The days when nobody wants to read a contract
Your mother died yesterday. Today the home is asking when you will clear the room, and a fortnight later an invoice arrives that nobody has explained. It is the worst possible moment to start reading a care home contract — which is exactly why most families pay it without looking.
There are only a few things to check, and half an hour covers them. Usually everything is correct. When it is not, it is several hundred pounds.
The point most families do not know: fees cannot simply run on
Care home contracts are covered by consumer protection law, and the Competition and Markets Authority has been explicit about fees after death. Continuing to charge the full weekly fee for an extended period after a resident dies is likely to be an unfair term — the home is no longer providing care, and the estate should not be funding an empty room indefinitely.
In practice, the accepted benchmark is a short period, commonly around ten days, to allow the room to be cleared, and many homes charge a reduced rate for that window rather than the full fee. What you should do:
- Find the clause. Look under "termination", "end of contract" or "death of the resident". Check how many days it specifies and whether the rate is full or reduced.
- Check the actual date the room was cleared. If the contract allows ten days and you cleared it in three, ask for three. Automated billing systems do not know when you handed the keys back.
- Challenge a long tail. If the invoice runs four weeks at the full rate, that is the item to dispute in writing, citing the CMA's position on fees after death.
If the placement was funded or part-funded, the local authority or NHS contribution stops on death — so make sure the invoice is not billing the estate for what a public body was covering. And if your parent was receiving NHS Continuing Healthcare, the funding position after death is not the family's to absorb either.
Deposits, advance payments and the final invoice
Any deposit is refundable, less evidenced damage and genuine outstanding charges. Where fees were paid in advance — monthly or quarterly is common — the unused portion must be refunded pro rata. This is another CMA point and another line families forget to claim.
Ask for a written final statement, line by line: fees to the date of death, any reduced charge for the clearance period with the dates shown, extras, deposit, advance payments refunded, balance. A single figure with no breakdown is not a statement, it is a demand.
Check the extras from the last few weeks — hairdressing, chiropody, newspapers, transport, toiletries. These accumulate at exactly the time nobody is checking invoices. And ask about any personal allowance account the home held for spending money: that balance belongs to the estate.
Clearing the room
Ask to be present, and ask for a signed list of what is handed over. It feels excessive during a bereavement, which is precisely why it matters: no period sees more wedding rings, hearing aids and glasses go missing than this one.
If something valuable is missing, report it in writing to the manager immediately. After two weeks nothing can be reconstructed.
The administrative sequence
- The medical certificate of cause of death, arranged through the home and the GP. Since the introduction of the medical examiner system, deaths are reviewed before registration, which can add a little time — the home will tell you where things stand.
- Register the death at the register office, generally within five days in England, Wales and Northern Ireland and eight days in Scotland.
- Order several certified copies of the death certificate — five or six. Banks, pension providers, insurers and the probate process each want an original.
- Use Tell Us Once if it is offered at registration. It notifies DWP, HMRC, the local authority and other departments in one step and saves a great deal of separate correspondence.
- Attendance Allowance, Pension Credit and any care funding stop. Report the death promptly so overpayments do not have to be repaid later.
- Care records. The personal representative of the estate can request access. If you have questions about the final weeks, ask now rather than in six months.
If the invoice does not add up
Do not argue on the phone. Email the manager and the finance office with three things: the clause you are relying on, the actual date the room was cleared, and a request for a corrected invoice by a stated date. Most homes correct it, because the billing ran automatically and never knew the real clearance date.
If nothing moves, the routes are the home's formal complaints procedure, then the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman — which covers privately funded care home complaints in England as well as council-arranged care — and, for the contractual terms themselves, Citizens Advice and your local trading standards service. Note that CQC does not resolve individual billing disputes, though it should hear about a home that does this routinely.
The part to read beforehand
If you are reading this while your father is still in the home, the useful thing is different: get the contract out now and find the clause on death. How many days, full rate or reduced, deposit, advance payments. It is the paragraph nobody reads at signing and the only one that counts in a week when you will not want to read anything.
And if you are still searching, that is the part we can take on: tell us the area, your parent's care needs and your timeframe, and you get a shortlist of homes worth calling, for £69. Start here
This article is general information for families, not legal or financial advice. Notice periods, deposits and fee structures depend on the contract signed, and registration procedures differ between England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Curalune does not allocate beds and does not guarantee availability.
Paying less is mostly a paperwork problem
What a family actually pays is decided less by the home's headline fee than by three applications: the council's financial assessment (capital above the threshold means paying in full — below it, means-tested support starts), NHS Continuing Healthcare, which covers the entire fee when the need is primarily a health need and is worth requesting a checklist for even if you expect a no, and Attendance Allowance, which is not means-tested and is missed by a great many families. If the home is the only asset, ask the council about a deferred payment agreement before selling anything.
