My mother's only asset is her home valued at $30,000. and her $997. monthly Social Security payment. No savings left, lives from SS check to SS check. My brother is planning to buy her house, and from what I hear it would be more advantageous if he is the caretaker and actually makes the purchase after she passes. At that point we could recoup maintenence costs for the home before the Pennsylvania Estate Recovery kicks in. Is this accurate? Any advice?
If your brother purchases the house, then your mother would have to spend down or otherwise reduce her assets down to $2,000. It is possible that she can hire your brother for extra personal services, under a personal services contract, as a way to reduce or eliminate the extra cash. In some states she could pay his a lump sum in exchange for a promise of lifetime care; I am not familiar with whether PA allows this or not, so you'd need to check with the state or an elder law attorney on that point.
There are other possible ways to protect her assets, which I discuss in my book, Medicaid Secrets. Best of luck to your family!
K. Gabriel Heiser is an Attorney, and author, with a book on Medicaid asset protection planning.
There are articles he has written on this subject, and hopefully he will respond to your question.
God bless.
You need to have something done by appraiser or blue book
for a clear reference.
My SIL and her siblings went the" let the state take the property route" in New Mexico for her mom - tax roll appraisal was around 150/175K but if it had to go to sale maybe could get 50K because of repairs needed. And since she was over 65 and disabled with her property taxes frozen, they never bothered to challenge the tax assesors increase in value over the years. Because of sibling in-fighting nothing has been done to the house, just sitting there deteriorating for a decade. Although they did pay the property taxes which was minimal for property in the area.
She passed away in the summer. It seems the state doesn't really want the property but has a lien on it from Medicaid payments to SNF of over 400K. Now one of the grandkids wants to buy the house but state wants the county tax assesors valuation. It's a mess that could have been avoided with paperwork in place.
You know 30K is really low for land with a house. What is it based on?
I too want to see Mr. Heiser's input on this.
Good Luck!