I have lived with my mother for 6 months as her full-time caretaker. We have liquidated stocks to pay for an aide for 16 hours as well as medical supplies not covered by Medicare, mortgage etc... When she gets to $2,000 she will qualify for Medicaid and go to a nursing home. Is there any way I can stay in the home, at least temporarily?
Otherwise, if the house sat vacant or you live there for awhile, someone would need to pay the mortgage, the property taxes, utilities, maintenance, and repairs as Mom can no longer make those payments. Medicaid will place a lien on the house, and when the house is sold, Medicaid will need to be paid first before any equity that is left goes to the heirs.
Your mother can sign intent to return paperwork on the house which means she can keep until death as exempt asset and someone can live there. However, you can’t pay mortgage, utilities etc on the house from mom’s income while mom is on Medicaid. Her income covers her share of cost at nursing home and Medicaid picks up the rest. If you can cover all house expenses on your own and fight during probate you might keep house. You might not.
But family has to pay all property costs from day 1 of medicaid till beyond death & then after death deal with Estate Recovery (MERP) and however your state deals with probate & property laws. And have the purse or wallet to afford all on a property that they do not own and may not own... So it runs risk.
To me if the elder still has an outstanding traditional mortgage (horrors!) that’s a deal breaker for keeping the home unless the mortgage is about to clear or if you live in the home & the costs to stay are cheaper than going out & renting. The rub on living in home may be IF you state requires a non-caregiver exemption tenant to pay to the elder property owner FMV rent.
If property is empty, some states allow for required property costs (taxes, insurance, some maintenance) to be deducted or excluded from the Medicaid tally, but you have to keep serious documentation on all costs to submit to MERP.
You may pause to think IF before she goes onto Medicaid IF you could possibly caregive another 1& 1/2 years as her full time caregiver in her home to possibly qualify for the caregiver exemption. If you go this route please have your mom meet with an NAELA or CELA level elder law attorney to come up with a caregiver agreement to pay you for caregiving. You save as much of that as you can as you may or may not be successful in getting the exemption.
This is an old exemption and in my experience many elder law attorneys don't even know it exists. I've had to explain it to them so that they would go look it up. The TOD deed has superseeded it in many states.
Another thing, some mortgages become due and payable once the owner/mortgagee has passed. Read the fine print on the mortgage. Hope this isn't the case.
Thus, you could need to re-finance the mortgage in order to stay in the property. If that isn't possible, then all the money spent on trying to stay in the house paying on Mom's mortgage, the property taxes, homeowner's insurance, etc. would be for naught.
Cannella, you mentioned staying in the house temporarily. Will another family member move in, or will the house sit vacant?