Summary: We will not investigate Mrs Y’s complaint about the Council’s decision that Mrs X deprived herself of assets to reduce care costs, because further investigation is unlikely to find evidence of fault in how the Council made its decision.

The complaint

1. Mrs Y complains on behalf of her grandmother, Mrs X, about the Council’s decision to treat a series of financial gifts as deprivation of assets. She also complains about the Council’s decision to refuse to fund her care. She argues the Council failed to follow the relevant law and guidance properly when making its assessment, causing financial hardship and distress. She wants the Council to complete a new financial assessment and issue an apology.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. It is our decision whether to start, and when to end an investigation into something the law allows us to investigate. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 24A(6) and 34B(8), as amended)
3. We investigate complaints of injustice caused by ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. I have used the word fault to refer to these. We consider whether there was fault in the way an organisation made its decision. If there was no fault in how the organisation made its decision, we cannot question the outcome. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

4. I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
5. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

6. Mrs X received home care and fully self-funded it. She had a long-standing pattern of gifting to family, which the Council had previously accepted.
7. Between June 2022 and October 2023, Mrs X made further financial gifts to family members, which significantly reduced her capital. At the time, she continued to fund her own care. After an unforeseeable fall, Mrs X’s needs increased significantly, and she later moved into residential care.
8. Mrs X applied to the Council for funding towards her care. The Council decided she was not eligible for financial assistance because it determined she had intentionally deprived herself of capital to reduce her care contributions. Mrs X’s family dispute this and say she could not have known her care needs would increase when she made the gifts.
9. The Council reviewed its decision and maintained Mrs X had deliberately deprived herself of capital. It said when she made the gifts, she already had existing and increasing care needs and could reasonably foresee contributing to care costs. It also considered the timing, size, and impact of the gifts showed that avoiding care charges was at least a significant motivation.
10. Councils may consider whether a person has deliberately deprived themselves of an asset to reduce the charges they must pay. To do this, the Council must be satisfied, when the person disposed of the capital, they had a reasonable expectation of needing care and support and of contributing to their care costs, and that they reduced their assets to lower that contribution.
11. When assessing a disposal, the Council considers factors such as the timing of the disposal, the size of the gift, their health and expected care needs at the time, and the purpose of the disposal. After considering these factors, the Council may decide to treat the person as still owning the asset.
12. Based on the evidence I have seen I am satisfied the Council considered the evidence Mrs Y provided, along with the statutory guidance, when it made its decision and completed its review. The Council was entitled to decide that Mrs X had a reasonable expectation of ongoing care, taking into account her age and health at the time she made the gifts. I am also satisfied the Council was entitled to decide that Mrs X could reasonably expect to contribute towards her care costs.
13. The Ombudsman is not an appeal body. We cannot decide if the Council’s decision was right or wrong. We can only look at the Council’s process for making its decision. If we consider it followed those processes correctly, we cannot question whether the decision was right or wrong, regardless of whether the complainant disagrees with the decision the organisation made.

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Final decision

14. We will not investigate Mrs Y’s complaint because further investigation is unlikely to find evidence of fault in how the Council made its decision.

Investigator’s decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman