Estate planning can help you understand how your home may be treated if you require residential care, but no legitimate arrangement can guarantee that your home will always be protected from care costs.
Giving away your property or transferring it into a trust primarily to avoid paying care fees may be treated as deliberate deprivation of assets. If a local authority decides that avoiding care charges was a significant reason for the transfer, it may assess you as though you still owned the property.
The timing, motivation and circumstances surrounding any transfer are therefore extremely important. Arrangements must also take account of your need for somewhere to live, your financial security and the tax and legal consequences of giving up ownership.
There may be appropriate planning options for couples or particular family circumstances, but these should only be considered following individual advice rather than through a standard “home protection” scheme.