Website maintenance Wednesday 8 May
The Sutton council website will be down for essential maintenance on 8 May from 5.30pm. You will not be able to access the site during this time. We apologise for any inconvenience.
Homeowners can apply for a loan to help pay their nursing home or care home costs.
Our deferred payment scheme is a type of loan that can help homeowners to pay for care home costs.
The scheme is for people who cannot afford to pay for care because all of their money is tied up in their house.
We don’t give you a fixed sum of money like a normal loan. Instead, we pay an agreed amount every week towards the cost of your care, on the condition that you’ll repay us when you sell your home. This might be when you choose to sell your home or after you’ve died.
You can also repay us from another source if you want to.
We charge interest on your loan and secure it against the value of your home. The maximum interest rate is fixed by the government. This charge is based on the cost of government borrowing and will change on 1 January and 1 July every year.
Before securing any loan against your home, you may want to get financial advice.
Some people choose to rent the property out to generate income. If you do this, you will be expected to use the rental income to increase the amount you pay for your care each week. This will mean that the weekly payments made by us are less but you reduce your overall debt.
You’ll qualify for this scheme, if you:
We charge fees for setting up the agreement and an annual administration charge. This is to cover the Council's costs, and not to make a profit.
You’ll also need to pay a Land Registry charge fee.
Before the agreement is made, we’ll need to get a formal valuation of your property. There is a one-off charge for this which we add to the total cost of your loan.
Applications are accepted under this scheme subject to you meeting the above criteria and the local authority being able to obtain:
You can get more information about the terms of agreement for deferred payments on GOV.UK (chapter 9).
If you're not sure what to do about the cost of your care, you can speak to a professional for advice.
If you're worried or confused about the best way to pay for your care, you may want to talk to a financial professional.
The Council are not licensed to offer independent financial advice. Instead, we recommend asking for independent financial advice from a professional.
Independent financial advice is available free of charge from the following organisations:
You can speak to professional financial advisers for more formal advice. They are called independent financial advisers (IFA).
The Society of Later Life Advisers help people to find trusted financial advisers.
We cannot recommend specific IFAs or provide a list of them, but you can search online for them yourself.
If you don't have family or friends to help you, we may be able to provide you with a free independent advocate.
You can contact our financial assessment team, to find out more or to get an application form.
020 8770 5280 (24 hour answerphone)
Help us improve our site by joining our user research panel