My grandmother is in a memory care facility and it is $5000+ each month. Her social security and private insurance will not help pay for her care becasue the house is still in her name. We want to keep the house in the family, and I am willing to buy it at fair market value. Is it legal for me to sell the house to myself and put the money toward my grandmother's care?
Is it actually you r POA for your grandmother? If not who is?
As Barb posted, grandma owning a home does NOT preclude her going into a NH and using her SS $ to pay for her care. Health insurance does not pay for residential LTC care. If she had a LTC insurance, that will pay for some degree of the costs depending on how policy was written. All Grannie needs to do is to have medical need for NH level of care and the funds to pay for the facility; or if she’s impoverished she can apply for LTC Medicaid to pay for the room&board. Medicaid does not require them to have to sell their home as it remains an exempt asset for their lifetime but becomes nonexempt asset of their estate after death.
Personally IMO unless you have a lot of experience buying & selling residential property AND you have the cash to pay in full the last tax assessor/ collector assessed value on the property & costs for an atty to do the paperwork, I would not ever start to try to do this as a DIY. I’d suggest that you speak with a Real Estate atty who does residential property to guide you in the process, do the paperwork and recordings. Also should grannies home be modest or lower assessed value, like under $ 150,00 - 200,000, it will be likely that she will run out of $ to private Pay for her NH. (Average stay in a NH is 2.5 years.)
If she outlives all housesale $ and now needs to apply for LTC Medicaid, Medicaid will look in detail on just how her property was sold and if it was truly FMV and at arms length sale. Medicaid can review any asset transfer of her for 5 years prior to the Medicaid application. That’s why having a R E atty work w/you now will be very very important ime.
This I don't understand:
"Her social security and private insurance will not help pay for her care becasue the house is still in her name."
Social Security going to the care of a person in MC has nothing to do with the person owning a house. The only thing I see is that SS is being used to pay the bills on the house. When my Mom was on Medicaid, I had to hand over her SS and pension to offset her care in a NH. Social Security has no idea how you spend it. Its income.
Private insurance...are you talking about a Long term Insurance Policy or Medicare and her secondary for her heath insurance?
If Medicare and secondary insurance they don't pay for any type of care facility.
Where I live, owning a home would be no reason for SS and/or insurance not to be able to be used for facility costs.