Question: My wife and I have just become agents under a power of attorney for her parents. They are both in their late sixties, and her mother has just been diagnosed with terminal cancer. We moved them into a retirement home so her mother can get the extra help she needs. After gaining access to…
Question: Gifting assets to your grandchildren can do more than help your descendants get a good start in life; it can also reduce the size of your estate and the tax that will be due upon your death. Answer: Gifting assets to your grandchildren can do more than help your descendants get a good start…
Question: Is there a waiting period or penalty if I sell my mother’s house and car ($90,000), so she can qualify for Medicaid to use for assisted living or a nursing home? Answer: No, there is no transfer penalty or waiting period if an applicant for Medicaid benefits sells property at fair market value and…
Question: What happens if a Medicaid recipient in a nursing home marries a healthy bride? Is the new spouse entitled to any of the nursing home resident’s Social Security or pension during his life or can she receive it as a surviving spouse? Answer: The fact that the groom lives in a nursing home at…
Question: My 80-year-old mother has memory problems and has been living with my wife and me for about six months now. She keeps begging to go home, but I know she can’t be left alone because she does not remember things like if she took her medications. She has ruined all her finances and cannot…
Question: My mother pays a lot of money every month for my dad to stay at a home care facility with staff. My mother cannot take care of him, which is why she found this place. Now, the facility has said they want him to leave. What rights do we have? What can be done?…
Question: I would like to know whether I would qualify for the caretaker exemption under Medicaid rules if my parents transferred their home to me. I have been caring for my elderly parents in their home in New York State for more than two years. However, for a period of approximately six months I transferred…
Question: My mother went into a nursing home six years ago after she broke her hip. She receives Medicaid benefits. We intended for her to get therapy and return home, but while she was in the nursing home, she was severely injured in a fall and now cannot leave the nursing home. She sued the…
Question: I’m a social worker trying to help a man who needs a skilled nursing facility, but who has no money and has been estranged from his wife for 35 years. He needs to apply for Medicaid to pay for the nursing facility, but because he is not “officially” divorced from his spouse, I’m not…
Question: If the creator of a revocable trust wants to make a beneficiary a co-trustee and make the current successor trustee a beneficiary, does she have an obligation to inform the current trustee of the change? Simply, can the trust’s creator make whatever changes she wishes without telling anyone? Answer: The creator of a revocable…
