When someone else signs a client’s return

A client’s return may come back approved by a family member, or a new agent authorisation may go through in somebody else’s name. The client is still on the file, but the person you deal with has changed.

8 min read · Altro Partners, by Equity & General

A registered lasting power of attorney is filed with the Office of the Public Guardian. The date it starts being used is not filed anywhere. The accountant's engagement records show it, because somebody new began approving the return.

The family may then make decisions about the client’s capital, sometimes soon after a hospital discharge.

The means test in England

The Department of Health and Social Care publishes a circular each February setting the figures local authorities in England use to charge for care. The current one, Social care: charging for care and support 2026 to 2027, reference LAC(DHSC)(2026)2, was published on 17 February 2026. It raised the personal expenses allowance for care home residents to £31.80 a week, and the minimum income guarantee for a single person of pension credit age to £241.45 a week, both by 3.8%.

It did not move the capital limits. The upper limit stays at £23,250 and the lower limit at £14,250, the levels set in 2010, now held for a sixteenth year. Above £23,250 a person meets the full cost of their care. Below £14,250 their capital is left alone and they contribute from income. Between the two, a tariff income of £1 a week is assumed for every £250, or part of £250, above the lower limit. At £23,250 that is £36 a week of income the person does not receive.

£23,250

upper capital limit, held at the level set in 2010 for a sixteenth year

£14,250

lower capital limit, below which capital is left alone

£31.80

a week personal expenses allowance for care home residents

£241.45

a week minimum income guarantee for a single person of pension credit age

Department of Health and Social Care circular LAC(DHSC)(2026)2, 17 February 2026. England, 2026 to 2027.

England, 2026 to 2027. Figures from DHSC circular LAC(DHSC)(2026)2, 17 February 2026.

Two further rules decide the size of the bill. For a permanent move into residential care, the person's main or only home is disregarded for the first 12 weeks. It is disregarded indefinitely where a qualifying relative occupied it as their main home before the move: a partner, a relative aged 60 or over, an incapacitated relative, or a child under 18 (Care and Support Statutory Guidance, Annex B). Whether an adult child lives in the client's house decides whether the house is counted.

The 2021 charging reforms, which would have raised the upper limit to £100,000 and introduced an £86,000 lifetime cap on care costs, were cancelled in July 2024. The Casey Commission, set up to design a national care service, set out initial recommendations in March 2026, and the government wrote to Baroness Casey on 22 June 2026 with progress against them. Its second phase is due to report in 2028.

The figures for one client

Illustration, using a made-up client. A client is 84, widowed, and moves permanently into residential care in the spring. Her house is worth £310,000 and stands empty. She holds £190,000 in deposits and investment bonds. Her income is the full new State Pension of £241.30 a week for 2026 to 2027 plus a private pension of £180 a week, £421.30 in total. The care home charges £1,250 a week.

Because she meets the full cost herself she keeps Attendance Allowance at the higher rate, £114.60 a week for 2026 to 2027 (gov.uk, Attendance Allowance). The weekly gap is £1,250 less £421.30 of pension and £114.60 of Attendance Allowance: £714.10 a week, or £37,133 a year.

The weekly gap in the illustration

Made-up client

Care home fees a week£1,250

State Pension and private pension£421.30

Attendance Allowance at the higher rate£114.60

The weekly gap, £37,133 a year£714.10

Her £190,000 covers that for about five years before any fee increase. After the 12-week disregard the empty house counts too, so her assessed capital is £500,000. Reaching the £23,250 threshold at which the local authority starts to contribute means spending £476,750, which is just under thirteen years at the current gap. The local authority will not contribute in her lifetime, and the house will be sold or placed under a deferred payment agreement.

A family working through the figures together

Suppose instead that her son, aged 62, had been living in the house as his main home before she moved. The property is disregarded. Her assessed capital is £190,000, she reaches the upper limit in about four and a half years, and the local authority then contributes towards the fees. The outcome depends on a fact about the family that the accountant knows.

Once the local authority starts paying, in full or in part, Attendance Allowance stops 28 days later (gov.uk, Attendance Allowance). In this illustration that removes £5,959 a year of tax-free income.

What the practice can see

Three things sit in an accountancy practice's records. The change of signatory itself. The shape of the income: deposit interest falling because a large sum was withdrawn, rental income stopping because a let property was sold, a chargeable event certificate arriving because a bond was surrendered. And the whole picture: the property, the investments, the pension income, the other children, the earlier gifts, and the will you were told about when the trust was set up, the same view we described in what the trust register tells you.

The other facts a client file shows are set out in what a client file already shows.

Where the accountant's work stops

Preparing the return for an attorney to approve, explaining the tax consequences of a bond surrender and telling a family what the capital limits are is the work you already do. Telling them what to do with the capital is regulated advice.

One question should not be answered across the desk: should we put the house in the children's names? Annex E of the Care and Support Statutory Guidance defines deprivation of assets as intentionally depriving or decreasing overall assets to reduce the amount charged for care, where the person knew they needed care and support. There is no time limit on how far back a local authority may look, and there is no seven-year rule; that figure belongs to inheritance tax. A local authority can assess the person as still holding the asset and can pursue the person it was transferred to. Route the question to a solicitor and to the financial planner.

The attorney has a duty of their own. Acting under a lasting power of attorney means acting in the donor's best interests (Mental Capacity Act 2005). An attorney who leaves £400,000 in a current account for four years, or moves it into something they read about, can be asked to account for the decision.

What the financial planner covers

The financial planner's work here is how to hold capital that has to fund an open-ended, rising liability while staying accessible; whether the existing portfolio still matches a horizon that has changed; and how care fees interact with the estate, which is where this meets the inheritance tax change covered in when the pension joins the estate.

It also covers immediate needs annuities. An immediate needs annuity converts a lump sum into an income for life towards care fees. Section 725 of the Income Tax (Trading and Other Income) Act 2005 provides that payments under a qualifying immediate needs annuity are free of income tax where they are made directly to a care provider for the benefit of the person protected. Whether one suits a client depends on their health, the fee level, the capital available and what the family want to protect. That is an assessment for the financial planner.

Three things to do this week

Run one query against your practice management system: which personal tax returns in the last two years were approved by somebody other than the client.
Add one question to the year-end routine for clients over 75: is there a registered lasting power of attorney, and who holds it. Record the answer.
Agree the wording before you need it. Something close to: this is outside what we are permitted to advise on. We work with a regulated financial planner who deals with this, and I can introduce you. What happens after that is set out in who does what.

What is not yet settled

The figures above are for England. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland run different charging regimes with different thresholds, and a client with a property in one nation and a care placement in another needs the position checked in both. The Casey Commission's second phase, reporting in 2028, may change who pays; its first-phase recommendations in March 2026 concentrated on delivery. Until legislation follows, £23,250 is the figure, as it has been since 2010.

Who opens the conversation

The FCA's Financial Lives 2024 survey found that 8.6% of UK adults had taken regulated financial advice in the previous twelve months, and 13% of the self-employed. The lang cat's State of Advice Report 2025 put the average age of an IFA client at 59, the average new client portfolio at £411,000, and the number of IFA firms in the UK below 5,000. The advice gap sets out what those figures mean for the clients an accountant acts for.

Common questions

Does dealing with a client's attorney put our firm near regulated advice?

No. Taking instructions from a registered attorney, preparing the return, filing it and explaining the tax position are the services you were providing before the signature changed. None of that is a regulated activity. Telling the attorney what to do with the client's capital, whether to buy a particular product, or whether to keep or sell an investment portfolio is regulated advice and sits with an authorised firm. Observing that a client's assets are being spent at a rate the family has not worked out, and saying so, is observation. Who does what sets out the split.

What are the capital limits for care in England, and does the house count?

The Department of Health and Social Care circular LAC(DHSC)(2026)2, published on 17 February 2026, keeps the upper capital limit at £23,250 and the lower limit at £14,250 for 2026 to 2027. Those figures have not moved since 2010. Above £23,250 a person meets the full cost of their care. Between the two limits a tariff income of £1 a week is assumed for every £250, or part of £250, above £14,250. For permanent residential care the main home is disregarded for the first 12 weeks, and indefinitely where a qualifying relative (a partner, a relative aged 60 or over, an incapacitated relative or a child under 18) occupied it as their main home before the move.

A client asks whether to give the house to the children. What do we say?

Say that it is not a tax question, and do not answer it as one. Annex E of the Care and Support Statutory Guidance treats a disposal as deprivation of assets where the person knew they needed care and support and reduced their assets to reduce what they are asked to contribute. There is no time limit on how far back a local authority may look and no seven-year rule; that figure belongs to inheritance tax. A local authority can assess the person as still holding the asset, and can pursue the person the asset was transferred to. Route the question to a solicitor and to the financial planner.

Does Attendance Allowance continue once someone is in a care home?

It depends on who pays the fees. A self-funder who meets the full cost of their care home place keeps Attendance Allowance. Where the local authority pays for the place, in full or in part, payment stops 28 days after that funding starts (gov.uk, Attendance Allowance). The rates for 2026 to 2027 are £114.60 a week at the higher rate and £76.70 a week at the lower rate, so the higher rate is £5,959 a year. Attendance Allowance stops in the year the local authority starts paying.

Which clients should we raise this with?

Three filters. Any client whose return has been signed or approved by somebody else in the last two years. Clients over 80 whose income has changed shape: a property let ending, an investment portfolio sold, a large withdrawal from a deposit account. Clients whose adult children have started to contact you directly. Run those three against your existing client list.

Six situations in the accounts that call for a financial planner

Retained profit, surplus cash, a director approaching 55, an uncovered guarantee, growth and an approach from a buyer. Each is a reason for a conversation with a financial planner.

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