Care fees · later life · family decisions
The fees started the day they moved in. Nobody’s told you what to do about the house.
First, the part almost no house buyer leads with: you may not need to sell at all. Two protections exist precisely so families don’t panic-sell — read them below before you read anything else here. Then, if selling is still the right call, we’ll put a date on it.
The first twelve weeks — and the three doors out of them
Tap each number. The meter is real, but so is the breathing room — and selling is one door of three, not the default.
1The meter is real — £1,298 a week
That’s the UK average for residential care in 2026; nursing care averages £1,535. In England, savings and assets above £23,250 mean self-funding. That arithmetic is why families rush — and rushing is exactly what the next two cards exist to prevent.
2Twelve weeks where the house doesn’t count
For the first twelve weeks of a permanent move into care, the council must disregard the home’s value in its financial assessment. And if a spouse, partner or certain qualifying relatives still live there, it stays disregarded beyond that — in which case selling could be the wrong move altogether. Ask the council for the financial assessment before any decision about the house.
3The door marked “don’t sell yet”
A deferred payment agreement is a loan from the council, secured against the home: they pay the fees, you repay when the house is eventually sold or after death. Up to 90% of the home’s value; in England interest tracks gilt rates plus 0.15%, with admin fees. It’s genuinely our strongest competitor on this page — often the right answer, and we’d rather tell you that now than buy a house that shouldn’t have been sold.
4When the family does choose to sell
An empty house has its own meter: maintenance, council tax, and unoccupied insurance that gets harder to buy the longer it sits. Selling turns an open-ended drain into a known number for fee planning — and a completion date in writing means the care home, the council and the family all know exactly when the money lands. Attorneys under a registered LPA can sell; the solicitor confirms the authority.
Sources: carehome.co.uk, care home fees 2026 · carehome.co.uk, deferred payment agreements · Buckinghamshire Council, the 12-week property disregard · Age UK, deprivation of assets. General information, not financial or legal advice. Last reviewed August 2026.
The warning that protects you: “deprivation of assets”
You may hear advice — at a kitchen table, or online — to give the house away, or sell it cheaply to family, so it escapes the means test. Councils can treat that as deliberate deprivation of assets: if they decide avoiding care fees was a significant motive, they can assess as though the asset was never given away — and despite the myth, there is no seven-year rule and no time limit. Selling at a fair, documented price to pay for care is the opposite of deprivation; our written offer comes with the valuation reasoning attached, which is exactly the paper trail a financial assessment likes.
Before you decide anything, take advice that isn’t from a house buyer. Age UK’s advice line, MoneyHelper, and a SOLLA-accredited later-life financial adviser are free or independent, and the council’s own financial assessment is the starting document. We’ll still be here afterwards — and if the deferred payment agreement looks like your better answer, we’ll say so on the phone.
Your three honest routes
Including the one that means not selling at all — genuinely our strongest competitor here.
A deferred payment agreement — don’t sell
The council pays the fees, secured against the home; the family repays when the house is eventually sold, or after death. The home stays in the family’s hands through the care years, and nobody sells under pressure.
Interest and admin fees compound quietly; the empty house still needs maintaining, insuring and watching; and the sale still happens one day — often handled later by executors, on top of everything else that day brings.
Let it out, rent toward the fees
Rental income offsets the fees and the house stays owned. For a good house in a strong rental area, it can carry a meaningful share of residential care costs.
Rent rarely covers nursing-home fees on its own, and someone becomes a landlord — compliance, voids, repairs, EPC rules — usually a family member who already has enough on. If it’s ever let and you want out later, our sitting tenant page covers that.
Sell to us, on a date the family chooses
When the family has taken the advice, done the assessment and decided a clean sale is right: a figure in writing with the reasoning attached, a completion date everyone can plan fees around, and contents handled as gently as our probate page describes — take what matters, leave the rest.
The price is below market value — 65–82% depending on the date, shown before you tell us anything. If the deferred payment agreement looks like your better answer, we’ll say so on the phone before you’ve given us a single detail.
The certain route: one date in a contract, £500 a day on us if we miss it, and an open-ended weekly drain becomes a known number the whole family can see.
The questions families ask
Do I have to sell my parents’ house to pay for care fees?
What is a deferred payment agreement?
Can we sell under a power of attorney?
Is selling to pay for fees “deprivation of assets”?
How fast — or how slow — can completion be?
Tell us the date that would help
There’s no obligation and nothing to sign. A figure in writing with our reasoning — a document the whole family, and any adviser you ask, can read before anyone decides anything.
Or call us: 0191 249 3969 · 8am–8pm, seven days