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By Nicolae Trofin

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Goodbye CRAG, hello Care Act

When an individual is in need of Local Authority care, the go-to document used by all social workers, care givers, local authorities and care homes to determine who pays for what has been the Charging for Residential Accommodation Guide – or as it’s more recognisably known – CRAG.

 The key word in all of that was guide – it in fact had no legal grounding and was in a way merely a collection of agreed policies issued by the Department of Health. It has long since been recognised that the interpretation and more importantly the implementation of those policies has very much been at the discretion of whichever Local Authority an individual needed care from. There are many case examples where one person entering care has been able to retain virtually all of their assets and their care funded by that Local Authority, whereas others have unfortunately found themselves in an area where the Local Authority has applied the policies to the letter and the individual has had to fund their own care, in accordance with CRAG.

 As some of you may be aware, there has been widespread ‘bending’ or complete ignorance of CRAG rules by Local Authorities, resulting in people paying for care which should have been free, & some paying excessively for care against what CRAG would ordinarily require.

 Over the past few years, the Government has reviewed the provision of care in England and Wales (Scotland and Northern Ireland will have their own forthcoming reviews) and addressed issues such as quality of care, cost of care not only to the Local Authorities but to the individual needing care, and also costs associated with domiciliary, residential and nursing care.

 So, currently, the care sector is in a state of transition – many of the implantation which affect care funding levels will not be settled and implemented until 2016, but the new processes for assessing care costs and the needs of carers are already now implemented in law if not yet applied by Local Authorities (there are reputedly many Local Authorities either ill equipped to apply, and in some cases ignorant of, the new legal obligations, in anticipation of the new funding levels being settled later.

 In short, if the need for care is still only a distant possibility, nothing. For those elderly clients, or those with a foreseeable need of care, the ways their assets are to be assessed, and the process to assess those assets, are going to change quite radically. Local Authorities will now have statute – based obligations to comply with which can only strengthen the power to recover assets, which may have been gifted away.

 For those who have elderly family members the recommendation is to book a consultation with an estate planning professional to protect as much as possible of their estates before is too late!

 Protect your home and assets by planning your estate NOW! Free consultation if you live in Bexhill, Hastings, Battle, Rye or anywhere in Sussex and Kent.

This message was added on Thursday 9th April 2015

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