Your home and care fees: the disregards and deferred payment

Whether the family home counts in a care-funding assessment turns first on the setting — care at home or a care-home stay — and then, for a care home, on whether a disregard applies. It is usually the largest asset in the assessment, so that single question often decides the outcome. The disregards and figures below are the England rules; the other UK nations follow the same shape but confirm the local detail.

Care at home: never counted

Where care is provided in a person’s own home, the main residence is always disregarded. Only the rest of their capital and their income are assessed; the property is never in the count. Corpus row CARE-ENG-12 shows it: a £200,000 home, ignored entirely, leaving £30,000 of savings that self-fund the home care. The property only enters the picture on a permanent move into a care home.

A care home: counted, unless a disregard applies

For a permanent care-home stay the home is counted as capital — which, given typical property values, almost always pushes the resident above the upper capital limit and into self-funding. Two disregards are the main exceptions.

A qualifying occupant disregards the home indefinitely. If a spouse or partner — or certain other relatives, such as someone over 60 or incapacitated — still occupies the property, it is left out of the assessment for as long as they remain. Corpus row CARE-ENG-07 disregards a £300,000 home on that basis, leaving the resident income-assessed on £10,000 of other capital rather than a self-funder.

The 12-week disregard covers the start of a permanent stay: the home is ignored for the first 12 weeks, giving time to arrange matters without an immediate forced sale. It is temporary, and the position flips when the window closes:

During the window the resident is in the tariff band on £20,000; once it ends, the £300,000 home is back in and they are a self-funder on £320,000. The disregard buys time, it does not change the eventual position.

Deferred payment: the alternative to a sale

A Deferred Payment Agreement lets the fees accrue as a charge against the property, repaid when it is eventually sold. It is the route for someone a counted home has made a self-funder who does not want to sell, or cannot sell quickly. The local authority can charge interest up to a capped rate set by reference to market gilt yields: 4.65% in England for 1 July to 31 December 2026, resetting each January and July. Corpus row CARE-ENG-14 surfaces the deferred-payment rate for a resident with a £250,000 counted home (assessable capital £270,000, a self-funder).

The common error

The frequent mistake is to treat the home as always counted, or never counted, rather than setting-and-disregard dependent. For care at home it never counts. For a care home it counts unless a qualifying occupant or the 12-week window applies, and a Deferred Payment Agreement is the route that avoids a forced sale where it does count.

The long-term care entitlement checker applies the right property treatment for the setting and the disregards, and surfaces the deferred-payment rate. It states the position; it does not advise — for advice, refer to a SOLLA-accredited later-life adviser.

Care and Support (Charging and Assessment of Resources) Regulations 2014 Sch 2 para 2 · Sch 2 para 4 · Care and Support (Deferred Payment) Regulations 2014 reg 9 · engine reading ADR-039