Will Medicaid Take My House?

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When someone enters a nursing home owning more than $2,000 of countable resources, they will unlikely be eligible for Long Term Care Medicaid assistance.

The "home property" is not a countable resource, giving some potential Medicaid applicants a false sense of security. But Estate Recovery rules require the Department of Health to recover the cost of Medicaid payments from your estate in the event of your death.

So what do people do to protect their home value?

Many protect their home value for their families by getting the home property out of their estate at least five years prior to needing nursing home care. This gets the property out of the estate for estate recovery purposes, and it avoids the penalties for transferring assets out of your name within five years of applying for Long Term Care Medicaid.

Note also that you must be careful when transferring assets out of your name. The use of certain typs of transfers and particular types of trusts can enable you to preserve your property tax homestead exemption, preserve the $250,000 capital gains tax exclusion on the sale of a residence, and protect it from your children's creditors, divorces, and bad decisions.

Bottom line - educate yourself, create a plan, and implement the appropriate strategies while you are healthy.

For prospective law firm clients who want to schedule a free 15 minute initial phone call with Paul Rabalais, go to: https://go.oncehub.com/Paul8

This post is for informational purposes only and does not provide legal advice. Please do not act or refrain from acting based on anything you read on this site. Using this site or communicating with Rabalais Estate Planning, LLC, through this site does not form an attorney/client relationship.


Paul Rabalais


Estate Planning Attorney


www.RabalaisEstatePlanning.com


Phone: (225) 329-2450