POA? Quit Deed? Meeting Monday

PaulaSS

Hi! My mom has been diagnosed with ALZ and Parkinsons.

She also recently had a fall and requires more help. She said she's trying to stay in her home maybe a few more months.

Until the fall, she did not want to sign a POA. Now she is saying she wants to sign one with my brother and I both equal on it. We have a meeting with the lawyer Monday.

My brother has told her she also needs to quit-deed the house to him now to "keep it away from the government and Medicaid." She said okay she will tell the lawyer to do that also on Monday.

She only has social security income, the house is paid off, she has Devoted Medicare insurance.

Is what my brother is saying correct? What is the best way to get her the best care possible.

P.S. my brother is her primary health care surrogate already and I am secondary. I have more time and have been going to doctor appointments, helping with meds, etc. Am I fine just being secondary? Or can we both be primary on that?

M1

There are others more knowledgeable than i, but you need to be very careful about handling her assets or it could disqualify her from Medicaid eligibility. Hopefully this is a certified elder law attorney who knows the rules on these things? Worth asking....

PaulaSS

That's what I was worried about. From what I've read, doing an irrevocable trust leaving my brother the house sounds safer.

harshedbuzz

Talk to the CELA about what you are proposing to do.

Generally speaking, assuming she is unmarried, her home is considered an asset to be liquidated to provide for her care until that is exhausted and Medicaid kicks in as a safety net. A CELA can inform you as to work arounds to maybe put the home in a trust or use a loophole to keep it if one of you have been living there and providing care to prevent her going on Medicaid for 2 years. It is vital not to freeball this as doing something like your brother suggests as it could disqualify her from Medicaid for a period of time. Also, there are many who feel that your mom's assets should fund her long-term care rather than taxpayers.

FTR, my cousin did as your brother is suggesting-- grandmom raised my cousin and when MG was widowed, grandmom sold her home and bought one with cousin and cousin's husband using the proceeds as the down payment. This allowed the couple to buy more house in a nicer neighborhood sooner than they would have otherwise. The house titled as joint tenants with cousin/husband to have GM's share on her death. During the 12 years before GM went into a SNF because of supranuclear palsy, GM didn't pay anything towards the mortgage or maintenance of the home and very little towards the running of the household. They did a quit claim on their own, got turned down for Medicaid and then spent a lot of money on a CELA repairing the damage they'd done acting without legal guidance.

As to POAs. I am not a fan of "shared" responsibility. It's very rare for siblings to come through a shared POA experience with warm feelings about one another. I know of one set of brothers-- both successful physicians who were joint guardians for dad-- who came through still friends. Often one might seek to preserve assets to create an inheritance (your brother I suspect) while the other (who might be doing more of the hands-on stuff) needs funds for respite services.

HB

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