My mother and father own a home outright. 8 months ago, my…

Hello there

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No, you are in fine shape here. You see, you would have problems if your Mom were the only parent and had to go on medicaid and into a nursing home. Medicaid can review the finances of the surviving parent and force a sale of the house if there was no child caretaker living in the home with the parent for 5 years prior to the nursing home entry. In your case, because your mother is alive and it is your father moving to a facility, medicaid will not look at the house to attach it or take it away from your mother. Under these circumstances, so long as you are living with your mother as her caretaker before she dies, medicaid will not look to the house to satisfy any of his debts or any of your mom's debts if she goes on medicaid in order to enter a nursing facility. The law states that medicaid can go back 5 years before the nursing home entry of the last surviving spouse and take property for reimbursement purposes but if there is a child caretaker living with the last surving spouse for the final years of her life, then medicaid will not take the home and you are entitled to inherit the home (and if you have already converted the home to another home as you plan to do, medicaid still will not touch anything). You may want to talk to the financial officer / patient advocate at the facility that your father is going to if you want additional confirmation to make you comfortable -- the people who work in the hospitals and nursing homes are very good at knowing what medicaid will and will not pursue.

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MARY

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