The Care Act 2014 was a substantial piece of legislation. It consolidated decades of disparate statute, set out a national framework for adult social care eligibility, and introduced the Deferred Payment Agreement scheme as a route for families whose primary asset was the family home. A decade on, the framework remains largely intact, and is rightly understood as a meaningful achievement.
It is, however, an incomplete one. The Act left several gaps that today’s families notice in practice, even if they were not visible in the policy debates of the early 2010s.
Three gaps that matter to families.
The first is the means-test threshold. At £23,250 of assessable capital (including the home for residential care), the threshold is low enough that most home-owning families fall outside the council-funded route entirely. For families with significant home equity and modest savings, there is no transition: they are simply expected to self-fund.
The second is the variability of Deferred Payment Agreement provision. DPAs were envisaged as a means for families to defer care fees against the home until it was sold. In practice, take-up varies hugely by local authority, paperwork timelines stretch across months, and the empty-property burden falls on the family.
The third is the time-horizon question. The Care Act is silent on what happens when care needs outlast the family’s ability to fund them through one-off mechanisms. Families with dementia diagnoses, for example, frequently face care journeys measured in years rather than months. Equity-release products cap at loan-to-value; deferred payment accrues interest; selling the home is a one-off.
Why this matters now.
Demographic pressure on the social care system continues to grow. The cohort of families currently approaching the care decision has more home equity, in absolute terms, than any previous generation in UK history. The structural gap between what councils fund and what families are expected to fund is widening, not narrowing.
“The Care Act did what it set out to do. It also left a space in the middle of the funding landscape that nobody has filled. The Plan is one attempt at filling it.” Jeremy Nixey, founder
What the Plan addresses, in this context.
The Care and Home Inheritance Plan is not a replacement for the Care Act 2014. It does not displace council-funded care, equity release, or the Deferred Payment Agreement. It sits alongside those routes, designed for the specific families who fall through the gap between them.
Specifically:
- Families with significant home equity but insufficient liquid assets to fund care without realising the home.
- Families with multi-year care horizons where one-off mechanisms create a future funding cliff.
- Families who want to keep the home in the family, intact, at the end of the care journey.
What to read next.
The full structural detail of the Plan is set out on the How the Plan works page. A factual comparison with the alternatives is on the compare options pages. The regulatory position is on the regulatory status page. None of this constitutes financial advice; the Plan is not an FCA-regulated product.
If your family’s situation is one of the three described above, the fastest route to clarity is a ten-minute phone call. The number is at the top and bottom of every page on this site.
