Limitation period for LA recovery of care home fees

December 12th, 2017 by Jonathan Auburn

Last year I blogged about the issue of the limitation period for claims brought by local authorities for recovery of care home fees which they have paid and seek to recover from the individual care home resident or their estate. At the time I was concerned that there may be a gap in the law. Curiously, that blog post itself led to a court case which has now resolved the issue.

The issue, in a nutshell is this: section 69(3)(b) of the Care Act 2014 provides for a three year limitation period on claims brought by local authorities for the recovery of care home fees. This appeared to represent no change in the law. Yet the previous limitation period, applicable when section 56 of the National Assistance Act 1948 still governed such claims, was generally six years rather than three. Read more »

 

New social care charging circular for local authorities

February 16th, 2017 by Jonathan Auburn

On 8 February 2017, the Department of Health published a new circular for local authorities, addressing charging practices for the 2017/18 financial year. By virtue of section 78 of the Care Act 2014 local authorities are required to comply with this Circular. Read more »

 

Reasons challenges to LA charging and care home fees decisions

April 27th, 2016 by Jonathan Auburn

When LAs make decisions as to charging for care services and care home fees, can those decisions be subject to a public law reasons challenge, if so what is required, and what are constraints on LAs defending such challenges? Those were the issues the Administrative Court grappled with last week in Read more »

 

Changes made to the Care Act Guidance

April 1st, 2016 by Jonathan Auburn

The Department of Health has posted changes to the Care and Support Statutory Guidance on its website. Unhelpfully, there is no detailed list of the changes, nor any tracked changes or marked up version anywhere. So to see what has changed involves comparing the texts of old and new line by line. The major changes seem to be in the following areas: Read more »

 

Care Act conundrum: Did Parliament legislate in error to mistakenly confer an amnesty on care home fees?

February 5th, 2016 by Jonathan Auburn

As lawyers we all know that feeling when we read an opponent’s legal letter, court submission, or a judgment that looks just plain incorrect in legal terms. It’s a distinct and clear feeling. Like when your child is obviously lying to you to cover up for some misdemeanour.

You may get that feeling reading letters and opponent’s submissions, less so with judgments, but never with primary legislation, right?

Section 69 of the Care Act Read more »