My mom is being discharged to "AL" soon. She has a limited income from social security. Can she still qualify for Medi-cal if she is on a title of a house? She owns 33.3 percent of a home but hasn't paid any mortage on it. Can Medi-cal go after the entire estate?
BUT
there’s a couple of other issues that will be affected upon on her moving into a NH & onto Medicaid:
- when she goes onto LTC Medicaid, Medicaid will require her to do a copay to the NH of basically all her monthly income (like her SS$) to be paid to the NH. All she will be allowed to keep is whatever your state has as her PNA aka Personal Needs Allowance. PNA varies but most states have it at about $50-60 a mo, realistically PNA $ gets used to pay for her beauty shoppe visits or to replace some clothing or toiletries. She will not have any $ to pay property costs.
- so there’s a mortgage, right? If y’all are paying mortgage & property costs, then financially that required Medicaid copay isn’t changing your wallet much on a day 2 day basis......
BUT
..... as she’s partial owner, her % ownership as how the title exactly reads will be subject to a required attempt by your state for MERP (Medicaid Estate Recovery) once she dies. House goes from her exempt asset to a nonexempt asset of her estate. Whether she paid 1/3 of all costs or paid zero, doesn’t matter, it’s what her legal % ownership is that matters and will become an asset of her estate based on either its appraised value or tax assessor value. Just how MERP runs is very very interdependent on state laws and each state has exemptions and exclusions to MERP as well as a cost benefit analysis...... and it’s up to family or heirs to on their own & with an atty to do whatever may be needed to deal w MERP. IMO it’s not aDIY. The only way around this is if mom transferred all ownership like manana and then lived for another 5 years and 1 month before she ever applied for Medicaid. But that’s not ever realistic. So you will be dealing with MERP in some way.
- you need to carefully read the mortgage agreement. What you are looking for is the terms of the contract should one of the owners die. Some have it that is becomes due in full within a short limited amount of time (as mortgage co. does not want it tied up in probate) or mortgage can call a foreclosure process; while others will have it that you can remove the deceased but a new mortgage contract will need to be done and sometimes with these you may have to requalify for the new mortgage.
- and for a lil more fun in all this, if your state is one that disallows a homestead exemption once an owner enters a facility, then whatever exemptions and tax / service reductions you are getting due to her as elderly w homestead will go away. If you do not have the property as your homestead, the tax increase could be huge.
- also if you don’t live at the home, once mom moves out, whatever insurance she had will probably not be able to be renewed. Like her homeowners will need to go to another type of insurance policy.
Personally I think it would be good to meet with atty who understands Medicaid and MERP and probate to see if there is any way to do some sort of Memo of Understanding or Promissory Note w mom (if she’s still competent and cognitive) on all her % of property costs that you are paying on her behalf. Good luck.