Not having a dig at you at all Grant, but these phrases from your Scottish examples are the key here. There are no hard and fast rules. No one could point me to a document that said "X years a gift is given a council cannot pursue care-costs based on the value of the gift" or a more carefully legally crafted version of the same. "As far as I'm aware" was as good as we got but nothing that we could DEFINITELY use to plan from. A family lawyer friend informally gave different advice than our actual lawyer and both councils we spoke with gave different advice too. That's what's maddening. Surely there must be an actual legal basis upon which decisions are made - perhaps this is the case in Scotland but I've never seen it quoted.