Families paid thousands for trusts that local authorities could still ignore completely.
Estate planning companies that sold property trusts charged fees that were not trivial. It was common for the arrangement to cost several thousand pounds by the time the trust was drafted, the property was transferred, and any ongoing trustee services were factored in. For many families, this was a meaningful sum paid with one specific expectation: that when the care assessment came, the family home would be outside the scope of what was counted.
That certainty was the value being purchased. Without it, the arrangement had no real purpose.
What local authorities can actually do
A local authority assessing care funding does not just look at what someone owns on the day of the assessment. It can go back through their financial history and look at what they used to own. If it decides that assets were moved specifically to reduce a care fees liability, it can treat those assets as if they were never transferred. The Care Act 2014 gives local authorities that power, and they use it.
Putting a property into a trust does not automatically put it out of reach. The local authority is not just looking at the legal structure. It is looking at why the transfer was made. If it concludes that avoiding care fees was a significant reason, the trust is set aside. The property goes back into the assessment as if it still belonged to the individual. The fees are calculated accordingly.
When families found out
For the families affected, the failure came to light at the worst possible time. A parent had reached the point where residential care was necessary. The care assessment was carried out. The local authority looked at the trust, considered when it was set up and why, and applied the deliberate deprivation rules. The property was included in the assessment. The fees were assessed in full.
Some families contested the local authority's decision. Some of those challenges succeeded. Many did not. The financial and emotional strain of fighting a local authority over a care funding decision, while simultaneously managing a parent's transition into residential care, is substantial. And at the end of it, the arrangement that had cost thousands of pounds proved worthless in practice.
The adviser's failure
An adviser who sold a property trust as protection against care fees, without explaining that a local authority could simply override it, did not give proper advice. The fact that the trust was legally set up correctly does not change that. The paperwork was fine. The problem was what the client was told it would achieve. They were given an incomplete picture of how the law works, and they made a decision based on that incomplete picture.
What the professional negligence claim seeks to recover
A professional negligence claim in this situation is about recovering the money the family lost because the advice was wrong. That typically means the care fees that would not have been charged if the arrangement had worked as described, the cost of setting up the trust in the first place, and any legal costs spent challenging the local authority's decision. In some cases it also includes the wider impact on the estate of having paid care costs that should never have applied.
Working out exactly what that adds up to is part of what the specialist solicitors do. They look at the care funding assessment, the fees that were charged, and what the outcome would have been if the advice had been accurate. That analysis is built into the claim process from the start.
The trust is set aside. The property is treated as still belonging to the individual. The fees are assessed accordingly. That is a situation the family paid to prevent.
Sold Short helps families who were sold inadequate estate planning arrangements pursue professional negligence claims. Free review. No win no fee.