Allowed grandparents gift

It's going to depend on her income, the home fees and her residual life expectancy. Unless she has a substantial income, or less than six months life expectancy, I don't know what would actually be allowed, but

I suspect the small double figures per recipient. I seem to remember that you are allowed to keep some of your income when you deplete your capital. I'd suggest that a budget based on that figure for all personal spending, including gifts, would probably be safe.

I suspect the thing she mustn't do is pay more than before she went into

the home.

It's what would be 'normal'. It would not be normal to give away, say, £12K out of savings of £35K, but it is normal to give presents to children and grandchildren. What would be normal then is a matter of what she used to give them in the past.

It's been made clear to you that she cannot give cash away 'with the intention of getting below the theshold', and I think you know what perfectly well what that means.

In particular it *only* means that getting below the threshold should not be the motivation for making the gifts. It does not mean that if she knows that making the gifts would have the side effect of bringing her below the threshold, then she should not make them.

As you say, the past is a guide here. If she was in the habit of giving each child and/or grandchild £1000 each year, then there should be no reason to discontinue the practice, even if this will inevitably lead to the threshold being crossed. But what would not be OK is suddenly to start giving more, thus accelerating the depletion of her assets.

I doubt it is that simple. I would think that any increase in the gift at a time when she could reasonably foresee that she would have to take recourse to state funds would also have to be ignored, and that might even have to be back-dated. I would also suspect she would be expected to have reduced very large gifts at such a time.

I would suspect that, somewhere in the equation, something like the HMRC

rule that allows regular gifts from income, for IHT purposes, might apply, i.e. that gifts that depleted capital before going into care would be treated with suspicion.

Exceeding the IHT PET limits, even though it looks likely that there would be no expectation of IHT, would look very suspicious, in the lead up to care.