Adult Social Care Glossary, v 0.6

If you need residential care, the council will assess what you need and whether you can afford to pay for a care home. You may only be able to pay care home fees if you sell your house. If this is the case, the council may help pay the fees while you wait for your house to be sold. You would still have to pay as much as you can during this time, based on your income or available capital. Once the house is sold, you would then have to repay the council. In certain circumstances councils will have to offer this scheme to people. Broadly this is when someone has limited savings other than the value of their property.