Selling your home is not inevitable. But to avoid it, it requires understanding how the system actually works, and taking the time to plan for it properly.
Discover everything you need to know about care fees and how to avoid selling your house to pay:
One of the most common questions we’re asked is: “Will I have to sell my house to pay for care?”
It’s usually not just a practical question. It’s emotional, and stems from fear. People have often watched a parent or grandparent go into care for several years, and seen everything they worked for gradually disappear in the process. Savings are used up, and eventually the house has to be sold. It feels unfair, especially after a lifetime of hard work.
So, today I want to start with something reassuring. Selling your home is not inevitable. But to avoid it, it requires understanding how the system actually works, and taking the time to plan for it properly. The solution doesn’t lie in a “quick-fix” scheme.
Care fees are expensive. Depending on the type and location of the home, you could be looking at £2,000 to £3,000 per week – sometimes more.
When someone moves permanently into residential care, the local authority carries out two assessments:
The answer depends entirely on your circumstances. If you’re living alone, and you move permanently into residential care, the value of your property is normally included in the financial assessment. That doesn’t mean the council “takes” your home – but it does mean its value is considered when deciding how your care will be paid for.
Currently, if you have assets above the upper capital threshold to (around £23,250 in England, as of March 2026), you are expected to self-fund your care. As assets reduce, the local authority may start contributing, and once you fall into the lower threshold (around £14,250), they step in more fully.
If a property is included in the assessment, it can take a long time to reach those thresholds, which is why homes are often eventually sold. However, there are some important exceptions to this, which I’ll detail below.
There’s a key exception that many people still don’t realise. If you have a spouse or partner still living in the property, the house is completely disregarded in the financial assessment.
Only the person going into care is assessed, based on their savings, investments, and income. In this instance, joint savings are typically assumed to be owned 50/50. This distinction is incredibly important for couples, and it’s where proper will planning can make a significant difference.
There’s a lot of misinformation around care fees. I regularly meet people who have been told to “just put your house in a trust and it can’t be touched.” Unfortunately, it’s rarely that simple.
If you transfer your home into a trust during your lifetime purely to avoid future care costs, the local authority can challenge that under the deprivation of assets rules. There is no safe time limit. I’ve seen cases investigated many years after arrangements were put in place.
Where planning does work, and is far less likely to be challenged, is through properly structured wills for couples.
At Heritage Estate Planning, we often help couples put trust-based wills in place. In simple terms:
If the surviving partner later needs care, they are assessed only on their half of the property, and not the whole house.
Why is this different? Because the person who has died doesn’t need care. They haven’t deprived themselves of assets. The arrangement happens through a will, not as a last-minute transfer when care is already foreseeable. It’s legitimate estate planning, and not a panic reaction.
There’s another aspect that often gets overlooked. By the time residential care is required, there may already be cognitive decline. Dementia and similar conditions are unfortunately becoming more common. In those situations, attorneys appointed under a Lasting Power of Attorney step in to manage financial affairs.
Under the Mental Capacity Act 2005, attorneys must act in the person’s best interests. If a local authority challenges a previous property transfer, it may be the attorney, often a son or daughter, who has to justify why that decision was made.
If the arrangement appears to have been primarily about avoiding care fees, it can put families in an extremely difficult position. This is why we always stress that planning should be done early, and for the right reasons – not reactively when care is already foreseeable.
Not necessarily. Even if a property is included in the financial assessment, there can be options:
Every situation is different. Sometimes, selling the home is appropriate, but sometimes it isn’t. What makes the difference is whether there are other resources available.
Another reality that often changes the tone of the conversation, is when parents tell me they want to protect everything for their children, I gently ask: “Have you spoken to them about that?”
Some people assume that if they give everything away and rely on state funding, they will receive the same care as someone paying privately. That simply isn’t how it works.
If you are fully local-authority funded, you may have limited options about where you go. I have seen situations where individuals were placed far from their community because that was where funding allowed. When families understand this, the conversation often shifts.
Children frequently tell me they would rather their parents use their money to ensure they are somewhere comfortable, close to friends and family, with access to outdoor space and good facilities, rather than preserving inheritance at all costs.
If there is one message I consistently share, it’s this: plan before you need care. In reality, that means:
When planning is done at a younger age and in good health, it is far more robust and far less likely to be challenged.
You cannot eliminate the possibility that care fees will affect your estate. But you can protect part of your home through appropriate will planning, avoid arrangements likely to be challenged, ensure your family isn’t left defending decisions under the Mental Capacity Act, and maintain greater control over where and how you receive care.
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