Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about allegedly wrong advice on selling a home. There is not enough evidence of fault. It is unlikely investigation would find enough evidence.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains the Council wrongly told him his mother’s home would have to be sold to pay for her care. He says this resulted in him moving out of his mother’s home to less secure accommodation.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’, which we call ‘fault’. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint, which we call ‘injustice’. We provide a free service but must use public money carefully. We do not start or continue an investigation if we decide: there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating, or we could not add to any previous investigation by the organisation, or further investigation would not lead to a different outcome. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered information provided by the complainant.
4. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. People living in residential care usually have to pay for their care if they have assets and money above a certain level. The calculation often includes the value of the person’s home (if they own it). However, a home’s value is not included if a relative aged 60 or over is already living there.
6. Mr X states he was aged over 60 and living in his mother’s home when his mother moved into residential care. The Council was not involved in the move into residential care. Mr X contacted the Council around six months later. He says the Council told him the home would have to be sold to pay the care costs, so he moved to less secure accommodation, sold his mother’s home and put the money towards care costs. He argues the Council was wrong.
7. Mr X says the Council was wrong not to say the home’s value would be disregarded. However, we would only expect the Council to make that point if, at the relevant time, it had information suggesting the disregard applied. The Council says Mr X’s contact with the Council before he sold the home did not make clear Mr X’s age or that Mr X had lived with his mother before she went into residential care. It says the information from Mr X suggested he either already lived elsewhere or was planning to move out. That implies Mr X had decided to move elsewhere before the Council’s involvement.
8. The Council reports it provided all the relevant information for Mr X to read. It says this gave him the opportunity to consider whether the circumstances for disregarding his mother’s property’s value applied in his case and to raise this. The Council also says it gave Mr X information about a deferred payment arrangement (where the Council pays the care fees and receives repayment from the property’s sale later). It states Mr X declined that arrangement. So the Council says it did not advise selling the property was the only choice. Mr X has not disputed the Council sent that information. What the Council describes is in line with how we would usually expect a council to respond, in general terms, in such circumstances. This does not suggest fault by the Council.
9. The Council says a full financial assessment would have been the opportunity for it to find out all the relevant facts and decide whether the circumstances meant it should disregard the property’s value, but Mr X declined to proceed with a financial assessment at the time. We would not expect a decision about a disregard before a full financial assessment. It is not the Council’s fault that did not happen before the property was sold.
10. Mr X says the Council told him in conversation, not in writing, that he must sell his mother’s house to pay for her care. This is a reference to contact with the Council in early 2023. The Council disputes this. It is unlikely we could reach a clear enough view now about what any conversations covered, what was said and whether there was any missed opportunity to realise the situation might not be quite as the Council understood. Moreover, regardless of what might have been said in conversation, it seems Mr X also had relevant written information.
11. Mr X also says another council might have misadvised him. This decision statement only covers Kent County Council. If Mr X wants to complain about another council, he should complete that council’s complaint procedure before bringing any such complaint to us.

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Final decision

12. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because there is not enough evidence the Council was at fault, and it is unlikely investigation would find sufficient evidence.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman