Dad is moving to NH, and grandson would like to buy the house. Elder care atty says we should wait to sell. Can grandson rent? Caretake?

When you own a house and apply for medicade you must have in the application "a return to house" when he gets out of rehab. If he will not be in a medical facility...he must show rent as income. The elder care attny must give you all this legal stuff or dad is in trouble. Ask him if grandson can be on the property as a co-owner.Then pay rent till dad goes to heaven. New Hampshire has a very liberal medicade program unless there has been a change. The will must keep the house in the family or in dads name in case the grandson is not responsab le.










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Nonnie, GvMercy point about Lady Bird Deeds is important. But they are available in only a handful of states. You need to ask the atty IF they are an option for your dad.

One thing to keep in mind should your homeowing elder go into a facility & onto LTC Medicaid, is that from Day 1 of Medicaid application, all their monthly income basically must be paid as a copay to the facility. All they get to keep is a smallish PNA personal needs allowance that tend to be $50-$60 mo. All property costs - taxes, insurance, etc. - will fall to family to pay till he sells it or beyond death should he die still owning it. If he sells it, he cannot easily reinburse you for those costs as it looks like “gifting” from him to you. Talk with atty clearly about this and if anything needs to happen before you pay a penny on house.

Now for some states, if the property is empty, the costs paid by family to reasonably maintain it, can be deducted or excluded from the Medicaid estate recovery tally (MERP). But you have to keep all documentation on this and then deal with MERP on this after death or file as a claim against the estate if dad keeps the house till death and it rolls into an asset of his estate.

Also there are all sorts of other exclusion and exemptions to MERP. It’s not just caregiver exemption. Right now, it’s you and your brother as the only heirs, right? You might want to look at IF either of you would qualify for exemption. Like handicapped heir, low income heir. If bro qualified for 1 but you didn’t, his 50% of the value of the home gets excluded from value for MERPs interests. If 1 of you have an exemption, it might be better for dad to continue to own the place, keep his homestead exemption and those benefits; it gets mothballed to decrease maintenance that you & bro pay; and you wait it out till after dad dies to deal with it in probate and you 2 heirs sell that generations old land to nephew. This does involve risk as could be 5 mos or 5 years and you have to have the wallet & humor for it.

Also I’d suggest that you get the property inspected and appraised. If the tax assessor value is somewhat whack, you want to be able to legally counter that value. Both for getting assessment lowered (like whenever your area schedules tax protests) and for whatever recovery MERP attempts to do, AND for possibly selling it to your nephew for under the current tax assessor value and any Medicaid FMV issues.

One thing I’ve found over & over is that elders, since their property taxes tend to be “capped” or fixed, is that they don’t ever file a protest to have the tax assessor value lowered to its realistic value. So it’s way way over. If they end up applying for Medicaid, when it finally gets sold Medicaid is going to do their best to make them or DpoaDPOA sell it at FMV based on that assessor $ amount. It can cause delays or kill deals as there’s often too too big of a gulf in assessor value and what it can really sell for.
Getting it inspected and then appraised helps to get through this. Both are documents with a seal and tied into professional licensing. It’s full legal. Like it can be entered into probate and if it’s 75/100k less than tax assessor, it doesn’t matter; it goes in as appraised value.

please please make sure that Medicaid will cover AL & MC; AND if not and it’s only SNF for Medicaid make sure that he can qualify to be “at need” medically for LTC in a NH/SNF. Medical just as important as financial for Medicaid eligibility.

really go over stuff in minute detail,with the atty. Good luck.

I am confused here, your father owns a valuable asset that could be sold and the funds used to provide him with a safe home in his old age. So your solution is to shift this asset to a family member and apply for Medicaid to pay his fees.

Medicaid is not an insurance policy, it is a tax-payer funded program to provide help to people who have no assets, as in flat broke. If your father owns property and you manage to keep it after he moves to a facility, that property will need to be sold to repay Medicaid after his death.

Sounds like if the family wants to keep the property in the family you need to figure out a way to buy it from dad. Then all that money from the sale will be used to pay his fees. If he outlives that money THEN you will be able to apply for Medicaid on his behalf.

One last thing, most AL and MC facilities do not accept Medicaid waivers until the resident has lived there for 2 years. Even then they are not required to. And the resident may have to move to a smaller or shared room.

Yes, dad owns the house. I have lived with him on and off a few times the last 4 years, once for 3 months and now for 3 weeks. He's willed the house to my brother and I, but we've always known it would likely be used for long term care. We just want to keep the one grandchild (oldest son, my nephew) to be able to live there, since he's the only one of 4 that wants to. It's kind of remote. His brother will inheret their dad's place across the creek bed from it someday. My kids have houses already and are happy to know their cousins will be on the land with their uncle.

I am looking into doing respite care for dad on weekends at the NH we're interested in. Then I could go home for a few days a week and he could decide if he likes it, and whether or not the NH (well, AL) can handle his care needs. His old doggie will be able to stay home longer that way, before she lives with me, and nephew and my brother can stay or watch the house while we're gone. I have a caregiver here during the week, and she's awesome, and she would be able to keep her job for awhile longer too. It would give nephew time to figure out financing, and dad could be home for the holidays. It feels like a great plan to me, but we'll run it all by the attorney to see what he thinks. I sure appreciate all of your input, you've given me information I did not have! Thank you all ❤

I am assuming your Father owns the home free and clear IE no bank mortgage??
If you are looking to Medicare/medicaid to provide ANY kind of support to your Father now or in the future you need to look up their rules on these kind of things. I know if a family member is living in the home and providing a certian number of hours of care a week or a month?? That person after a period of time can inherit and or purchase the home without losing any benefits. Look up the rules on this stuff.

You also want to be protecting the home from being attached by say a nursing home.

If your Father owns it free and clear depending on the medicare/ medicaid rules the grandson should be able to buy the home on a contract to purchase. Your Grandfather is the first lien holder so you can set up a payment schedule however grandpa and grandson agree. This would alow the grandson to get a payment he can handle. To make up for the shortfall an arrangement of some sort of a ballon payment in teh future can be done. Later on the house will of apprecieted in value and that will make it easier for the grandson to get a bank mortgage in the future.

You should line up a real estate attorney and probably an accountant as there WILL have to be a contract and deed drawn up to formalize the process. The grandson needs to make sure he is covered in the event Grandpa dies.

Besides an attorney two great free resources to get some guidance on this and how to structure it is 1) a Realtor 2) a Title Company. THese folks can give you a lot of advise on structure, fees, what you need to look out for etc.

Certianly keeping a home in the family is a tremendous thing. Particularly in todays envirnment of rising real estate prices. It wont be cheaper.

Good luck

Imho, you should see the lawyer again and tell him this.

You should see whether grandson can inherit the house (as written below). That is great advice about taking advantage of the stepped up basis. Your dad must be of sound mind, though, to change his will. The more sound, the better.

it would be nice if grandson could live there as a property caretaker or grandad caretaker in the meantime, as extensively discussed by others.

Is grandson your son? Are there other grandchildren? Be careful. A lawsuit could be ahead.

Tread carefully—you, your brother or the grandson, could be accused of undue influence by other heirs. The other heirs might be fine with the arrangement now, but change their mind later.

Your Dad should make the calls to the attorney, no one else. If you drive him to see the attorney, no one should go in the office but him. It’s even better if he can get there in a taxi. (There is plenty of caselaw that looks at who dialed the phone, who all spoke to the attorney, who drove an individual to the attorney’s office). Be careful with e-mails. These are written communication that can be used as evidence.

I thought I had the closest family in the world until a couple people sued me (both as executor and personally). I won completely, but the legal bills were expensive And the process was devastating. Lawsuits can be a perfectly legal way to emotionally abuse someone - avoid this if possible.

Call the attorney back. He knows the rules in your state better than the rest of us. If dad's money is going to run out that quickly that he may qualify for Medicaid, it is very possible the house is going to be addressed in the MERP form that will be signed when he gets on Medicaid. It is a reimbursement to the state for what they paid for his bed and comes out of whatever is left in the estate at the time of his death - ie, the house if not sold. Not all states pursue the property even though they are entitled to do so.

That may be why atty told you not to sell yet. If you sell now, and give the relative a bargain versus fair market value - that is the same as gifting someone what you could have spent for the NH bed. Dad gets penalized where he has to come up with the money for his NH bed for the number of months equivalent to what he gave away.

Talk to the atty - it will be well worth the price to handle this the right way.

Only take full advice on any of your questions from the Elder Law Attorney or you might find yourself following the wrong advice and it could get you in real trouble in more ways then one. When working with the Elder Law Attorney you do not need to worry about anything coming up out of the woods to get you.

In Texas we have what’s called a Lady Bird deed, and the house goes into a life trust. The owner still owns it, but upon death it becomes the other person’s home, whoever is on the deed with your father. immediately, without probate. I’m not sure about your state. Ask your attorney.

If you rent it to him, that becomes income to your father, and Medicaid will look at that, and it’s then payable to the nursing facility. Your grandson can definitely live there and be caretaker. If you need the money monthly, have grandson pay you cash? But don’t put the money in your fathers account. Use it on his needs, however, such as clothing, small refrigerator, drinks, snacks, etc, whatever your fathers needs are along the way. Just a thought, but your elder care attorney can advise you.

If Dad could stay in the house with the grandson helping out, it might be feasible to protect the house from being used to recover Medicaid expenses.

Perhaps the grandson could be added to the deed as a proportional owner. If both are living there and the grandson continues to live there after his grandfather's death, I don't think it could be recovered by the state.

Not sure what would happen with the grandfather's share. A pour over will could deed his share to the grandson, who might refinance it and give the money to the other family members.

I am not a lawyer and Medicaid is complicated. That's what elder law attorneys are for.

Discuss all of these issues with your attorney. Just a thought, could your Dad live safely in his house for some time if his grandson is his caregiver living in the same house? There are some programs that even pay family to be caregivers. Maybe some of that money could go into a fund to buy the house. It could buy some time while you figure things out.

As long as there are assets that will could in income and will not qualify

Not mentioned here elsewhere, there is a tax consideration if you can find a way NOT to sell now, and instead, allow the grandson to INHERIT the property.

When a property is sold, capital gains taxes are calculated on the sale price minus (the purchase price plus any allowed improvements)...

When a when a property is inherited, the value is "stepped up in basis" to the value of the home at the time of death of the owner.

Example: if the last sale/evaluation of record was 30 years ago, at $50,000 + $40,000 in improvements over the years, but the current market value is $600,000 - - the capital gains tax on a sale would be based on...

$600K - $50K - $40K = taxed on

$590,000...

But if the owner passes away, the basis is stepped up, for the new inheritor, to $600,000 - - and the value is figured into inheritance taxes rather than short or long-term capital gains.

If if the value of the home was under the inheritance limit, and if there were no other inheritances, then there would be no federal or state income taxes on the home as inherited.

The the difference can be substantial...

The MERP recovery can also be avoided if it is proven that the person was kept in their house for a period of 2 years, with caretaking (done by or supervised by the grandson, for example), even if the person subsequently goes into Medicaid care after the 2 years, and that provision is included because two years worth of State Medicaid were saved by the home caretaking...

You you have options that all need to be considered - - don't jump at anything, but it's obvious that there is great importance in maintaining the family land, and I'm sure there's a way to do it.

There are real estate attorneys, Medicaid attorneys, probate and family law attorneys, and they all know different things, so you really have to do your homework.

Our area has an inflated real estate market right now, I don't think that it will continue to go up but, who knows what it will look like in a year or even 6 months.

I would ask a certified elder law attorney (www.nelf.org if you are not happy with your current counsel) if you can do a contract with the grandson, where he lives in the house as an unpaid caretaker, free rent would be the compensation, yet he covers all the expenses; including insurance, property tax and of course utilities, as well as home maintenance and any other costs associated with the house, in return for a first right of refusal. You can not rent it to him because the money received could disqualify grandpa from Medicaid and all of the money would have to be paid for his care, meaning none of that rental income would be available for paying insurance or property taxes.

I would also get an appraisal done now and then another one when it is time to buy. Just for my personal comfort of knowing that the house has been well maintained and the value wasn't driven down by the actions of anyone living there. Nothing against your family, mine has taught me how to protect myself.

If the house is sold now, grandpa has to pay the private pay rate vs selling after death and reimbursing for the Medicaid rate. It seems to me it is an average of 3 times the rate for private pay, at a minimum. So I think that the attorney is thinking about this correctly. I don't see how Medicaid could care about the price after grandpa is gone, as long as their lien is satisfied 100%. Ask the attorney. Because once the lien is paid in full they can no longer demand anything.

If there is a huge disparity between selling price and assessors valuation then there may be an avenue available to the estate to satisfy the lien and get Medicaid out of the picture as far as the sale of the house. Allowing the family to sell it for whatever they choose.

I hope that wasn't completely confusing. It sounds like your attorney knows what s/he is doing.

I hope this all works out for your family. I am sorry that you are having to place your dad. It is not an easy decision.

I would stick to the options left you by an attorney as regards the house. It will likely be sold upon Dad's death for medicare recovery. I would head back to that lawyer and tell him or her exactly what you told us. As far as meantime the grandson renting the place, that would be income to Dad, and may prevent his qualifying for medicaid. Caretaking may work out better; again, this is something, given Dad's need for medicaid, that should not be asked and answered on a Forum. Different states have different rules given medicaid is a joint federal and state run program. Just run this by for another half hour time with Lawyer, perhaps only a phone consult. You can't afford to do these things wrong. Best of luck. So many generations in that one place; kind of heartbreaking to not be able to see it go down, but Dad's assets do stand to pay for his care. Hope you will update us on what you find out. Forum is here to help folks with information and our own experiences.

As long as the grandson isn't looking for a "good deal" or family "discount". I agree with other comments about seeing an elder law specialist who is familiar with estate planning and Medicaid for your father's state.

Is the attorney an elder law specialist? The house could be rented at market value. If sold now, must be at market value. I can't understand waiting to sell until passing, The cost of the home is going to increase. With cash from the sale self pay will be possible for a longer period of time. Family member wants to buy now, why not now? Family member could change his mind in a couple years then you have to search for buyer.

You don't want to leave the home vacant insurance will be very expensive, and someone other than dad will be responsible for that expense.

If grandpa keeps the house, it is an exempt asset under Medicaid. A lien will be placed on the home that will be satisfied when grandpa dies.

If grandpa sells house to grandson, it must be at fair market value and then that money funds NH stay until it runs out. The grandpa becomes eligible for medicaid.

I would go back to attorney and get his State-specific advice; some states have homestead exemptions.