How Care Funding Works
In England, if your assessable assets exceed £23,250, you fund your own care in full. Between £14,250 and £23,250, you receive partial support. Below £14,250, the local authority funds care entirely.
Assessable assets include savings, investments and in most cases, the value of your home. Average residential care in England costs approximately £1,200 per week (£62,400 per year).
💡 Your home is not counted if your spouse, civil partner, or a dependent relative still lives in it. Once both of you require care, it enters the assessment.
The Protective Property Trust
A Protective Property Trust (PPT) is written into your Will. On your death, instead of your share of the property passing to your spouse outright, it is held in trust for your children — with your spouse retaining the right to live there for life.
When your spouse later requires care, only their share is assessable — not the share held in trust. This can halve the property value subject to means-testing.
| Without PPT | With PPT | |
|---|---|---|
| Property value | £400,000 (sole ownership after first death) | £200,000 (survivor’s 50% only) |
| Assessable for care | £400,000 | £200,000 |
| Protected | Nothing | £200,000 |
What About Deliberate Deprivation?
Local authorities can investigate whether assets were deliberately disposed of to avoid care fees. Transactions close to entering care — or where the primary purpose was avoiding assessment — can be reversed. Trust planning done well in advance as part of a genuine estate plan is treated very differently from a gift made to dodge an imminent assessment, but the local authority can still look at why it was done.
What a Will Can and Cannot Do About Care Fees
A Will only takes effect when you die, so it has no effect on how your own care is paid for while you are alive. If you need care, your own savings and your own share of the home are assessed in the usual way.
What a Will can influence is what happens to your share of the home after you die. That is the idea behind the Protective Property Trust above: rather than your share passing outright to your spouse and being counted if they later need care, it is held for your children while your spouse keeps the right to live there.
Two conditions make this work:
- The home must be owned as tenants in common. If you own it as joint tenants, your share passes to your spouse automatically and your Will cannot redirect it. Couples sometimes change the ownership first; see our guide to joint tenants and tenants in common.
- The first death has to happen before the survivor needs care. If you both need care while alive, the Will has not yet done anything.
Leaving everything to a spouse is also free of inheritance tax, so weigh any care-fee benefit against how the survivor will feel about not owning the whole home.
Sources & references
Authoritative UK government, HMRC, statute and Citizens Advice sources. Last reviewed: 31 May 2026.
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