Estate admin · Deferred payments

Only Surrey (£250) and Lancashire (£24) publish a fee for ending the agreement; the set-up fees already on the account run from £400 to £1,844.

The national rules fix the interest ceiling, not the fees. Every council here except Lancashire says it charges the national maximum interest rate, which is reset on 1 January and 1 July and which several of them attribute to the Office for Budget Responsibility. Lancashire instead charges its own average borrowing rate over the preceding financial year, capped at the maximum in the Care Act deferred-payment regulations. That is why the rate is close to uniform, at 4.65% from 1 July 2026, while everything else on the account is not.

The fees are each council recovering its own costs, in its own way. Hampshire describes its first-year charge as the average staff, copying and postage cost plus the actual valuation and Land Registry costs. Lancashire's schedule is a one-off £1,055 plus itemised charges such as £174 per independent valuation. Kent and Surrey spread the cost with a flat annual fee. Hampshire and West Sussex bill it weekly. Devon charges again only at the 50% equity revaluation and the agreement review. Same statutory scheme, five different billing structures.

The closing fee is the least-published figure because it is the last cost the council incurs. Surrey itemises it as £250 for the legal work of removing its charge, with debt-recovery costs on top if the balance is not repaid in full. Lancashire itemises £24. Hampshire folds it into administration fees applied at the end of the agreement. The remaining five councils checked describe the agreement as ending when the person dies and the estate repays, without naming a fee for that step.

The repayment deadline is a local choice too. Devon, West Sussex, Surrey, Hampshire and Birmingham each say the debt is repaid from the estate after death without giving a number of days. Essex says only that the loan is repaid once the home is sold. Kent and Lancashire have chosen to publish a figure, and both chose 90 days.

• Ask the council in writing for a redemption statement. The balance is not the care fees alone. It includes any set-up fee that was deferred rather than paid, ongoing charges and compound interest, and at Surrey and Lancashire a closing fee. Hampshire says it provides a redemption statement within 28 days; the other councils checked do not publish a timescale, so ask for one.
• Find out whether the set-up fee was paid at the start or added to the debt. Kent's rates card says its fees can be deferred if required, and Lancashire's says its £1,055 can be paid by invoice or deferred with interest. Surrey is the opposite, with arrangement fees payable at the outset and not usually part of the deferred debt. A deferred fee has been growing with interest since the agreement began.
• Ask for the council's deadline rather than assuming one. Only Kent and Lancashire publish 90 days. If the agreement is with any of the other six councils here, the published pages give no number, and the answer has to come from the council itself.
• Keep evidence that the sale is being progressed. Lancashire's policy says that after the 90 days it may begin legal proceedings if it concludes active steps to repay are not being taken, for example if the property is not on the market. Surrey says debt-recovery costs may be charged in full if the balance is not repaid at the end of the agreement. Dated marketing instructions and offer correspondence are the protection.
• Budget for the closing charge where one is published. Surrey's £250 legal fee for removing the charge and Lancashire's £24 come out of the estate at the end. Where no figure is published, ask whether one applies before the sale completes, not after.

Each row is taken from the council's own rates page, charging schedule or policy, checked on 6 September 2026. Read the last two columns first, the fee to close and the repayment window after death, because those are the questions an executor is asked and the ones most councils leave unanswered.

8 checked. Each row is what that provider’s own page says, on the date beside it.

A Deferred Payment Agreement is one debt among several the estate has to settle in the right order, and it is the one whose balance keeps moving until the property sells. The estate debts priority guide in the Valoren library sets out where each kind of debt sits, so this one is dealt with in sequence rather than in a panic.

The blank executor checklist at /resources/blank-executor-checklist is free and gives the whole administration a running order. The redemption statement, the council's deadline and the closing fee each belong on it as dated entries, because the council's own pages will not remind you.

Nothing on this page is a substitute for the council's own current figures. Use it to know which questions to put to them, and to recognise when the answer you are given is one they never published.

What usually comes next.

The next three things an executor with a council debt usually needs, in the order they tend to come up.

Informational, not advice. Every fee on this page is dated and several are pegged to a reset. Kent's and Lancashire's charging schedules took effect from 6 April 2026, Surrey's from 1 April 2026, and each is subject to annual review; Kent's rates card warns that its costs are under review and the charge may change during the year. The national maximum interest rate resets on 1 January and 1 July, so the 4.65% figure quoted here is already provisional after 1 January 2027, and Birmingham's page was still showing the previous January's rate on the check date. West Sussex states its rate only until 31 December 2026. Confirm each figure against the specific council's own live rates page, charging schedule PDF or deferred payment policy, not this table, and check the document's own effective date. England only. Deferred Payment Agreements here operate under the Care Act 2014 and its deferred payment regulations, which set the interest ceiling and leave the fee schedule to each council. Eight councils' own published pages and PDFs were checked on 6 September 2026 (Devon, Essex, West Sussex, Birmingham, Lancashire, Hampshire, Kent and Surrey). That is not a list of every English authority. Norfolk was in the original brief and could not be checked, because norfolk.gov.uk returned a bot-verification challenge on every attempt and no archived copy exists; West Sussex was substituted rather than reporting Norfolk from a third party's summary. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland run separate schemes not covered here.