denotes premium content | Jan 8 2009 ECA Magazine archive
Volume 13 Issue 6
- Editor's letter
As we go to press, economists are drawing comparisons between the current economic downturn and the Great Depression, and the collapse of Lehman brothers has just stunned the markets the world over. It is hard to feel anything but a sense of impending doom, and even harder to avoid what seems to be an inevitable recession. And it is with that thought that I introduce myself as the new editor of Elderly Client Adviser and welcome you to the September/October issue.
Volume 13 Issue 5
- Foreword
Many older people specifically save their money ‘For our children’ or ‘For our grandchildren.’ They often cite ‘So they can get on the housing ladder’ or ‘To reduce their debts’ as the reason. You may know someone who is not exactly short of money but always refuses to take a taxi ‘it’s a waste of money’ or to buy new clothes ‘I have loads already’. They are not seeking to be eco friendly, although we might take a lesson from them on the issue of waste; they simply don’t want to spend it on themselves.
Volume 13 Issue 4
- Foreword
Tales of financial woe are clearly shaking client confidence at present. At least we don’t live in Zimbabwe where 165,000% inflation has rendered pension income as valueless as shares in Northern Rock or Bear Stearns. But the Office of National Statistics has released figures showing that in recent years 62% of pensioner couples still had under £10,000 in pension income. Half of single pensioners have under £6,000. This sounds pretty depressing especially as some pensioners are being hit with the loss of the 10% income tax rate. That is assuming the Prime Minister does not decide otherwise by the time this item goes to print. (The council elections in May generate a disproportionately large vote from older people. But perhaps he forgot that?)
Volume 13 Issue 3
- Foreword
During the fever of ‘the election that never was’, on 9th October last year the Chancellor Alistair Darling (now twice voted Britain’s most boring politician) announced that a number of changes to the capital gains tax (CGT) regime would be made in the Finance Act of 2008.
Volume 13 Issue 2
- Happy New Year
I would like to wish all of you a prosperous 2008. Last year was pale and interesting if the average private client practitioner’s face was anything to go by. Not content with trying to kill us all with last-minute EPA making, while simultaneously trying to work out what the new procedures will be under the Mental Capacity Act, HM Government unkindness then hit again a fortnight later, with more tax changes.
Volume 13 Issue 1
- Foreword
Welcome to the November/December issue of Elderly Client Adviser. First, in a marked change to the usual running order of the magazine, David Coldrick is taking a well-deserved break from his full-time duties at Wrigleys and his role on the magazine – so will not be providing his regular editorial piece. I hope you will all join me in wishing him a happy holiday, and will look forward to a special extended editorial, just in time for Christmas, upon his return.
Volume 12 Issue 5
- Editor's Letter
I have been asked a couple of times recently (whilst avoiding being swept along by the tidal waves flowing along Sheffield’s main roads) whether or not the elder care sector will benefit from a Gordon Brown premiership.
Volume 12 Issue 3
- Foreword
The prize for political hype does not (for a change) go to the government but to Conservative pension’s spokesman Philip Hammond. He said it was “obscene” that the government was paying out £57m in overpaid benefits when people die (0.075 per cent of the benefits budget). Probate practitioners will not express surprise. If pensions and other benefits are paid in advance, by direct credit to accounts, it should be expected.
Volume 11 Issue 5
- Foreword
It comes as no great surprise to hear that ageing is ‘linked to social status’.
Volume 11 Issue 3
- Editor’s foreword: The Budget 2006
The Chancellor of the Exchequer excelled himself in the Budget of 22 March. The abolition of inheritance tax and the biggest give-away budget in a century was a masterstroke...
Volume 11 Issue 1
- Editor’s foreword
I was not as surprised as the bosses of our oil companies when the pre-Budget statement was announced on 5 December 2005. They received an eye-watering £2bn hammer blow from a clearly cash-strapped chancellor. But the loss of more scope for tax planning using the reverter to settlor situation, and the prospect of farmers being stung for some sort of planning permission tax as they struggle to make ends meet (not all of them as rich as ‘ten combines’ Brian Aldrige on ‘The Archers’), was still pretty unexpected.
Volume 10 Issue 6
- Editor's foreword
The general reports on hurricane Katrina have been depressing enough, but what of the impact on older people?
The body count began after a delay of six days. The ‘Homeland Security Secretary’ Michael Chertoff said that the search was going to be “about as ugly a scene as I think you can imagine”.
Volume 10 Issue 5
- Editor's foreword: The price of old age
Lawyers are supposed to be adept at confusing the layman. Economists are sometimes far worse. Henry George said: “For the study of political economy you need no special knowledge, no extensive library, no costly laboratory. You do not even need textbooks nor teachers, if you will but think for yourselves.”
Volume 10 Issue 4
- Editor’s foreword
The Draft Third Money Laundering Directive (3MLD) raises concerns that will be little eased by the intended speed of its implementation. I give it a 55 per cent ‘non’, a 63 per cent ‘ney’ and a 100 per cent ‘no’. Indeed, why are we lumbering ourselves with further Euro-bureau nonsense?
Volume 10 Issue 3
- Editor's foreword
As election fever (or at least a ‘slight election temperature’) grips the nation, the 16 March Budget struck once more against the principle of ‘tax simplification’.
Amidst all the undeniably rivetting information arising in the Budget, the report by Philip Hampton, Reducing administrative burdens: Effective inspection and enforcement, was slightly lost as a matter of detail. Copies of it are available on www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/hampton
Despite the fact that a survey in March of 1200 people for “City and Guilds” found that one-third of people are planning to postpone retirement (one is six actually believe they will be ‘forced’ to stay in their job rather longer than they would prefer), there comes a time when work is not an option any more. I am thinking of when people need care at home or in a care home.
Volume 10 Issue 2
- Editor's foreword
ECA readers will be aware that I have a suspicion that things which are discussed in California are eventually implemented in these chillier climes.
If you have a bookcase containing (even basic) literature on income tax, capital gains tax, inheritance tax and tax planning, you will find that it will be sufficiently heavy to break the shelf off the wall. Tolleys’ Yellow Tax Guide all on its own is more than 7,000 pages in length. The government's idea of ‘tax simplification’ appears to be to make it simpler for them to collect more tax rather than simpler to understand.
Volume 10 Issue 1
- Editor’s foreword
The Chancellor (alias The Dark Lord of Nasty Surprises) is not noted for his generosity, but at least he appears to have left most trusts and tax advisers alone in the pre-Budget Report of 2 December 2004. That is, unless you are involved in the tax and trust equivalents of quantum mechanics. I believe the new anti-tax abuse rules are targeted at strippers in old Bond films or something like that? Perhaps I was just dreaming.
Volume 9 Issue 6
- Editor’s foreword
The Department for Constitutional Affairs is, it appears, now set to allow non-lawyers to not only administer the deceased’s estates but also to obtain grant of probate.
Volume 9 Issue 5
- Editor’s foreword
The pre-owned assets rules creating an income-tax charge on certain gifted assets from which a benefit may still be obtained have already been condemned in ECA. The Chartered Institute of Taxation submitted its opinion to the Government in July. It considers the rules to be “seriously defective” and even “repugnant” and “capricious”.
Volume 9 Issue 3
- The Budget 2004
Harold Wilson once said: “Whichever party is in office, the Treasury is in power.” If this is the case, then Gordon Brown may perhaps be more reluctant to become prime minister than rumour has it. He also has less grey hairs nowadays than his formerly more sprightly colleague at Number 10.
Volume 9 Issue 2
- Editor’s foreword
I have been very pleased with the warm response to the now somewhat enlarged ECA. I hope readers will see that they are obtaining ever better value for money. The technical depth and insights supplied in recent articles – now provided by a wide range of care-related professionals – is very refreshing.
Volume 9 Issue 1
- Editor’s comment
The silly season news-wise having ended, the silly season for the generation of huge amounts of Department of Health Directions began. Is there a delinquent senior bureaucrat who goes abroad each summer after carefully placing their humourously inclined minions in holiday jobs? For instance, mathematical confusion emanated over the summer period from a certain local authority, which shall simply be known as “nameless”. Targets are important things, the NHS Plan contains at least 68, but from the aforesaid nameless wonder emanated the classic: “Beds unblocked in week 23 of 2003 = 12. Care beds filled in week 23 of 2003 = 12. Total = 24.” Work that one out.
Volume 8 Issue 6
- Editor’s foreword
My first edition as editor could have been the last. I have since undergone various levels of grilling during the summer conference season and also an earthquake officially rated at 6.4 on the Richter scale. The former was the most complex and difficult involving as it did staying in the room. The later involved a rapid exit from the room, which conference speakers generally only dream of making.
Volume 8 Issue 5
- Editor’s foreword: A new beginning
Our magazine is the key source of professional elder-care related information for solicitors, financial advisers and certain groups of health-care professionals. It has an established national readership of many thousands and a reputation to match. Its written coverage is provided by “us”, its readers, which makes it “ours”.
Volume 8 Issue 3
- Section 117 aftercare: What does it mean for clients?
During the House of Lords cases in July on section 117 mental health aftercare, the local authorities confirmed that two out of three authorities have been charging unlawfully for aftercare services. The services included residential care and now the authorities must reimburse the residents; in total approximately £80m needs to be paid back.
Volume 8 Issue 2
- Undue influence and abuse: What can you do for those affected?
Vulnerability in old age can, at times, lead to actual financial abuse. Denzil Lush, the Master of the Court of Protection, has estimated that financial abuse occurs in about 10-15 per cent of registered enduring powers of attorney. Many more unregistered EPAs may be abused. The stark reality is that lawyers will be advising older clients who will become the victims of such abuse. Discovering that you may have assisted in providing the key to the abuse must be a lawyer’s worst nightmare. Certainly trying to ensure abuse is avoided is an impossible task where the abuser is a relative whom the client trusted. Widely drafted powers are often what the client’s situation dictates and, despite warnings of the risk of abuse, it is often what they request. What can the lawyer do to remedy the situation?
Volume 8 Issue 1
- The family home: An opportunity? Maybe not
Editor's foreward
Another year draws rapidly to a close and the obvious question is what have we learnt? An area that has frequently raised its thorny head has been long-term care and non-residential care services. Care homes and home care services have faced a tough year already and, with a growing proportion of older people, there is considerable concern over future resources.
Volume 7 Issue 6
- Fair access to care services
Mental health law is in a transitional phase. New legislation is imminent and proposed reforms have been intensely debated over recent weeks. Government plans to widen the powers to section people for treatment have worrying implications not only for the rights of patients but for doctor’s who are already overworked. Considering that a recent report suggests that over 3000 NHS acute mental health beds have been lost over the past six years as a result of financial restraint, it will be interesting to see how future reform will remedy the existing situation while incorporating the latest plans for a whole new wave of patients.
Volume 7 Issue 5
- Preserving assets: benefits of the deferred payment scheme
Care home closures remain a cause for real concern this month. The issue has been particularly highlighted by the shocking case of 108-year-old Alice Knight who starved herself to death in protest at having to move from one home to another. Iain Duncan Smith has used the case as an example of the deepening crisis in care homes brought about, he claims, by the burden of regulation forcing many homes out of business.
Volume 7 Issue 4
- Setting up an elderly client practice
As we are all well aware, elderly client law is a complex area demanding an up-to-date knowledge of all the latest legislation. Such legalistic knowledge and foresight, however, is of little use without a core understanding of how to effectively run an elderly client business. This issue of ECA, therefore, takes a look at setting up an elderly client practice, the location and layout of the office and what you should be considering in dealing with the older person.
Volume 7 Issue 3
- Notional capital - implications of the Beeson case
The last couple of months have proved an interesting time for those concerned with elderly clients. Tales of woe regarding the long-term care of older people, appear to support the gloomy predictions of the past decade and longer. With residential care homes closing, home-care businesses struggling and social services continuing to battle with under-investment, the future seems bleak.
Volume 7 Issue 2
- Having your cake and eating it - investment products and IHT planning
In this issue we feature an examination of the current situation regarding single premium investment bonds, which, as Emma Chamberlain says, “could provide an opportunity to have your cake and eat it”. Caroline Bielanska examines fairer charging policies for non-residential care and David Coldrick continues his series of articles by looking at the Single Assessment Process that must be implemented by NHS and local authorities this April.
