A care home earmarked for closure has received an 11th hour reprieve.

In January, Dresden House in Medina Villas, Hove, told its 33 elderly female residents it was being sold.

The residents were given just 11 weeks to quit, leaving many of them contemplating a future with no home.

But with just four weeks to go, the Charities Commission has put the brakes on the sale.

The commission has the legal right to stop the sale and told The Argus it wants to be sure any money made from Dresden House is channelled into other charitable trusts and not into private bank accounts.

Relatives of the residents were today claiming a partial victory in their campaign to save the home.

If the sale is halted it will provide a lasting legacy for Edna Henshall, 84, whose death on the day she was being moved to another home has been blamed on the closure.

Nick Steadman, whose aunt Alice Pink, 93, still lives at Dresden House, said: "It is important the public know that if you keep banging on the door, the cracks in the system appear and you can make headway. Dresden House should not be closing."

The three trustees of Dresden Homes, the charity that runs Dresden House, said the home was no longer financially viable.

Jacky Laurie, Helen Fairfax and Karen Smith said the home could no longer reach nationally prescribed standards and that the trust was "haemorrhaging money".

But no evidence of financial difficulties has been found and the Commission for Social Care Inspection, the body responsible for ensuring standards in care homes, indicated the home does meet standards and can remain open.

Mr Steadman and others wrote repeatedly to the Charities Commission urging it to step in.

On Saturday he received a letter from the commission stating it would be meeting with the trustees.

The commission's Tina Madge said: "The trustees will need to explain in more detail why it is considered that the existing purposes of the charity have failed and, therefore, why a (sale) is necessary."

The trustees have reiterated that the home is no longer viable and said that in years to come, substantial changes would have to be made for it to reach standards.

At the very least, the intervention by the Charities Commission will delay the sale and give the women longer to prepare for moving out.

Dresden House was supposed to shut on March 31 and Oakley Commercial, the estate agent, had already invited closed bids for the property.

Oakley confirmed yesterday it had not taken Dresden House off the market but letters detailing the Charities Commission's intervention have been sent to the company to make it aware of the situation.

There will be at least two weeks of talks between interested parties and then a one-month consultation period, likely to end mid-April.