My mother is in a nursing home and is on Medicaid. I have a quit claim on her house and land and this will transfer to me when she dies (this is in Florida). For the past several years, I lived at her house and helped her. I was there mostly to be around at night in case she fell (which sometimes happened) or there was another emergency, and to make sure she took her medicine (morning and night). Until she moved to the NH she did not need full nursing care. So, right now I am still living in her house, paying the utilities. The house is an inconvenient distance for me from work. I also find it kind of depressing to be in that house. I was thinking of renting an apartment closer to work, while I would still pay for the upkeep on mom's house (and keep it vacant). The house has her furniture and stuff, except for a couple of rooms I used, so her stuff would stay there. My question is, are there any Medicaid issues for her or any property issues for me if I were to move out of her house and change my address? Remember, I am not going to rent out or sell her house or anything while she is alive - right now it's her house - I just want to take care of utilities and any upkeep for her house but move to someplace more convenient for me.
Doing a Quit Claim - to me - seems super odd as Florida allows for “Lady Bird” Deeds, which excludes Medicaids Recovery. Quit Claim deeds don’t do that, which means Medicaid can attempt to place a claim or lien on the property so you as heir will need to deal with MERP / Estate Recovery in some way.
Are you sure you it’s a Quit Claim Deed? Could mom have instead done a Lady Bird Deed, it’s also called an Enhanced Benefit Deed.
I’d suggest you meet with the atty who drew this up to clearly go over what exact type of Deed it is and what you might need to be doing & documenting from this point on to deal with hopefully transferring the property in mom’s name to you in your name after mom’s death.
To me thats what you need to know ASAP and if the old legal has issues then what do mom (& therefore you) need to do to have successful new legal or exemptions to MERP to use after mom dies and the property goes from an exempt asset of her to a non exempt asset of her estate. And also ask atty if your continuous residency will factor into the exemptions. I’d suggest you get a new NAELA or CELA level of elder law atty to “fresh eyes” review all mom’s legal.
Legal paperwork can go stale. Like for TX, state did a total overhaul of estate laws early this millennium. A lot of older TX Lady Bird Deeds had issues with being valid to be entered at CH. Not pretty.
There’s to me no reason why you can’t rent an apt to use during your workweek but still maintain your principle address at the old house. Folks have multiples homes, multiple addresses. This is no different. You just have to decide what is your homestead as that is key for taxation, voting, insurance, auto registration, legal residency, etc.
If your wanting to buy & needing a mortgage, getting lending on a primary is what the banks, FHA are set up to do. Getting a mortgage on a property that’s not gonna to be your legal primary residence will be very sticky and imo you’ll need to have a good bit of $$$ and a banker that appreciates you enough to do a 20-35% down conventional mortgage. Freddie/Frankie Mac will lend on 2nd homes but you need serious cash reserves to qualify. Mom’s house cannot be used as collateral. It’s good you are thinking of renting as buying might not be affordable.
If you would can you do an update after you find out definitely from atty as to what the 2007 Deed means for MERP 2018? Thanks!
If you are going to leave the house "vacant", you would need to make an appointment with your Mom's house insurance carrier, as Mom will need a rider stating the house is now vacant. If something should happen to the house, and the carrier didn't know the house was vacant, the carrier would refuse to pay any claims.
Let us know what the Elder Law Attorney recommends.
I have nearly an hour commute to and then from work each day. Besides that being a real drain I need to redirect my life a bit and get away from the environment I was in when I was the primary caretaker for several years. My intention is to pay for upkeep and still have utilities and maybe use the house on some weekends or whatever but not have my life tied to that house. But I want to make sure I don't inadvertently do something that causes problems.