Fair Deal Advice Blog

Over payment of Nursing Home Fees under the Fair Deal

It never ceases to amaze me how many people apply for the Fair Deal without getting professional advice and without understanding how it works. Applying for the Fair Deal for many is probably the second biggest financial transaction that they will be involved in since taking out their mortgage and buying their first home. Yet they do not seek advice and fill out the forms blind not knowing what they are really getting into.

The consequences of this approach is that the vast majority of people in the Fair Deal scheme and thats around 23,000 persons are overpaying their contributions to care. I come across it usually after thousands of euros have been unnecessarily lost from overpayments which in general are not recoverable. One mistake in the application will have lifetime financial implications for the applicant as they will be over charged in most cases. I suppose ignorance is bliss and what you dont know won’t bother you.

Often the Fair Deal process is seen as an once off exercise and once the forms are submitted and the applicant is in care nobody ever looks at the Fair Deal again other than making their monthly contribution to care and watching their bank accounts deplete over time and giving out how the Fair Deal is taking everything they have or once had.

As these people don’t understand the rules they don’t understand that the Fair Deal is designed not to effectively clean anyone out financially. It takes a percentage of your income and a % of your property and cash assets. What people don’t realise is that they can have their cash assets reassessed each year so that they are not continuing to contribute on cash assets balances that are no longer there this never getting to a point where all funds are used.

The other mistake is they don’t claim their tax rebates on their Nursing Home fees on an annual basis which means having given out for their whole lives about the amount of tax they pay, they are now not availing of an opportunity to recover their tax paid in full each year.

If you are one of the above or if you know someone in this situation I suggest you do the two actions detailed above and save yourself some money and stop overpaying your Nursing Home fees. If you need assistance in doing so please contact Tom Murray at www.fairdealadvice.ie by email at advice@fairdealadvice.ie or phone 086 601 5042 who can assist you with the process.

Source From: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/overpayment-nursing-home-fees-under-fair-deal-tom-murray/