:00:10. > :00:17.Is it possible to avoid paying care home fees? I work for the top
:00:17. > :00:20.barristers in the country. We do seminars like this for solicitors.
:00:20. > :00:23.Why is it that you are selling a product called hope to avoid care
:00:23. > :00:29.fees, when, by marketing it as that, you are in fact, possibly rendering
:00:29. > :00:32.it useless? Why is the South East shaped, well, like the South East?
:00:32. > :00:41.And so, you have the geology of south-east England revealed in a
:00:41. > :00:44.piece of cake. Delicious. Almondy. My whole life's been ruined. That
:00:44. > :00:49.is what has happened. And the Sussex pensioner who lost her home
:00:49. > :00:57.thanks to some very poor legal advice. Hello, Mr Townsend. It is
:00:57. > :01:00.John Cuthill from BBC inside out. I'm Natalie Graham with the untold
:01:00. > :01:10.stories, closer to home. From all round Kent and Sussex, this is
:01:10. > :01:19.
:01:19. > :01:27.Hello, tonight I'm in the Sussex seaside town of Seaford. First up,
:01:27. > :01:33.Jon Cuthill, with a cautionary tale for anyone who owns their own home.
:01:33. > :01:43.Do you think the donkeys will miss this place, then? Yes, they have
:01:43. > :01:48.
:01:48. > :01:52.got a nice little house, here. into their own home after a
:01:52. > :02:02.mortgage company evicted her. Rosalie had lived at her family
:02:02. > :02:17.
:02:17. > :02:24.bailiffs came up to take possession where ever you are, the bailiffs
:02:24. > :02:28.are here. Everybody must leave the property. We have a court order.
:02:29. > :02:38.were filming but the bailiffs ordered us off the premises. I am
:02:39. > :02:41.
:02:41. > :02:51.not moving from this house. After through and the eviction was called
:02:51. > :02:51.
:02:51. > :03:01.off. I need to inform you the eviction is withdrawn. They have
:03:01. > :03:06.
:03:06. > :03:16.withdrawn it! Come and have some champagne. Come on in. They are
:03:16. > :03:24.
:03:24. > :03:30.Two years on, eviction looms once more. This time, Rosalie has no
:03:30. > :03:32.company trying to repossess medal Hill said Rosalie had been properly
:03:33. > :03:36.could not be accused of any reckless lending, they said.
:03:36. > :03:45.Tonight, we investigate that solicitor and ask: did he fail in
:03:45. > :03:50.his duty to protect? Moving out day is fast approaching. At 74, Rosalie
:03:50. > :04:00.has got to pack generations of and prepare for the journey to a
:04:00. > :04:05.
:04:05. > :04:13.new home. My whole life has been ruined. That is what has happened.
:04:13. > :04:23.Local solicitor and a London bank told Rosalie not to get involved
:04:23. > :04:26.
:04:26. > :04:34.persevered and found a loan broker in a very remote part of the UK.
:04:34. > :04:40.The River Usk. Some of the best Sheila who lived in Surrey travel
:04:40. > :04:50.all the way to Wales? Usk was home Corporation it will arrange a loan
:04:50. > :04:52.
:04:52. > :05:01.for. It came with a solicitor. spent 20 minutes with Mr Townsend.
:05:01. > :05:11.home, did he give you advise? I home, did he give you advise? I
:05:11. > :05:21.mortgage was man called Geoffrey. We are not saying he has done
:05:21. > :05:28.
:05:28. > :05:38.common. They were business partners. companies, where these two men were
:05:38. > :05:39.
:05:39. > :05:44.How solicitors act is regulated. relationship with the broker affect
:05:44. > :05:54.the advice he gave Rosalie and put him in breach of the code of
:05:54. > :05:55.
:05:55. > :06:01.conduct? You must not use your Either for your own benefit or for
:06:01. > :06:11.from Sussex to the west of the independent advice. You begin to
:06:11. > :06:13.
:06:13. > :06:23.fined �3,000 by the regulator before he even met Rosalie. Perhaps
:06:23. > :06:24.
:06:24. > :06:29.is that a Geoffrey Townsend represented both Rosalie and Sheila.
:06:30. > :06:39.unlike married couples, both parties need separate solicitors.
:06:40. > :06:44.
:06:45. > :06:54.The code is quite clear. You must interest and if you owe separate
:06:55. > :06:59.
:06:59. > :07:04.was called in, that only one party would have assets to me that
:07:04. > :07:13.I think it is very foolhardy for somebody to accept instructions
:07:13. > :07:23.would have been evident to we solicitor who had just qualified. -
:07:23. > :07:27.
:07:27. > :07:37.should have been lights flashing eviction, Rosalie has found a buyer
:07:37. > :07:39.
:07:39. > :07:49.more than �200,000. Did you ever think this day would come? Well, I
:07:49. > :07:56.
:07:56. > :08:06.have seen so far, I think Mr Townsend have a lot to answer for.
:08:06. > :08:07.
:08:07. > :08:10.reported to the regulator. It has upshot's News Of The World -
:08:10. > :08:16.paperwork and cannot help. We have tried hard to get some answers. It
:08:16. > :08:21.is time for one more go. Hello. We are from BBC Inside Out. Can I just
:08:21. > :08:28.ask about Rosalie Reeves-Fisher? Why did you give her advice and
:08:28. > :08:33.Surely that was a breach of parties, Sheila Mason and Rosalie
:08:33. > :08:43.Reeves-Fisher? I think she deserves some answers because she has lost
:08:43. > :08:46.
:08:46. > :08:56.Meadowhills has finally come to an end. It is time to say goodbye to
:08:56. > :09:00.
:09:00. > :09:10.her family home. They have broken might as well just go to sleep. It
:09:10. > :09:18.
:09:18. > :09:24.has all ended. All down to something I never really understood.
:09:24. > :09:34.Coming up, the man who says he is better than a solicitor. Hi, I am
:09:34. > :09:35.
:09:35. > :09:45.Steve Long, co-founder of the show you how you can avoid care
:09:45. > :09:50.
:09:50. > :09:56.fees. Now, time for a film, 130 million years in the making. Most
:09:56. > :09:58.the south east for granted. The hills, the valleys, the cliffs. As
:09:58. > :10:08.far we're concerned, they've always been here. So we don't normally
:10:08. > :10:12.
:10:12. > :10:16.give our landscape a second thought. place, and how incredibly long it
:10:16. > :10:24.takes to travel across. But when you do think about it, the
:10:24. > :10:31.landscape we have today, in our influenced by the stuff beneath our
:10:31. > :10:36.feet. It's all down to the rocks. So I'm going on what you might call
:10:36. > :10:46.a rock tour of Kent and Sussex to see how our geology has shaped our
:10:46. > :10:48.
:10:48. > :10:54.looks most of the time, how it changes so quickly from place to
:10:54. > :11:02.place, and how incredibly long it takes to travel across. My guide is
:11:02. > :11:11.geologist Dr Ed Jarzembowski. He's a massive rock fans and he's going
:11:11. > :11:20.few minutes. Starting with some of Wells. These talks are 130 million
:11:20. > :11:30.This sandstone stands at of the landscape and produces the high
:11:30. > :11:36.
:11:37. > :11:46.the animal that once carried it. The famous big one a don. --
:11:47. > :11:48.
:11:48. > :11:55.iguanadon. When iguanadons, south east they stomped over muddy
:11:55. > :12:05.south from London to the coast, that gives places like Hastings
:12:05. > :12:14.
:12:14. > :12:18.Each time you go up, you're going going away from the Channel on to
:12:18. > :12:28.the flood plain. But what about the more gentle and curvaceous slopes
:12:28. > :12:29.
:12:29. > :12:35.and the west, with brown river sand in the middle? Well all of that can
:12:35. > :12:41.be explained using marzipan. Here, I am depositing the First Leisure,
:12:41. > :12:48.the Hastings Beds. Then, as hills to the north wore down, the rivers
:12:48. > :12:58.mud which became Weald Clay. Then a layer of greensand. As the sea got
:12:58. > :12:58.
:12:58. > :13:07.deeper we got a layer of marine mud we had clear deep blue tropical sea.
:13:07. > :13:15.the bottom, with skeletons of millions and millions of organisms.
:13:15. > :13:19.can tuck in, Italy has to move north into Europe, causing the
:13:19. > :13:27.whole of southern England to buckle upwards. Pushing up the South of
:13:27. > :13:33.ages later, the top of the dome is gone. And towards the end of the
:13:33. > :13:38.last Ice Age, the glaciers melted, sea levels rose over the top of the
:13:38. > :13:44.south coast of England, so that what you have got is the chalk
:13:45. > :13:48.cliffs at Dover and Eastbourne, and all the other coloured layers in
:13:48. > :13:58.between, and so you have this eulogy of south-east England
:13:58. > :14:05.
:14:05. > :14:10.revealed in a piece of cake. It is in a ridge, right across to France.
:14:10. > :14:19.calcareous Folkestone rock fan Andrew Richardson explains.
:14:19. > :14:24.Hundreds of thousands of years ago, the mainland, so you would have won
:14:24. > :14:30.Chalk ridge. In warmer periods between ice ages, Howards of
:14:30. > :14:38.animals would have found it the easiest way to move along the base
:14:38. > :14:43.of the rage, creating migration routes Inland, into what is now the
:14:43. > :14:49.British Isles, and early Schumann's, hunter-gatherers, would have
:14:49. > :14:52.followed them on those migration routes. When the chalk ridge
:14:52. > :14:55.collapsed, it gave us the famous white cliffs we have today. But our
:14:55. > :14:58.mix of hard and soft rocks didn't just shape our landscape and our
:14:58. > :15:02.coastline. It gave us a unique combination of really useful
:15:02. > :15:05.materials. Archaeologist Lesley Hardy has been uncovering Roman
:15:05. > :15:09.artefacts here in Folkestone where the soft chalk meets the hard local
:15:09. > :15:13.greensand. And there's plenty of evidence that the Romans and our
:15:13. > :15:19.much earlier ancestors made good use of that particular stone.
:15:19. > :15:26.Turning it into a rock 'n roll grinding tool called a quern.
:15:26. > :15:32.pour the grain into the top, then you use this handle - it is quite a
:15:32. > :15:36.heavy beast, to turn it like that, and flower comes out from the side
:15:36. > :15:39.and is collected and swept up. Querns were made here in vast
:15:39. > :15:44.numbers from the greensand in the cliffs below. Then they were traded
:15:44. > :15:47.for things like oil, wine and amber. So you could say that Folkestone's
:15:47. > :15:53.geology meant that it was always destined to be in the import-export
:15:53. > :16:02.business. Just as Tunbridge Wells was always destined to be a well-
:16:02. > :16:06.to-do town thanks to the iron in its water, from the rocks below.
:16:06. > :16:10.And it is fair to say that the high sandstone ridges of the region were
:16:10. > :16:12.always destined to become towns, or villages, like Goudhurst. Where I
:16:12. > :16:15.caught up with building archaeologist Anthony Quiney. He's
:16:15. > :16:19.another big fan of south east rock, because it's given our buildings
:16:19. > :16:25.such an attractive and distinctive look. We have all the evidence
:16:25. > :16:30.before us, and this charge, wonderful gold stone, some of it
:16:30. > :16:37.quite blackened, because there is a man and there. It is the finest
:16:37. > :16:43.building stone in Kent. On top, we have a layer of clay, that produces
:16:43. > :16:48.another building material, bricks which you can break, and the other,
:16:48. > :16:51.it is marvellous for growing old trees. Even our classic hanging-
:16:51. > :16:54.tile look is linked to the oak. When brick became fashionable you
:16:54. > :16:57.didn't rebuild whole timber houses, you just hung tiles on the outside
:16:57. > :17:01.to look like brick. And if you couldn't afford tiles, you stuck
:17:01. > :17:04.with the timber. And on the chalky downland there was always the flint.
:17:04. > :17:12.So our rocks produced land that made our buildings look the way
:17:12. > :17:17.they do. But it also produced land that had another unexpected benefit.
:17:17. > :17:24.It was not wonderful for architecture, but it produced class,
:17:25. > :17:29.which meant pasture, which meant cattle. And you could engage in
:17:29. > :17:35.weaving, and weaving make you very, very rich, certainly in the 14th
:17:35. > :17:40.century. And that would have meant more buildings. Yes, and it is one
:17:40. > :17:44.of the richest characters, certainly in the Middle Ages.
:17:44. > :17:47.those rocks beneath our feet have been pretty good for us humans in
:17:47. > :17:51.the south east. From the present day, going all the way back to the
:17:51. > :17:54.hairiest and earliest cavemen. Which brings me neatly back to Dr
:17:54. > :18:01.Ed, this time in Seaford, where there's evidence that the earliest
:18:01. > :18:06.humans settled here for the rocks. There were people making flint axes
:18:06. > :18:12.like this half-a-million years ago in the South East. That is an awful
:18:12. > :18:16.long time ago. And they were making tools from fluent as recently as
:18:16. > :18:21.4,000 years ago. You have flanked in perfect supply in the cliffs.
:18:21. > :18:25.You do not even have to dig for it. And there are very few places in
:18:25. > :18:30.the world where you have that situation. And this was the chalk
:18:30. > :18:34.pathway over the Channel for the hunter-gatherers, so they got their
:18:34. > :18:40.flint from here and started hunting and gathering. They would have
:18:40. > :18:44.picked it up as they arrived on the beach with their passports! This
:18:44. > :18:49.ancient flint axe head is still sharp, prove that our ancestors
:18:49. > :18:59.knew that -- what they were doing when they settled here, and made
:18:59. > :19:02.
:19:02. > :19:05.the most of the landscape of the Saudis. Now, if you are one of
:19:05. > :19:09.thousands of people who end up needing care in your later years -
:19:09. > :19:12.it could cost you around �50,000 a year. So, when someone tells you he
:19:12. > :19:15.has a way of getting someone else to foot the bill, that's a tempting
:19:15. > :19:18.offer. And that's exactly what a company holding seminars all round
:19:18. > :19:28.the country, including Kent and the South East, have been promising.
:19:28. > :19:31.
:19:31. > :19:41.David Whiteley has been finding out long-term care, and if you have
:19:41. > :19:42.
:19:42. > :19:52.more than �23,000 in savings and rather keep their assets in the
:19:52. > :19:57.
:19:57. > :20:05.founder of the Universal Group, and solicitor. The local solicitor will
:20:05. > :20:10.not be able to do this. Solicitors come to us, to do this. Five years
:20:10. > :20:18.ago, Bernard and Christine Dylan wanted new wills. They went to
:20:18. > :20:24.Steve Long. His business had a new product - to avoid care fees.
:20:24. > :20:34.came and said that you could get out copying care home fees by
:20:34. > :20:34.
:20:34. > :23:52.Apology for the loss of subtitles for 197 seconds
:23:52. > :24:02.We have spoken to the park to claims. But he does sound like he
:24:02. > :24:15.
:24:15. > :24:20.is well qualified. The local authority will look at the reasons
:24:20. > :24:30.that the trust was created, and, if they feel that it was done for the
:24:30. > :24:32.
:24:32. > :24:42.purpose of that in the asset beyond assessment and treat persons as if
:24:42. > :24:43.
:24:43. > :24:53.irony is that if the intention is precisely the opposite. And that is
:24:53. > :25:06.
:25:06. > :25:10.And we were told that if you put your assets into a trust that is
:25:10. > :25:20.deliberately to a void paying care fees, local authority can pay you -
:25:20. > :25:21.
:25:21. > :25:25.- treat you as if you were doing it to avoid paying. Mr Long said that
:25:25. > :25:29.he could not speak to us because he was out of the country. Then his
:25:29. > :25:33.office told us he could not speak to us because of any infection. He
:25:33. > :25:38.is giving a seminar at this hotel and I hope is heeding is better
:25:38. > :25:41.because I have a few questions for him. His office said that universal
:25:41. > :25:47.asset protection is totally committed to its excellent customer
:25:47. > :25:52.care. He also said that their fees are not excessive. But Mr Long has
:25:52. > :26:00.not given specific answers to most of our questions. I have to ask
:26:00. > :26:04.your question, Mr Long. How is it that you are selling a product
:26:04. > :26:14.saying How To avoid care fees when, marketing up -- by marketing has
:26:14. > :26:18.that, you are negating the effectiveness of it. It is nice of
:26:18. > :26:22.you to come here and ask questions. We have questions for you. By
:26:22. > :26:25.advertising yourself as how to avoid care fees, you are kind of
:26:25. > :26:30.shooting yourself in the foot, aren't you? It is not the advice we
:26:30. > :26:34.have received. Who have you received advice from? This is from
:26:34. > :26:38.the government. Who is wrong - you or the government? You have put me
:26:38. > :26:41.on the spot here. We have because we try to get in touch with you and
:26:41. > :26:46.your office told us you are out of the country and that is not the
:26:46. > :26:50.case. I am not prepared to discuss on television the intellectual
:26:50. > :26:54.property that we have. All I can say is that the trust that we use
:26:54. > :26:58.as a 100% record. We have documentary evidence of local
:26:58. > :27:03.authorities accepting the trust. You market yourself as one of only
:27:03. > :27:08.five companies that is able to do this and who specialises in this
:27:08. > :27:11.kind of elderly care trust. It is not true, is it? I said we are one
:27:11. > :27:15.of five specialist providers that we know to provide this to other
:27:15. > :27:19.people. Any firm of solicitors who knows and understand the rules
:27:19. > :27:24.would be able to do this. Strange - he said the opposite when he did
:27:24. > :27:27.not know he was being recorded. Ordinary solicitors would not be
:27:27. > :27:32.able to do this. It is a specialist niche. There are only five of us in
:27:32. > :27:35.the country that deal with it. So what can we learn from this? If
:27:35. > :27:38.you are thinking of putting your property into a trust to avoid care
:27:38. > :27:48.fees, remember that they are not suitable for everyone and they may
:27:48. > :27:53.not work. My first reaction was to say no. But he continued and he
:27:53. > :28:03.eventually wore us down. If you have met in you will know that he
:28:03. > :28:03.
:28:03. > :28:08.is a very pleasant man and obviously a very good salesman.
:28:08. > :28:12.You can get more information about tonight's show by going to hour
:28:12. > :28:21.Kent or Sussex website. You can also watch the whole show again on
:28:21. > :28:26.the iPlayer. Next week: What is it like for the people living rough
:28:26. > :28:33.over the Channel, desperate to get into Britain? We are homeless. We
:28:33. > :28:37.have nothing. We go under cover. am quite excited going in. Danger
:28:37. > :28:45.is not something I am feeling at the moment. And did Shakespeare
:28:45. > :28:48.have anything to do with a murdering five Russian? He ran up
:28:48. > :28:54.to Ardon, through a towel round his throat to strangle him, pulled into