To me, it is grave robbery
WHEN Mick Carr’s mother Elsie died aged 9 , he was stunned when her care home charged him for a two-week notice period after her death.
Grieving Mr Carr, who had cared for his mother at home for six months until her Alzheimer’s became too advanced, asked Breton Court home in Tenterden, Kent, to return a £3,000 deposit he hoped to put toward funeral costs. But he was told the money would not be returned because it had to cover a ‘two-week notice period.’
‘To me, it is grave robbery,’ the retired printer, 70, said. ‘I could understand paying for one or two extra days but not 14. It’s just terrible. You are grieving, then you are hit with this financial blow.’
After being contacted by Mr Carr’s solicitor, the home eventually returned part of the deposit, charging the family ‘just’ £2,731 for the two weeks after his mother died.
Mr Carr had been impressed with Breton Court’s kind staff and beautiful gardens, selecting it over four other homes he had looked at.
He visited his mother twice a week until the evening of November 8 last year, when he received a phone call to say she had passed away.
‘She worked hard for most of her life in various jobs, including in a department store,’ Mr Carr said.
‘She paid for her care with her own money, then she dies and they want more?
‘I didn’t go through the small print. If I’d read that clause, I would have asked for it to be deleted or we would have left.’
In total, Mrs Carr, the widow of a former RAF groundsman with two children, two grandchildren and three great-grandchildren, paid the home a staggering £114,000 from 2014 until her death.