Summary: Mr X complained the Council failed to manage his mother, Ms Y’s, finances while she was in a nursing home and did not stop payments from her bank account. He says this distressed him and meant the Council wrongly charged him for Ms Y’s care costs after her death. The Council was at fault. It delayed making a deputyship referral and was late responding to Mr X’s complaint. This caused uncertainty and frustrated Mr X. The Council has agreed to apologise.

The complaint

1. Mr X says the Council failed to manage his mother, Ms Y’s, finances after she moved into a care home and did not stop payments from Ms Y’s bank account. He says this distressed him and meant he was wrongly charged for Ms Y’s care costs.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. In this statement, I have used the word fault to refer to these. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint. I refer to this as ‘injustice’. If there has been fault which has caused significant injustice, or that could cause injustice to others in the future we may suggest a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended)
3. If we are satisfied with an organisation’s actions or proposed actions, we can complete our investigation and issue a decision statement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 30(1B) and 34H(1), as amended)
4. Under our information sharing agreement, we will share this decision with the Care Quality Commission (CQC).

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How I considered this complaint

5. I read Mr X’s complaint and spoke to him about it on the phone.
6. I considered evidence provided by Mr X and the Council as well as relevant law, policy and guidance.
7. Mr X and the Council had the opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I considered any comments before making a final decision.

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What I found

Background information

8. The Care Act 2014 (section 14 and 17) provides a legal framework for charging for care and support. It enables a council to decide whether to charge a person when it is arranging to meet their care and support needs, or a carer’s support needs. The charging rules for residential care are set out in the Care and Support (Charging and Assessment of Resources) Regulations 2014 and councils should have regard to the Care and Support Statutory Guidance.
9. When the Council arranges a care home placement, it must follow the regulations when undertaking a financial assessment to decide how much a person must pay towards the cost of their residential care.
10. A key principle of the Mental Capacity Act 2005 is that any act done for, or any decision made on behalf of a person who lacks capacity must be in that person’s best interests. The decision-maker also has to consider if there is a less restrictive choice available that can achieve the same outcome. Section 4 of the Act provides a checklist of steps decision-makers must follow to determine what is in a person’s best interests.
11. The Court of Protection deals with decision-making for adults who may lack capacity to make specific decisions for themselves.
12. The Court of Protection may need to become involved in difficult cases or cases where there is disagreement which cannot be resolved in any other way. The Court of Protection:

• appoints deputies to make decisions for people lacking capacity to make those decisions;
• decides whether a LPA (Lasting Power of Attorney) or (Enduring Power of Attorney) is valid; and
• removes deputies or attorneys who fail to carry out their duties.

13. If there is a need for continuing decision-making powers and there is no relevant EPA or LPA, the Court of Protection may appoint a deputy to make decisions for a person. It will also say what decisions the deputy has the authority to make on the person’s behalf. The Office of the Public Guardian (OPG) oversees the work of attorneys and court-appointed deputies and produces detailed guidance for them.
14. The Council’s published adults social care complaints procedure does not give a deadline for responding to complaints. It says the Council should respond to other complaints within 20 working days.

What happened

15. This is a summary of events, outlining key facts and does not cover everything that has occurred in this case.
16. Ms Y was living with her partner Mr Z.
17. In October 2023 Ms Y was in hospital. Ms Y’s family asked the Council to take control of Ms Y’s finances because she could no longer manage them. The Council held a best interests meeting with professionals and Ms Y’s family. The meeting decided it was in Ms Y’s best interests to get care and support in a nursing home.
18. In October 2023, the Council started the internal referral process for a deputyship application.
19. Ms Y moved into a nursing home in November 2023.
20. In January 2024 the Council wrote to Ms Y saying it was due to start a deputyship application. The Council said it would assist funding Ms Y’s care while the deputyship was pending and would send her invoices for information showing how much she was being charged.
21. In May 2024 the Council made an internal referral for a deputyship application. The referral was not accepted because it was incomplete.
22. In July 2024 the Council made a completed internal referral. The Council started working on the deputyship application.
23. In August 2024 the Council applied to the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) to become Ms Y’s appointee and receive her benefits directly.
24. In September 2024 the Council sent details of the deputyship application to Ms Y’s nursing home and asked them to notify Ms Y and complete a form. Later that month, the DWP accepted the Council as Ms Y’s appointee and agreed to pay her benefits directly to it.
25. In October 2024 the Council chased the care home for a response to its previous contact. Later that month, Mr Z told the Council Ms Y still had a standing order on her bank account paying rent to her former landlord. The Council asked the bank to cancel the standing order but it would not do so. The Council also contacted Ms Y’s private pension provider asking it to pay her pension directly to the Council while the deputyship application was pending. The provider did not respond.
26. Ms Y went into hospital at the end of October 2024.
27. In November 2024 Ms Y’s care home told the Council she was receiving end of life care. The Council said it would take an estimated 32 weeks for the Court of Protection to grant an order once it made the deputyship application. It decided not to proceed.
28. Ms Y moved to a hospice at the end of November 2024.
29. Ms Y died in January 2025. The family told the Council Mr X was dealing with Ms Y’s estate.
30. Later in January 2025 the Council told Mr X that Ms Y’s care fees had been put on hold pending the deputyship order and it would be contacting him to complete a financial assessment and provide details of any outstanding invoices.
31. In February 2025 Mr X asked the Council why it had not taken over Ms Y’s finances from November 2023. The Council replied it had not been granted deputyship.
32. In March 2025 the Council sent Mr X a position statement showing the funds it still held for Ms Y and the outstanding charges for her care and related costs.
33. Later in March 2025 Mr X complained to the Council. He said the Council failed to look after Ms Y’s finances until August 2024 and only partially looked after them from that date.
34. In April 2025 the Council told Mr X it had revised the position statement issued in March 2025 and reduced the outstanding charges.
35. In July 2025 Mr X complained to the Ombudsman. Later that month, the Council responded to Mr X’s complaint. It said high demand on staff had delayed the internal deputyship referral and the court application would have taken 32 weeks when Ms Y was receiving end of life care. It also said all invoicing was correct. Mr X was dissatisfied with the Council’s complaint response.
36. In response to my enquiries, the Council said high workloads delayed the deputyship referral, the average time from referral to court application was three months and the court order would not have been issued before Ms Y’s death. It also said it had no power to stop the standing order payments from Ms Y’s bank account.

My findings

Delay in applying for deputyship

37. Ms Y’s family asked the Council to take control of Ms Y’s finances in October 2023. The Council did not make a completed internal deputyship referral until July 2024. This is a nine month delay. This is fault.
38. We cannot say the Council would have had deputyship before Ms Y’s death if the internal referral had been made sooner. The Council estimated it takes three months to prepare a deputyship application and the court then takes 32 weeks to grant an order. This is a total of 11 months from completed internal referral to court order.
39. On this basis, if the Council had made an immediate internal referral after the family’s request at the end of October 2023, the court order may have been granted by the end of September 2024. This would have given the Council control of Ms Y’s finances three months before she died. The delay in the original referral prevented this possibility. This is fault. Instead, Mr X had to deal with Ms Y’s legacy care costs after she died because deputyship had not been in place. The delay caused Mr X uncertainty over whether he would have been responsible for Ms Y’s legacy costs if the Council had made the deputyship referral sooner.
40. The Council was only able to access Ms Y’s benefits and could not access any other income or savings to pay for her care. When Ms Y died, her estate became liable for her outstanding care costs. Mr X was dealing with Ms Y’s estate. The Council was entitled to invoice Mr X for Ms Y’s outstanding care charges. The Council was not at fault in invoicing Mr X.

Failure to stop standing order

41. Ms Y’s bank continued to make standing order payments from her account after she moved into the care home. The Council had no power to stop these payments. It asked the bank to end the payments but the bank would not. The Council could do no more. The Council was not at fault.

Complaint response

42. Paragraph 14 says the Council’s adults social care complaints procedure does not give a deadline for responding to complaints. However, other parts of the Council’s complaints procedure say the Council should respond to complaints within 20 working days. We expect the Council to have responded to Mr X’s complaint within a reasonable timescale and 20 working days is reasonable.
43. In March 2025 Mr X complained to the Council. The Council replied 139 working days later in July 2025. This is 119 working days late. This is fault. This frustrated Mr X.

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Action

44. To remedy the outstanding injustice caused to Mr X by the faults I have identified, the Council has agreed to take the following action within 4 weeks of my final decision:

• Apologise to Mr X for the delay in making Ms Y’s deputyship referral and the delay in its complaint response. We publish guidance on remedies which sets out our expectations for how organisations should apologise effectively to remedy injustice. The organisation should consider this guidance in making the apology I have recommended in my findings.

45. The Council should provide us with evidence it has complied with the above actions.

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Decision

46. I have completed my investigation. I have found fault by the Council, which caused injustice to Mr X.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman