2 Siblings Live Together And One Enters A Nursing Home
This edition of the Koldin Report E-Newsletter is part of a series on questions we received from our “contact us” form on our website about Elder Law, Estate Planning and Medicaid.
All prior newsletters are saved on our website. You can read them by clicking here.
In this newsletter we answer the following question posed by a visitor to our website:
My grandmother and her sister (my aunt) own a house together and have been living together for over 10 years. My grandmother is entering a nursing home. They now want to sell the house. My grandmother wants to give me her half of the money and my aunt wants to keep her half. What can we do?
Under the Medicaid law, the family home can be transferred to a sibling if he/she has an equity interest in the home, and has been residing in the home and using it as his/her primary residence for a period of at least one year immediately before the date you became institutionalized.
Since your aunt has been living with your grandmother for more than one year and has an equity interest by being a co-owner, your grandmother can transfer her interest in the home to your aunt without any Medicaid transfer penalty being imposed.
Your aunt can then sell the home and give you one-half of the sale proceeds. Legally your aunt is not required to give you any of the sale funds. She, as the sole owner, could keep all of the funds.
Assuming you are a close family and your aunt would comply with your grandmother’s wishes, all works out fine.
Had your grandmother and aunt each set up their own Irrevocable Trust more than 5 years before your grandmother entered a nursing home, they each could have designated their own beneficiaries without needing to rely on each other’s good faith to carry out their wishes.
For more information about the Medicaid laws, please see our website by clicking here.
At the Koldin Law Center, P.C., located in East Syracuse, New York, we have over 50 years of experience helping individuals plan for immediate crisis and long term care. When the Koldin Law Center, P.C. handles a Medicaid case, we not only handle the entire application process, but we also review asset protection options with our clients. We review with our clients who are already in a Nursing Home options to protect some or all of their assets beyond merely establishing Medicaid eligibility. We do not charge a fee for the initial consultation. We welcome your children, family attorney, accountant, and/or financial planner to be present at the initial consultation.
There is something you can do.
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We have been told by many clients who are in a crisis that they wish they had known about our firm much sooner. We are proud of the many families we have helped in times of crisis.
We are also proud of the many families we helped avoid financial crisis by doing estate planning in advance.
We all share the responsibility for making our family and friends aware of the planning options available to them.
Your referral to the could make a major difference in the lives of your family and friends if they are someday faced with a long term illness.
Remember that the offers many services for clients of all ages. Our services range from basic estate planning such as a simple will to complex estate planning including asset preservation planning.
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