Fort Washington Estates is the small one, and that is its argument: 94 independent living apartments on 12 acres in eastern Montgomery County, run by Acts Retirement-Life Communities under a true Type A life care contract, the kind that prepays future care rather than billing for it later. This guide is written from the seller’s side of that move, because the entrance fee and the house are usually the same money. It is independent research; Samantha is a real estate agent, not affiliated with Acts, and the numbers below come from the community’s own fact sheet and the disclosure statement it files with the Pennsylvania Insurance Department.
What Fort Washington Estates is, in verified numbers
| Fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Type | Not-for-profit continuing care retirement community with a Type A (life care) contract, for people 62 and older |
| Operator | Acts Retirement-Life Communities: 26 campuses in nine states, more than 10,000 residents served |
| Opened | 1972; one of the oldest CCRCs in the Philadelphia suburbs |
| Campus | 12 acres at 735 Susquehanna Road, Fort Washington, roughly 15 miles north of Center City |
| Scale | About 170 residents: 94 independent living apartments (roughly 535 to 951 square feet), 18 assisted living suites, 40 skilled care rooms, all on site |
| Regulation | Files an annual disclosure statement with the Pennsylvania Insurance Department, available to any prospective resident |
The scale is the differentiator. Where Ann’s Choice houses roughly 2,000 residents and Shannondell over 1,300, Fort Washington Estates is a single connected community of under 200 people where the dining room, fitness center, library, chapel, and the full care continuum sit within one building complex. The Acts fact sheet carries the current campus specifics, and the disclosure statement filed with the state is the document to read before any deposit.
Type A life care: what the entrance fee buys
Most of the large campuses in this region, including Ann’s Choice and Shannondell, run fee-for-service (Type C) contracts: lower entrance fees, care billed at market rates when used. Fort Washington Estates is the other model. Under the Acts Life Care contract, the entrance fee and monthly fee prepay long-term care, so a later move to assisted living or skilled nursing on campus does not reset your monthly cost to market care rates. Three consequences for the family doing the math:
- Predictability replaces risk. The single largest financial unknown in retirement, what extended care will cost, is largely converted into a known number paid up front. Whether that trade is worth it depends on health, family history, and whether long-term care insurance is already in place; it is an adviser conversation, and our CCRC funding guide frames the contract types side by side.
- The medical deduction is bigger. Because a Type A fee genuinely prepays care, the portion the community allocates to medical care, deductible under IRS Publication 502, tends to run higher than at fee-for-service communities. In the year a six-figure entrance fee is paid, that deduction is worth real planning attention.
- The promise is only as good as the balance sheet. A life care contract is a decades-long financial promise. That is exactly why Pennsylvania requires CCRCs to file annual disclosure statements with the Insurance Department, and why the size of the parent organization (Acts, in this case, one of the largest not-for-profit CCRC operators in the country) is part of the underwriting a careful family does.
The five pricing plans, decoded
Acts offers five plans at Fort Washington Estates, which sounds complicated until you see that they slide along one axis: how much you pay up front versus how much your estate gets back. The disclosure statement’s published ranges for the smallest apartment (the roughly 535 square foot Freedom plan) show the spread:
| Plan | Entrance fee range (Freedom apartment) | What it optimizes for |
|---|---|---|
| Acts Balanced | $112,900 to $124,900 | Lowest entry cost; less life care prepayment |
| Life Care Asset Preservation | $122,900 to $135,900 | Lower entry with life care protection |
| Life Care Premier | $144,900 to $159,900 | The flagship: full life care, fees never rise solely because care needs rise |
| Life Care Income Preservation | $173,900 to $191,900 | Higher entry, lower monthly fees |
| Life Care 50 | $209,900 to $253,900 | Preserves 50% of the fee for you or your estate |
Larger apartments scale each range up, second occupants add a surcharge, and current pricing is always the community’s to quote. The seller’s takeaway is simpler than the menu: the choice between plans is largely a choice about how much of the house proceeds convert to prepaid care versus how much stays in the estate, which is why the house number has to come first.
Sequencing the house sale against the move
- 01Get the house’s real number before touring with intent. A valuation plus the net proceeds calculator produces the after-cost figure that decides which apartment and which of the five plans are actually on the table.
- 02Read the disclosure statement with your adviser. It is your legal right as a prospective resident, and with a life care contract the refund provisions, fee history, and financials matter more than the model apartment does.
- 03Reserve, then list, on one calendar. The standard pattern: apartment reserved, house listed within weeks, closing targeted at or just before move-in so the proceeds wire straight to the entrance fee. Upper Dublin Township, where Fort Washington sits, has its own resale requirements, as do the surrounding townships these movers typically come from; the fee index lists every one.
- 04Decide the bridge deliberately. Sell first and move once, or move first and carry two residences briefly; both work when chosen on purpose. Our sell-first-or-buy-first guide walks the tradeoffs.
The house this move usually involves
The house behind a Fort Washington Estates move is usually within fifteen minutes of the campus: Upper Dublin, Ambler, Whitemarsh, Springfield Township, Horsham, the Flourtown and Oreland corridors, a colonial or split owned thirty to fifty years in a school district young families pay premiums for. Three field notes for exactly that sale:
- These are strong-demand houses; prepare in passes, not projects. Clear, clean, brighten, repair the broken, and let the district and the bones do the selling. The room-by-room checklist keeps the clear-out from stalling the calendar.
- Mind the exclusion math in the year of the fee. The $250,000/$500,000 capital gain exclusion covers most of these sales, and the medical deduction inside the entrance fee lands in the same tax year; run both with the accountant together, not separately. Our PA and NJ tax guide covers the house side.
- Township paperwork starts at listing, not at agreement of sale. Use and occupancy certificates in this corridor have lead times, and a life care move-in date is not the deadline to discover them. The Upper Dublin guide and its neighbors cover the specifics.
Samantha, SRES®, sells the houses on both ends of this move across eastern Montgomery County. If Fort Washington Estates, or the life care model generally, is on your shortlist, start with the free valuation that turns the house into a number you can hold against the five plans, or ask her how your township’s timeline fits the community’s. Small campus, big contract; the order of operations is everything.