Your Will protect you from Care Home Fees

A will alone does not protect your assets from care home fees in the UK. A standard will simply dictate how your estate is distributed after your death, but it doesn’t shield assets during your lifetime when a local authority assesses your finances for care funding.

 How Trusts in a Will Can Help (But Only Partially)

Certain trusts written into your will can offer limited protection for couples or joint property owners. The most common approach is a Life Interest Trust (also called a Property Protection Trust or Protective Property Trust), often combined with changing property ownership from joint tenants to tenants in common.

As joint tenants, the property automatically passes to the survivor on the first death — the full value could then be assessed for care fees if the survivor needs care.

As tenants in common, each owns a share (e.g., 50/50).
In your will, you place your share into a trust: the surviving partner gets a life interest (right to live there or benefit from it), but your share’s capital is protected for beneficiaries (e.g., children).

If the survivor later needs care, only their half of the property is counted in their means test — potentially safeguarding half the home’s value from fees.

This is a legitimate strategy for many couples, but it only protects the deceased’s share after the first death.

Risks and Limitations

Deliberate deprivation of assets: If you transfer property or assets into a trust (or give them away) primarily to avoid care fees, the local authority can treat them as still yours — even years later (no time limit, unlike the 7-year rule for inheritance tax).

Lifetime trusts (e.g., asset protection trusts set up while alive) are often marketed to avoid fees entirely, but they carry a high risk of being challenged as a deprivation.

Trusts can have tax implications (e.g., inheritance tax on transfers) and may affect benefits or control over assets.

This doesn’t apply if you’re single or don’t own property jointly.