Financial Aged Care Entry Solutions

If Aged Care couldn't get confusing enough, here's how one home for a single home owner can have 10 different values, depending on what stage a family's at.

1. The owner's price
2. The real estate agent's valuation
3. The buyer's value
4. $0, if you're on a pension
5. $0, if you enter care and a protected person remains in the home
6. $214,000, if the protected person vacates
7. $214,000, if there's no protected person
8. Full sale value, if sold
9. If rented, $214,000 for aged care purposes and $0 for pension purposes, for up to 2 years
10. After 2 years of renting, still $214,000 for aged care purposes, but the pension value jumps from $0 to full market value, a possible pension wipe out

Ten numbers. One house. Most families only ever hear one of these, and it's rarely the one that actually applies to their situation.

This is the kind of detail we model for families at FACES, before the decision gets made, not after.

Did we need to sell the home?

That’s the question every family asks us first. The honest answer: usually not — and we’ve got the numbers to prove it.

$200,000 refunded to a family who was overcharged.
A pension found for a man who was certain he didn’t qualify for a cent.

A home kept, not sold, because nobody had actually checked.

These aren’t rare wins. This is what happens when someone actually looks at the numbers before assuming the worst.

Tony and I talk about it here — real outcomes, real families, real facts.

Would you know what to do?

Not the emotional part — that’s impossible to prepare for.

The financial part. The fees, the paperwork, the decisions about the family home, all landing on you within days of a phone call you never saw coming.

Most families don’t know until it happens to them.

We built FACES so there’s somewhere to turn to before the moment comes.

If this is on your mind, even quietly, that’s worth acting on before it becomes urgent.

571 out of 795.

571 families who trusted a system to get their aged care fees right, and didn’t get that.

OPAN’s June 2024 report found 72% of the cases they investigated involved errors, overcharging, incorrect invoices, or agreements gone wrong. Behind every one of those numbers is a family who was already dealing with enough.

There are four players in almost every aged care decision the family, the financial professionals, the aged care provider, and Centrelink. Each one plays a role. The question is: who’s actually making sure they’re all working from the same information?

Over the next few videos, we’re going to walk through each one and where things can unintentionally go wrong.

I’m Sebastiaan from FACES. We only deal in the facts.

FACES

$200,000.

That’s what one family was overcharged by a church-run aged care facility, before Tony stepped in.

A formal review, a correction submitted, a full refund secured.

This is exactly the kind of thing OPAN’s national report flags — 72% of investigated complaints involved fees, charges or overcharging. It happens more often than people realise.

If something about your own fees doesn’t add up, that’s worth checking with FACES - link in bio.

Thats the five fees of Aged Care covered by FACES

Basic Daily Fee. Accommodation. Hotelling Contribution. Non-Clinical Care Contribution. HELF.

Five pieces of a system that can feel overwhelming from the outside — but doesn't have to stay that way.

FACES exists to make this conversation easier to have, and easier to understand. If any part of this series raised a question for you, that's exactly what we're here for — lean on us.

Thank you for following along. We'll see you in the next conversation.

Before FACES, I spent 16 years in hospitality, I co-owned a couple restaurants. Along the way, our story even made the front page of the Australian Financial Review.

Both restaurants had success and failures. I learned firsthand what it means to watch the numbers closely and make hard calls when the picture changes.

That’s a big part of why I do this now. Families making aged care decisions are under the same kind of pressure I knew running a restaurant, big numbers, real consequences, and not always time to think it through properly.

FACES is where that experience meets Tony's 47 years in financial services.

The Higher Everyday Living Fee - HELF

Tony calls this one the "dignity fee" — and once you see what it covers, you'll understand why.

HELF replaced the old Extra Service and Additional Service fees. It covers premium comforts beyond standard care — things like premium meals, Wi-Fi, Netflix, and pay TV — each one itemised and agreed to in writing before it's charged.

It's 100% optional and can never be a condition of entry. There's no government price list either, so providers set their own rates — which is exactly why it's worth understanding before you sign anything.

Knowing what's optional, and what you're agreeing to, is exactly the kind of clarity we want our community to have.