The promise, and the reality

The Long-Term Care scheme was sold to islanders as protection — a way to remove the fear that needing care in old age could cost you your home. Every working person pays a dedicated Long-Term Care contribution toward it, for life, and continues paying it in retirement on their pension. It is compulsory, assessed on income, and collected by the tax department.

So islanders have already paid in. The question this campaign asks is simple: when the time comes that you need the scheme, why does it still take so much from the people who funded it?

What's actually happening

For anyone whose home is worth more than £419,000 — which, in today's Jersey market, is most homeowners — the scheme does not simply step in. You must fund the first stretch of your own care, a sum running into tens of thousands of pounds. When your savings run out, the remaining cost is secured as a debt against your home through a Property Bond.

That debt then grows two ways at once. Care costs are added every week. And on top of the rising balance, the Government charges interest — at the Bank of England base rate plus a 0.5% margin — compounded year on year, until the home is sold. Remember that islanders have already funded this scheme through a dedicated, lifelong Long-Term Care tax. Charging interest on the support it provides taxes that support a second time.

Here is the part most islanders have never been told: there is no legal cap. Nothing in Jersey law guarantees that this debt cannot exceed the value of the home. In the UK, every regulated equity-release product must by law carry a No Negative Equity Guarantee — a commercial lender is not allowed to push a customer underwater. Jersey's own scheme offers its residents no such protection. A long care period, two partners needing care, or a dip in property values can each wipe out an estate entirely.

Meanwhile, the cost of that care is not controlled. Care homes and agencies must be registered for quality — but their fees are not regulated at all. Every year prices can rise, the gap between what the scheme covers and what providers charge can widen, and islanders carry that gap personally, in cash or against their home.

And to access any of this, applicants — often elderly, often grieving, often caring for a partner with dementia — must complete a forensic financial assessment: full records, valuations, and a declaration of every gift over £5,000 made in the past ten years. The Government's own guidance suggests they "seek independent legal advice." It is neither provided nor funded.

The questions that need answering

This campaign exists because the more you examine the scheme, the more unanswered questions appear:

Why has the £419,000 disregard never risen since 2014, while Jersey house prices have climbed far beyond it — and who made that choice? Who decided to charge compounding interest on the care of a loved one, and on what basis? Why are care fees left entirely unregulated? Was the means-test ever tested for fairness on the elderly people who must complete it? And on an island whose financial reputation rests on the legitimacy of trusts and estate planning, why does the scheme reach back to pull transferred property and lifetime gifts into the calculation against its own residents? Who, ultimately, is answerable for these decisions?

What we're calling for

We are not asking to scrap the scheme. We are asking to make it fair: protect the family home with a legal negative-equity guarantee; unfreeze the disregard; stop charging interest on care islanders have already paid a tax to receive; regulate the cost of care; make the assessment humane; and tell islanders who made these choices and why.

How you can help

Add your support to show the strength of feeling behind these asks. Share your experience if you or your family have been through this scheme — anonymously if you prefer. Every account becomes part of the evidence base we will put directly to government. The more of us who speak openly about what this system actually does, the harder it becomes for those responsible to claim it is working as intended.