Care home chain to pay compensation for upfront fees

♦ A leading care home provider is to pay residents compensation after charging upfront fees worth thousands of pounds.

Sunrise Senior Living charged residents fees for services before they had even secured a place in a care home, the Competition and Markets Authority said.

The “community fee” cost residents an average of £3,000. Anyone who paid it after October 2015 and lived in the home for less than two years will be eligible for compensation. Around 1,500 people will now receive money back.

George Lusty, the CMA’S senior director for consumer protection, said: “It’s only right that residents at Sunrise care homes will now receive compensation if they’ve paid these fees, and that future residents won’t have to make such payments at all.”

Dr Natalie-jane Macdonald, UK CEO of Sunrise Senior Living said: “We’ve agreed with the CMA that residents who stayed with us for shorter than average periods were not able to enjoy as much of the benefit of our facilities.”