In response about how to protect your house from Medicaid estate recovery, as an attorney who helps people obtain Medicaid benefits to pay for nursing home care, I often advise clients about how to protect your house from Medicaid estate recovery.
After a Medicaid recipient dies, the state must attempt to recoup from his or her estate whatever benefits it paid for the recipient’s care. This is called “estate recovery.” For most Medicaid recipients, their house is the only asset available. In this second of a 2 part post, I provide some of the tools that can be legally used in protecting your house from Medicaid estate recover.
Trusts
Another method of protecting the home from estate recovery is to transfer it to an irrevocable trust. Trusts provide more flexibility than life estates but are somewhat more complicated. Once the house is in the irrevocable trust, it cannot be taken out again. Although it can be sold, the proceeds must remain in the trust. This can protect more of the value of the house if it is sold. Further, if properly drafted, the later sale of the home while in this trust might allow the settlor, if he or she had met the residency requirements, to exclude up to $250,000 in taxable gain, an exclusion that would not be available if the owner had transferred the home outside of trust to a non-resident child or other third party before sale.
In this second of a 2 part post, I provide some some of the tools to show how to protect your house from Medicaid estate recovery. If you are contemplating using Medicaid benefits to help finance nursing home care in Texas, call me. My firm has been helping Texas families for many years navigate the issues surrounding getting Medicaid benefits to pay for a family member’s nursing home care. We do not charge for the initial consultation so please contact me today if there are any questions you have about what needs to be done to get Medicaid benefits to help pay for nursing home care. The phone numbers to call are 1-866-KNOW.LAW (866-566-9529) (TOLL FREE) or 972-772-6100 or you can email me at jack@jackrobinson.com. If I cannot help you, there is no fee.
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