23/09/2026
You do not have to sell your mum's house to pay for a care home, and most families are never told.
In the panic of a parent going into care, families rush to put the house on the market. But by law, when your mum moves in permanently, the council must ignore the value of her home for the first 12 weeks. After that, they must offer a deferred payment agreement, so the fees can be settled from her estate later and the home does not have to be sold in her lifetime. It is a legal right under the Care Act. Yet families still sell in a hurry, often for less than it is worth, when they never had to. Share this with anyone facing this decision.