Should I have my mom's home put in to my name?

Right now you are paying for 3 places - yours, your mothers and the apartment. Would it be possible for you to move into your mother's home and sell yours instead? I believe it is true that if you were to sell your mother's place now and keep the money, she would not qualify for medicare/medicaid (I'm never sure which one it is) that would cover nursing care if she gets to that point. They do look back 5 years. If you were to move into your mother's home and leave it in her name you would not have a problem but if you put her home in your name, it could definitely be a problem down the road. Good luck to you.... it does get complicated!

The 5 year rule applies if and when you want to apply for medicaid for your Mom. If she needs nursing home care and she does not have long term care coverage, she will have to pay from any resources she has. Her mobile home can be considered an asset and they can use that until there is nothing left. Then the medicaid will take over.
If your Mom is in good health, you can put the house in your name or a trust. BUT you will have to wait 5 years to be free from contributing to long term care.
Good luck.

I would definitely contact an elder law attorney on this. It is true that medicaid will look back 5 years to see if any money or assets were transferred into someone else's name, and that could make that person ineligable to collect Medicaid. Also make sure you keep VERY accurate records of how you are spending her money, because Medicaid will want to know that every cent spent was used correctly, and they want very detailed records and receipts. Any large sums taken out or transferred will be questioned by them and you will be penalized (not be able to collect Medicaid) if money was spent on what they consider "unnecessary" items. Here in Florida, the government cannot go after a person's home to collect money, (the home is protected) however once the home is sold, they can go after the estate. You definitely need an elder law attorney who can set up a "trust". Good luck!

The trust is a good idea we did that with ou son and when my husband needed to be placed the 5 years had passed so they could not touch the house-he died before he got on medicaide but the house would have been safe and not considered an assest. Elders need to make these decisions earier you never know what is going to happen tomarrow and adult children need to have the talk while their parents are well and their mind is sharp-.

I agree with 195Austin. Elders need to make decisions early. Luckily, when mom & dad bought their manufactured home in 1994, the deed read; his name OR moms name OR my name (I am an only child and they trusted me so it was easy for them to do - not everyone is as fortunate). When dad died in 1997, the home automatically passed to mom OR I. At any time either one of us could have sold it without the others signature (again a trust thing by my parents). Mom broke her hip in 2010 and developed complications and was back and forth in the hospital and rehab for four months - which she did have to pay the rehab after her 30 days of medicare coverage was up. I then found a wonderful small assisted living facility where she was for a month (she paid for) and then passed away. Mom & Dad had all their bank accounts, cd's and home all set up with my name on them as "or" so upon their death everything just passed on to me immediately. No legal issues whatsoever. But like I said being an only child and having the trust of my parents made it easy for them to do. But everyone needs to have things in place BEFORE bad health sets in. Makes it soooo much easier for all concerned.

evelyn...... that's really interesting..... I've never heard of the "or" option. I'm wondering if it's different in every state. Could I ask what state you're in?

We live In the state of Florida. But when we lived in NY YOU can put your home, cds, bank accounts, etc. with the OR. Many times a bank, mortgage company or vehicle title company will automatically use "AND". It doesn't matter what state you are in - it's something YOU need to do with your bank, vehicle title also (mom didn't drive and didn't have a car - however when dad was alive he did and his title said his name OR my name. When he died it automatically went to me - no probate. They both did however have their own wills which left everything to me anyway, just to make sure in case any problems did arise, but since everything had my name on it with "OR" everything was simple. It's a good idea to have everything in names with OR not AND. But you have to truly trust the other person - because with the OR clause EITHER one can withdraw all the money, sell the house, sell the car, etc. With "and" both people are required to make any transactions.

If you are wanting to get her on Medicad or some kind of gov. aid. She can only have the one home in her name and less the $2000 in the bank. We did not get mom's house's in our name's till a few yrs ago. And now we have to wait till they have been out of her name for 5 yr's to get any gov. help for her .She is living on her SS. And that does not cover her med. bills, food, and all the other needs and Alzhiemer's patient have. And if we have to put her in a nurseing home she we will have to pay for it inless everything is out of her name for 5yrs. So get everything out of her name as soon as you can. Good luck. Your state laws might be differant . Check and see. And elder lawyer can help a lot.

My thoughts were to sell her house and she would have money to live in a nice apartment for the next few years and my husband would be able to get away from the upkeep of two places.
As for selling our place that would be a good idea but in essence I would only be selling a very old mobile home-no land. You have to be a senior to live where I live and they are wanting to move all the old mobiles out when people sell. I don't know anyone that would buy it really.
But even if I sold my place and moved into moms to take care of her it sounds like I would get thrown out if she had to go to a nursing home because it would be paid for by medicare and they would take the house, right?

No, you would not be thrown out if she had to go to nursing care. For instance, my mother had a home in her name and she went to nursing care. Medicaid paid for whatever her monthly income didn't cover and I stayed in Mom's home rent free. If I (or anyone else) would have paid her rent, it would have gone towards her income and Medicare would pay that much less. My mother had a miraculous recovery and ended up moving back to her home for a while. I think that must be the reason they cannot take your home?? You can get well and return home.

Tiger - I forgot to mention perhaps you could rent your home and use that rental income to pay down your mother's $10,000 balance and then you stay in your mother's home rent free. Technically you're not paying her rent while you are there but you are allowed to help her with expenses. Or use her income to pay down the $10,000 and you pay her rent on her apartment.

I have to disagree with ksue saying you should get everything out of your mom's name asap. You may not have 5 years to wait.

Evelyn.... thanks for all the good info!!

Ideally, it would have benefited if my dad had actually put the house in just my name from the beginning - in 1994 when he purchased it he was only 72; however, my husband was a police sgt. at the time. If he (my husband) would have been sued (as many police officers are for doing their job) , and they went after "us" - my parents house could have been lost because it was in my name and my assets would be liable. A few years later, my husband retired, dad had died, and mom got older, she heard horror stories from her friends how their children threw them out of the house because their name wasn't on the deed. Although mom didn't believe I would ever do that - her friends told her not to put it in my name alone (thank you so called "friends"). She was getting older and I had to worry about the 5 year lookback period (for Medicaid) if I did in fact convince her to put it in my name. If something would have happened to her within those 5 years, they would have went after the house because she handed it over to me. Keeping it at that point in her name OR mine was the best option. Medicaid couldn't touch it and when she passed it went directly to me. Everything worked out, even though at times I had my doubts.

The reality is that we never know how long a person has and it seems like 5 years is a long time when someone is in their 80's, but then again she could live to be 100. I am not wishing her life away, I want her to live as long as she wants to and as long as she is happy but worrying about things like this is killing me! With her memory she doesn't worry about this kind of stuff. I DO! LOL

michfla317 - It is hard to describe where I live. I live in a senior community that was started over 30 years ago. It consists of mobile homes that were new when this place started and has been kept in tip top shape. The problem is that although I own the mobile I don't own the land, so I can't sublease my place without the owner of the property approving them. They have to be over 50 , no kids at home, good history etc. They are pretty picky. Now as people move out since these homes are all single wides and old (even though they are in good shape) they really want you to move the mobile to make room for newer ones,so they have said we have to be able to sell for at least $42,000 which is an unreasonable price or we have to move it, which costs several thousand dollars and where do we move it? Unfortunately there isn't room to put it on mom's lot or I would consider that.
Anyway...that gives you an idea of some of the mess I am stuck in. I am stuck with a mobile home I really can't sell or rent and if I leave it where it is and move to my mom's place I still have to pay my lot rent and upkeep on it.
About this time I could pull out my thinning hair!

In addition to the above, I would look into what benefits your dad's widow would qualify for from the VA concerning financial support for her going a nursing home.

Here's the link for info on VA benefits, eligibility, etc. - http://www.veteranaid.org See if your County Government has a Veteran's Rep. (most do). They will help you fill out all the necessary paperwork (for free). You can also go to your local VA office for additional information or see if your County has a Council on Aging.

that would be my thought that it should be in both names with OR...We just listed my Mother's house with another realtor last night it is in both names. My Father passed away almost a year ago. Mom is going to go to independant senior housing in our community. I keep teasing her it will be like living in a dorm. It was her choice to go and I am glad. She needs to be where there are people and they get one meal served to them daily in the dining room... The big concern is what do we do with all her "stuff"... take care and God bless!

You certainly need to consult an Elder Law Attorney. The 5 year look back for Medicaid is a tough one to get around. Good Luck

Regarding this....."Here in Florida, the government cannot go after a person's home to collect money, (the home is protected)however once the home is sold, they can go after the estate. " Does that apply to a $400,000 home....that is protected also? What if it is in a trust....and is sold after parent dies? Will the
government come after it then...or is it protected by the trust?

Tigerlily..... it seems like the type of renter your mobile home association insists you rent to would be the perfect renter for you!

Evelyn... I had dinner with a realtor friend tonight and we talked about your "or" scenario and my friend said "she must not be married because her husband would have dower rights on any property in her name and that could complicate things." And now I see you did mention potential problems with it. Nothing is easy anymore......lol

The glass of wine I had with my dinner tonight is not helping me think very clearly... so with that, I am off to Dreamland....lol. Have a wonderful night everyone! And may we wake up with more and better solutions to our problems tomorrow!! :o)

My Dad passed away and we moved my mom to assited living. We had the same concerns. My brother and I are her legal guardians. Once that happenedshe could no longer give us anything so I bought her trailor and vehicles and my brother is buying her home and land at fair market value. Our other brother is a drug addict and we have concerns with him having anything to do with her estate. This way the home we grew up in stays in the family and we have plenty of money to cover her needs, We won't need to worry about medicaid until her money is gone.

You can get a recovable Trust for your Mom. This will not help the 5 year look back, only a revocable Trust and waiting 5 years can do that. But,If your mom is that forgetful, she is going to need care before 5 years is up. What a Revocable Trust does it, it take her name off the house, such as "the Mom Trust" (example, but you use her last name) Now, if your Mom should die or be incompetent. you will not have to go thru the courts to get the name on her house changed into your name so you can sell it. This is called probate, Probate costs you about 10-15% of the cost of the house going thru the court system. You want to avoid this! So get her house into a trust and you be the Trustee (because you are the POA) and you can avoid all of that mess at least. Now, your dad was in the Military you said, your Mom can apply for the Aide and Attendent Program and if she needs medical help in at least 3 areas (bathing, eating, dressing ,etc), and owns less then about 80k she can get a monthly income for you to take care of her, or, for caregivers. IT runs about $960-$1056 a month. Sorry you are just starting out, been there, we used all the money from my moms house for her care and now she is getting the A&A.
Medicaid is a different ballgame, sometimes the A&A is better because they dont put a lein on your house. Good luck.

MERP -Medicaid Estate Recover/Recoup/Reinbursement Program, this is going to be the next big nightmare to deal with, isn't it......

Since this is all so new for the states, there isn't any hard data that I have been able to find. Ancedotally it seems that the recovery seems to be triggered if the property has at least 100K in potential recovery, under that $$ amount my gut feeling is that is just isn't profitable to warrant doing. But who knows...

yes, MERP is done thru probate in most states. I've been the executrix twice in TX (a easy probate state) but it was before MERP. I'd say the cost for probate were maybe 4% - 5% of the value of the estate, it really depends on if things are challenged and how organized the paperwork was before death.

Probate can go on a very, very long time if need be. So tiger, if you move to mom's house you can go that route to stay living there even longer. But you do not want to pay rent as that would give her more income.

timm - if the assets were all put in a living trust and the names changed on the assets then it doesn't go thru probate.ALL THE ASSETS must have gone thru the changes for the living trust to work and the trust HAS to be maintained. The cost to maintain the trust will likely exceed the 4% of the probate costs if they live for several years. If any of the assets didn't go thru the trust properly then you end up having to do probate anyways.

Personally I think a living trust is great IF what you are looking at is an estate of over 1M & live in an inheiritance tax state. But you probably aren't on this site!
I've known of several elderly who did a "trust" which are all about getting people to cash in their investments, life insurance, etc and turn them into an annuities.Often these annuities are not good as you have elderly locked into a 10, 20 yr investment as part of the trust.

Tiger - one real issue if mom goes on Medicaid is that she will NOT have any money to pay on the 10K note that is still outstanding on the property. I would imagine she is currently using her SS to pay it and the tiny apt?. So you will have to pay the note or the property could be foreclosed upon. Same is true for property taxes, utilities, maintenance, etc. Mom won't have any $$ to do this, so you will have to pay it if you want to keep the property. The one good thing is you can ask for her estate to reinburse you for all those expenses in probate. Also you need to keep track of this to present to MERP within a set amount of time after her death - this is very important as MERP needs to figure out what might be recouped from an estate and if that property is even worth doing.

Remember to qualifiy for Medicaid she does not have to sell her homestead. But then all of her assets must go to the NH except for whatever her states monthly "personal" needs allowance is ($ 35 - 70 per month). Again if you move to her place, you do not want to pay rent as that could endanger her assets ceiling and make her ineligible for Medicaid.

ALot of this is really depends on what you truly think the near future is for her and for you & you hubby's health and finances. If you think she will need NH care within the next year or two?. What can she and you afford to do? Is inheiriting her property something you were counting on for your retirement?

What is her property worth - not just the mobile home but the whole property?
this would be on your county tax assesor's site. Now is it fair? Could it be sold for that? If not, then as POA you can go down and ask for a review of the appraisal to a lower amount. You will need documentation (photos of bad foundation,etc) and a realtor's statement to do this. Most assessors are glad to reduce the amount for
seniors as their taxes are usually frozen anyways so it makes no real difference
till the property is sold or transfered.

Say it's worth 80K. Could you possibly buy it from her for that? SHe would then have 70K which she would need to spend down to 2K but she could do a personal services contract with you in which she pays you for caring for her. This really needs to be done by an elder care attorney so it can pass the Medicaid review later on. And she could pay a bit of rent and the rest of her money can be spent on things she needs like dental work, new hearing aid, a prepaid funeral and burial policy (nontransferable with no cash value), a caregiver to come in for respite.
It could take a couple of years to spend down but then she would qualify for Medicaid and you would legally own the property.

None of this is easy but it's good that you are looking at it before there is an emergency. Good luck.

You mother owns the 1/3 acre of land on which the mobile home sits. You do not own it, even if you pay the rent on the mobile home.
I suggest that you look into how the land is titled: Joint Tenancy with/without right of survivorship, Tenancy in Common (You and your mother each owning half of the land's value), and Tenancy at Will. ( a Lawyer will explain this to you.) The mobile home is simply an improvement upon the property and has no value from a real estate point of view. Keep in mind that her medical condition has nothing to do with home ownership. Don't count your chicks before they're hatched. Fix up the place if you wish, but don't expect any remuneration from a sale of the property.

Wow this gets more confusing to me with every post!
I put mom into the tiny apartment because she had less room to rattle around in, less space to heat and cool and closer proximity to neigbhors her on age.
Even though I would inherit her little property upon her passing I was hoping to sell it so that she could live in a nicer place without money worries for the next few years. However recently I am starting to see that with her memory issues she may not be able to function alone for more than a year or so more.
I realize that if we sell the house and she then had to go into a nursing home that money would have to be used to pay her nursing care bills untill she is out of money and then I guess medicare takes over.
Her mobile and land is valued at only about 81,000 and it is homesteaded. If it sells I doubt that it would sell for more than that.
My husband and I have been hit pretty hard by the economy but we are content where we are and don't rely on mothers property for retirement. My problem is that I don't have money to help her since we are month to month ourselves and I really can't afford to buy mom's place for the tax value.
What really worries me the most is that I work 40 hours a week and my job is what gives my husband and I our medical insurance, so I can't afford to quit. If/when mom gets to the point that she is unable to function at home alone during the day I don't know what I can do because I can't quit my job to take care of her.
I can tell that many of you are very savvy with these issues, I just wish I had a better grasp and understanding of it.
By the way, we live in Texas so if that helps, keep the info coming. I am one of these people that doesn't grasp written word so well (especially technical) so please be specific and patient.
Thanks in advance

what county?

I feel your pain, honestly because we are in a similar dilemma. I've had a lot of challenges in my life but dealing w/aging parents is the most difficult.
Much depends on the state you live in as to what the laws are. I wouldn't move into your mom's place. With dementia, she'll probably have to go into a nursing home to get the care she needs and like you said then you're w/out a home. My suggestion is to start checking nursing homes. In Tenn, a veteran's wife qualifys for 1/2 the costs of a nursing home. And if her property isn't important to you, which it doesn't sound like it is, then the nursing home will take that IF the cost exceeds what her veterans benefits and SS cover for the nursing home.
Hope this helps.
I do want to encourage you and your husband to take care of yourselves first. I didn't and had a stroke where I had to learn to type, write and walk again. I wasn't much good to anyone at that point. I have recovered and fortunately my mom is well enough at the moment to live on her own (after living w/us for a year, during my step dad's illness and death, a broken pelvis and broken ribs,) she just started living alone at the end of June. So we'll see what happens next. We got her a lifefone to wear around her neck as a precaution. But she's not coming back to our house. That sounds cold but both my husband and I's health suffered and relationship as well. We are taking steps to sell our house and moving into a small apt. and when mom can't live alone (she's 45 minutes from us) then we can get her an apt. next door or in the same complex and pay a nurse to come in for the things we're unable to do. I have a daughter that will help out some too. Your sister needs to help but you can't make her and that probably would just cause more stress to argue w/her about it. Do what is less stress on you but be proactive. Find out about the veteran's benefits, etc. That will help you know what course to take. Best wishes to you.

tigerlilly - you stated in your last post that "money would have to be used to pay her nursing care bills until she is out of money and then I guess MEDICARE takes over". You might have just put the wrong word in but she should be getting "Medicare" now - it's when she runs out of money that "medicaid" takes over - two totally seperate sources. There are certain criteria that you must meet in order to qualify for MEDICAID. Medicare should be helping with some of her bills right now. Make sure she is all set up with MEDICARE right now. Also please check the Veterans Administration site I posted earlier. They will definitely help you and will give you some very valuable information - they will sit down with you all free of charge and help you. Good luck

I don't think medicare pays anything on nurseing homes she would have to be on medicad and she can only get that after all her money is gone. ????? And elder lawyer is the best way to go. I know it is costly . I cannot afford either.

ksue5036 - you're right medicare does not pay for nursing homes. But it does pay a good portion of any medical bills she has/will have and medications. It also pays up to 30 days in a rehab facility. I just wanted to make sure she had her mother on medicare (I reread her post now and see she does). Didn't want her to miss out on any benefits. We have an elder law attorney about l/2 hour away that has monthly FREE seminars at a local library. My husband and I went to one and I really thought we would be forced into signing up for services. The attorney gave a 2 hour talk on how to protect money, how to qualify for different programs, etc. and then had a question and answer period. It was fantastic. Learned a lot. Also learned how expensive it is to put something into a "trust". Anyway, contact your County Government and see if they have a "Council on Aging" or something like that for seniors. They can guide you if any attorneys have that in your area. Or talk to local rehab centers, nursing homes and assisted living facilities - they may know of an attorney that gives free lectures. They deal with them alot.

You guys are right, I always get medicare and medicaid mixed up. She is already involved with Medicare and was before I got into the picture. I know that is pays towards her medical and medications. The one great thing mom does have going for her is TriCare for life. Between Medicare and Tricare she doesn't have medical bills stacking up. I am pretty ignorant about what medicare is suppose to do for her and what TriCare will cover so I have a lot to learn.
I am now questioning whether I should be trying to sell her home or not? If they won't take that from her anyway.