If someone who owns their home, is in a rest home or assisted living and the home sells who get the profit rest home, assisted living or owner?

Cella - first - warranty deed does not exclude the property.

You are dealing with MERP and in TX MERP is now being done by contractors with HQ in Dallas and field offices in the other major cities. On the TX DADS site there is a whole section on MERP that is pretty understandable. DADS is the diseabled and elder health & human services clearinghouse in TX. With MERP the timeframe in which to respond to them with the supporting documents is some kinda important. There should be a date within the letter sent to you when they need the info back. You have to be within the timeframe and send either via registered letter or by fax from a Kinko's store where you get a copy of the received fax transmission - just in case someone says they didn't get it. If you do not respond, then MERP assumes that whatever is in their letter is correct and fully accepted by you. The letter is done so that they can decide whether to go ahead with the MERP claim as they see it. You have to provide the details and documentation if there are exemptions or other legal done that make the figure invalid. Understand?

Second - the look back for MERP is a full 5 years from the date of the Medicaid application.So go back from that date to see where you stand in the 5 year look back. You are right on year one (2008) from 2013 so the date is going to be critical. The exact amount "due" to the state will depend on the assessor value of the home at the date of the warranty deed - which may or may not be in your favor right now (today June, 2013) - but that is I'm pretty sure what is used for the baseline to figure out. So like mom lived San Antonio and if Bexar County Assessor had the home at $ 140K in 2008 but today is $ 85K, it's the 2008 higher figure that is used as that is when the warranty deed was done. 2008 was still in the go-go years of real estate and all the values increased statewide. Not so now.

You did properly file the warranty deed at the courthouse and change the legal on the property so that from 2008 on everything is in the new owners (your) name??? If you didn't that may be a whole other sticky issue - you will definetly need an elder law attorney if you didn't change everything back in 2008, imho.

If you have your paperwork together...what you likely will have to owe to or pay to the state is for the few months in which there would be a penalty. Like if there are 5 months before the full 5 year look-back, then owe for those 5 months value of the property against the cost of her NH Medicaid pay for stay. So if mom racked up 8K a month in NH and was there 3 months, then it would be 24K (3 X $ 8,000.00) that would be "owed" to the state and the claim on the property would be 24K. The $ owned cannot exceed the value of the property. But if it was only 2 months within the 5 year look back the most you could owe would be 16K. Comprende?

You can request an accounting of the Medicaid tally too but this has to be done in writing to MERP unit. Mistakes could have been made.

You kinda have to deal with this and then get a release of the MERP claim. There is a specific form on this from MERP and you take that to the county assessor's office and file so that if later on you have to sell the property or go an get a loan on the property or really do anything legal with the property you will have a clear clean title on it that shows a MERP release. Otherwise the MERP claim (TX has it as a claim NOT a lien) will cloud the property forever till it is gone. I think they can do interest on the debt too....

Now what are you doing regarding probate?

I would love it if you could do another post on just how the letter from the TX MERP unit reads. So can you do that pretty please? thanks.

I was the sole caregiver for My Mother who passed on April 9, 2013. She had a Warranty Deed for her home prepared and issued to me (her daughter) in November 17, 2008. She applied for Medicaid this year and was in a Nursing Home for 2-3 months. Now Texas Medicaid Recovery Program is requesting information to recover her Medicaid-provided assistance. Will the Warranty Deed exclude her home from the Medicaid Recovery Program?

The proceeds from the sale goes to the property owner less whatever mortgage or other expenses (like Realtor commission).

Now if they are in AL and are getting Medicaid to pay for their stay at the AL, then Medicaid has a claim or a lein on the property. There would be a statement to that effect in the medicaid application. The sale of the property can't be done properly -
like via a warranty deed - if there is a Medicaid claim or lien. These are sticky to deal with as it doesn't show up always until a title search is done. So if Medicaid is involved, the proceeds from the sale have to deal with Medicaid.

If no Medicaid, the $ is theirs. BUT you have to be careful with what they do with it as there is a 5 year look-back on financials. The $ has to be spent on them and their needs. No gifting or transfering of $ from them to their kids or grandkids. For homes, the sale is in the local assessor database and then dovetails to the state system so Medicaid can easily find out the home sold for $ 134,978.00 on June 1, 2013. So you better be able to document where the $ 134K went or they will face a transfer penalty when they apply for Medicaid. How the transfer penalty works is based on what your state has as it's Medicaid daily room & board reinbursement rate. Like TX is $ 145.00 a day (yeah pitiful low) so $ 135K means 931 days they are ineligible for Medicaid to pay for their care. There is a whole formula to figure out the penalty and totally loco to try to figure out. Really you don't want to do anything to go there.

As Jeannegibbs said, you need to consult someone in Elder Law to do this right.

Basically the owner gets to proceeds of the sale, but what he can do with it depends on whether he is on Medicaid or is privately paying for the care center. If he is private-paying for his care now and decides to give the proceeds of the house sale to family members instead of saving it for his own care, and then runs out of funds to pay for his care within 5 years, he is going to have penalties when applying for Medicaid.

It may be worth while to consult an estate planner or a lawyer specializing in Elder Law to make sure the proceeds are handled most advantageously.

A lot more information is needed. Is the person on Medicaid? The money will go to the owner of the house initially and if needed, it will be used for his care. If he is on Medicaid, it will used to pay for his care until the money is spent. If he is not on Medicaid, the money will go to your father to be used to provide for his care. The remainder would go to the estate and be distributed according to his will.