Summary: The Council was at fault in how it arranged for Ms Y to defer paying for her care so she did not need to sell her home. This caused her son, Mr X, avoidable frustration but did not impact Ms Y as the faults did not mean she had to sell her home. Ms Y was ultimately charged the correct amount for her care. The Council will apologise to Mr X and take action to prevent fault in future.

The complaint

1. Mr X complained about how the Council set up and administered his mother, Ms Y’s deferred payment agreement (DPA), so she could defer paying for her care. Mr X said this caused stress and anxiety and meant he had to spend time and trouble resolving matters. Mr X also said the issues meant he doubted the validity of the DPA and he is unsure if Ms Y has been charged for her care correctly.

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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 recommend 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)

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How I considered this complaint

4. I considered evidence provided by Mr X and the Council as well as relevant law, policy and guidance.
5. Mr X and the Council had an opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I considered any comments before making a final decision.

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What I found

Law and guidance

6. When someone moves into a care home permanently, their council can assess their finances to decide what they should pay towards their care. If a person has more than £23,250 in capital, they will be expected to pay the full cost for their care.
7. If the person has less than £23,250 in capital, they must still contribute towards their care. In calculating the person’s contribution, councils must disregard the value of a person’s main or only home for 12 weeks from when they first enter a care home as a permanent resident. We call this the 12-week disregard.
8. For capital between £14,250 and £23,250, the council applies the capital tariff. This is where person must pay £1 per week for every full or partial £250 above the £14,250 threshold.
9. Someone living in a care home may own property such as a house or land but have savings less than £23,250. They therefore cannot pay the cost of their care without selling their home. Deferred payment agreements (DPA) are designed to prevent people from being forced to sell their home to pay for their care. There are two types of DPA; traditional and loan-type.
10. Traditional agreements are where a council pays the care home directly and agrees to defer the payments due to it. They are used where the council arranges the care on behalf of the person. Loan-type agreements are for people who arrange their care directly with the care home.
11. Once a DPA comes to an end, or the person receiving care dies, their home is sold and the proceeds used to repay the council.
12. While a person has a DPA, the capital tariff is applied to their ‘liquid’ capital. That is the capital the person holds other than the value of their home.

What happened

13. This section sets out the key events in this case and is not intended to be a detailed chronology.
14. Ms Y moved into a care home in 2024. The Council arranged a contract with the care home where it paid Ms Y’s care fees in full on her behalf. Ms Y then paid the Council her contribution towards those fees.
15. In advance of the 12-week disregard ending, the Council reassessed Ms Y’s finances, taking the value of her home into account. It told Mr X she would have to pay the full cost of her care, which amounted to £860.00 per week, once the 12-week disregard ended.
16. Mr X told the Council Ms Y’s family wanted a DPA in mid-August. A week later, in late August, the 12-week disregard ended.
17. Ms Y’s property was held in Trust so the Council asked Mr X to send details of the Trust and her will, so it could decide whether to agree a DPA. Mr X sent the Council a document relating to the Trust in early September, but the copy was unclear and not suitable for the Council’s purposes. Mr X also sent evidence of who had lasting power of attorney (LPA) for Ms Y.
18. In late September, the Council told Mr X she would need to pay £558.25 towards her care each week, instead of the full £860.00. This is the because the Council had decided it would only ask Ms Y to pay the sum she would have to pay if the DPA was already in place. This is standard practice for councils, so that people are not at risk of having to sell their home while the DPA is being arranged. It meant Ms Y was still invoiced and liable for the full cost of her care (£860.00 per week), but she was only expected to pay the lesser amount. In the meantime, Ms Y accrued the difference between her contributions and the full cost per week as debt. Once the DPA was in place, the Council would defer that debt. Mr X was unhappy the invoices were for £860.00 per week and asked the Council to change them. The Council declined as Ms Y was still liable for the full cost of her care.
19. In mid-October, the Council asked Mr X to send a legible version of the Trust document. He sent the Council the document in late October.
20. In mid-December, the Council told Mr X that the LPA document he sent had not been validated by the courts. Mr X sent the valid LPA document in mid-January 2025.
21. In mid-February, the Council also asked Mr X to sign the DPA and return it.
22. Between February and June 2025, Ms Y’s family considered who should sign the DPA and occasionally asked the Council questions about the agreement.
23. In mid-April, the Council reviewed Ms Y’s financial assessment and sent a letter to Mr X which set out that her contributions would increase to £740.41 per week from the next day.
24. Mr X says he did not receive this letter until August. The Council’s case records from mid-April state “financial assessment letter posted”.
25. In late May, due to the delay getting the signed DPA back from Ms Y’s family, the Council issued a notice that it would terminate the contract with the care home and Ms Y would be liable for paying the full cost directly.
26. Mr X asked the Council to change who would be the signatory for the DPA in June and returned the signed agreement by the end of the month. The Council implemented the DPA a day later and retracted the notice to end Ms Y’s contract as a result.
27. In early August, the Council issued a credit note, which noted it had removed £6,614.86 worth of care fees because Ms Y had now deferred them, with the DPA in place. Going forward, Ms Y would defer £84.59 per week. Ms Y’s invoices now showed her care cost £775.41 per week.
28. After Mr X received the credit note, he questioned why Ms Y’s care fees had gone up in April. The Council explained that in April, it had become aware that when it had carried out Ms Y’s financial assessment before the 12-week disregard ended, it had missed off one of her pension pots. This meant Ms Y’s income was higher than it thought, so she had to pay for more of her care up front and defer less as a result. The Council also explained that when the officer told Mr X what Ms Y should pay in September 2024, they had forgotten to apply the capital tariff to Ms Y’s liquid capital. The capital tariff came to £35 per week. The Council also said Ms Y’s weekly charge was £775.41 (£3,101.64 per month) from April 2025. It did not explain that the weekly charge was higher than that in the April letter because the letter also did not include the capital tariff.
29. Mr X told me that in addition, while the DPA team said Ms Y’s fees were £775.41 per week, its finance team said they were £735.41 per week. Mr X began paying £775.41 per week.
30. The Council told me the reason the April 2025 letter did not include the capital tariff was because its computer system cannot distinguish between liquid capital and the capital a person has in their home until a DPA is in place. This means that before a DPA is in place, its system cannot calculate the capital tariff. The Council said in those cases, officers are expected to calculate the tariff manually and tell the person what the capital tariff is. The Council the officer in this case had made a mistake.
31. The DPA was formally issued by late August.
32. Ms Y died in November 2025. Once Ms Y’s home had been sold, Mr X paid the Council the value of her deferred payments, which settled Ms Y’s bill.

Findings

Delay setting up the direct payment agreement

33. Mr X is unhappy with the length of time it took for the Council to agree and implement the DPA. He told me the Council told him it would take no more than 12 weeks.
34. There is no set timescale for agreeing and implementing a DPA. We expect councils to progress DPA’s promptly, without significant delay. I have seen no evidence the Council told Mr X it would take no more than 12 weeks to do the DPA. Arranging the DPA took a year, but some of the delay was outside the Council’s control, such as the wait for Ms Y’s family to decide who should sign the DPA, or because it received illegible or invalid documents.
35. Nonetheless, some of the delay was due to the Council. For instance, it took too long to ask Mr X to send a legible copy of the Trust document and failed to take substantive action for six weeks between late October and mid-December 2024. This was fault.
36. The Council was not at fault in how it decided to send Ms Y a warning that it would terminate the contract with the care home in May 2025. Ms Y was liable for the full cost of her care and the Council was paying it only while the DPA was put in place. When that did not progress between February and May 2025, because Ms Y’s family had not returned the signed DPA, it was entitled to give notice. Mr X told me the family had asked the Council about alternatives to a DPA in that period, but instead of engaging, the Council issued the notice. I have seen no evidence of this.

Invoices

37. Mr X is unhappy that until the DPA was in place, the Council sent invoices which stated Ms Y was responsible for the full cost of her care. This was not fault. Until the DPA was in force, Ms Y was responsible for the full cost of her care fees. The Council’s invoices reflected this.

Calculation of fees

38. The Council failed to include one of Ms Y’s pension pots in the financial assessment it completed in advance of the 12-week disregard ending. It also failed to apply the capital tariff. While the Council included the pension pot in its April 2025 financial assessment review, it again failed to include the capital tariff. The Council’s errors were fault.
39. The Council was further at fault because the April 2025 review of Ms Y’s care charges did not explain why its calculation of her contribution had increased compared to the previous financial assessment.
40. The Council told Mr X the correct contribution of £775.41 in August 2025, but at the same time, its finance team told him that Ms Y’s care fees amounted to £735.41 per week. The wrong information was fault.
41. Mr X said the Council did not send its April 2025 letter until he asked for a copy in August that year. However, the Council’s records note it posted the letter. I am satisfied the record is accurate. If the letter did not reach Mr X, this was not due to Council fault.

Injustice

42. The faults set out above did not cause Ms Y an injustice because they did not result in her having to sell her home to fund her care while she was in the care home. Ms Y was assessed as having to pay the full cost of her care and the Council charged Ms Y the cost of that care, through her weekly contributions and from the proceeds of her house sale, after she passed away. Nonetheless, the faults caused Mr X avoidable frustration, for which I have recommended a remedy below.

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Action

43. Within one month of my final decision, the Council will take the following actions.
1. Apologise to Mr X for the frustration he felt due to the faults set out in this decision. We publish guidance on remedies which sets out our expectations for how organisations should apologise effectively to remedy injustice. The Council should consider this guidance in making the apology.
2. Review what systems it has in place to prompt staff carrying out financial assessments to manually calculate the capital tariff, where it is paying for a person’s care while a deferred payment agreement is processed. If the Council identifies steps can be taken to reduce the likelihood a member of staff would fail to do the manual calculation, it will inform the Ombudsman of those steps and when it will complete them by.
44. The Council will provide us with evidence it has complied with the above actions.

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Decision

45. I find fault causing injustice. The Council has agreed actions to remedy that injustice and prevent fault in future.

Investigator’s decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman