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. A £200,000 home is ignored entirely, leaving, say, £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 — at its market value less 10% for the expenses of selling it, and less any debt secured on it (CSCAR Regs 2014 reg 20) — 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 a relative aged 60 or over or incapacitated, or the resident's child under 18 — still occupies the property as their main or only home (and has done since before the move into the care home), it is left out of the assessment for as long as they remain (CSCAR Regs 2014 Sch 2 para 4). A £300,000 home disregarded on that basis leaves a resident with £10,000 of other capital income-assessed 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 home is back in at 90% of its value — £300,000 less 10% for the expenses of selling it, £270,000 — and they are a self-funder on £290,000. 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 the home is sold or 90 days after death, whichever is sooner. 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. The checker surfaces that rate for, say, a resident with a £250,000 counted home and £20,000 of other capital: the home counts less 10% for sale expenses, £225,000, so assessable capital is £245,000 and they are 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 property treatment for the setting and the disregards, counts a home that is not disregarded at its value less 10% for sale expenses, and surfaces the deferred-payment rate. It takes no figure for a mortgage or other debt secured on the home, so it does not deduct one: account for any such debt separately. 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 reg 20 · Sch 2 para 2 · Sch 2 para 4 · Care and Support (Deferred Payment) Regulations 2014 reg 9