widows Pension
• War Widows Supplementary Pension
• Working Tax Credit
• Disability Living Allowance (DLA) mobility component 
• Personal Independence Payment (PIP) mobility component
• Pension Credit (savings credit) 
• Guaranteed Income Payments under the Armed Forces Compensation Scheme
• savings or earnings below a certain level as decided by the government 

Property 

If you own a property, the value of your property is counted towards the cost of a care home placement. 

If you own the property jointly, we will count your share of the value.

If you have any additional properties, they will be included in the assessment. 

12-week disregard

When you’re moving into a care home that is organised and paid for by us, we don’t count the value of your property for the first 12 weeks. We call this the 12-week property disregard. 

You will need to pay towards your care costs from income and other capital during the 12 weeks. We do this to give you time to consider your options for funding your care. 

During the 12 week period, you might want to consider:

• selling your property
• renting it out 
• entering into a deferred payment arrangement

We strongly recommend that you seek independent financial advice before making any decisions. 

When we don’t count the value of your property

If your property will continue to be the home of any of the following people after you have moved into a care home:

• your partner or spouse 
• a close relative aged over 60 
• a relative aged under 60 who is incapacitated 
• a divorced or estranged partner who is a lone parent 
• a child under 16 who is maintained by you

Someone cannot move into the property with the intention of gaining the disregard for you. If this happens, we will still include its value in the assessment.

Selling your home 

If you sell your home within 12 weeks of moving to a care home, the proceeds will be counted as capital. 

If you choose not to sell your home, we can discuss other options with you, such as entering into a deferred payment arrangement.

Renting out your home

Some people choose to rent the property out to generate income. If you do this, you will be expected to use the rental income to increase the amount you pay for your care each week. 

This will mean that the weekly payments made by us are less but you reduce your overall debt. 

Temporary stay in a home

If your stay at a care home is temporary, you will be expected to pay towards the cost but the value of your home will not be included in the assessment.

Money to cover everyday costs 

When we calculate how much you will pay towards your care, we make sure that you’re left with enough money to cover everyday expenses. This is called a personal expenses allowance. 

The government sets this amount every year. From April 2023 it is set at £28.25 per week.

Declaring your financial resources 

It is illegal to give away assets to avoid charges for social care. 

Any gift or disposal of assets in the last 7 years must be declared for your assessment. The recipient of gifted property or money will be liable for the charges. 

If you think you’ve forgotten to mention anything, we will need to review your assessment. This could mean that we need to make a backdated charge.