However, we were planning on doing a rent to own agreement and build our credit. The home is not in my grandmother's name anymore, it's in her children's names (less then 2 months). When my grandma goes into this facility, can they make her sell the house immediately?
Medicaid does not make you sell the house. But upon Gmoms passing Medicaid will put a lean on it. I think at this time the sale on the house needs to be put on hold until GMoms children can find out what they need to do.
- if gran is totally private pay & gran has a huge nest egg & will easily be able to pay till she dies - so Medicaid is never ever applied for - then grans transfer of her home to her kids names 2 months ago and now to you under a rent to own agreement poses no issues imo.
BUT Grans long term care hospice room & board costs will have to totally be private paid. LTC Hospice medical costs are covered benefit by Medicare with the standard Medicare copays. HOWEVER the room & board costs in a facility are NOT covered by MediCARE. So just how is grans R&B being paid? At 5k -15k a mo for NH even with hospice benefit, does gran have 50k -100k - 200k to private pay? Hospice could mean another 6 weeks or 6 months or more. My mom was on hospice in a NH for 18 long, l...o...n...g months. You just don’t know.
If gran does not have the $$$$, then is your family going to private pay for her care & ok on signing off an agreement with the facility taking financial responsibility to do this? Perhaps from the $$ you are paying each mo on the rent to own agreement? So your paying several thousands in rent each month and enough to totally cover her R&B? or Will your folks, aunts/uncles private pay the difference for their mom?
I’m going to guess that there isn’t a huge nest egg & that someone in the family is under the impression that Medicare is going to totally cover gran in hospice AND that transferring her house to their names was done to lessen the need for probate AND transferring house poses no problems for her care cause hospice is all covered by Medicare. If this is it, really they are mistaken.
If Medicaid (Medicaid not Medicare) is going to be applied for to pay grans R&B, then the transfer of the home will make gran ineligible for Medicaid as Medicaid will put a transfer penalty by # of days on gran that is based on the FMV of the house.
Before you get yourself legally entwined in this and in paying on a property that may have issues in “owning”, ask your mom/dad just how grans stay in hospice facility is getting paid. Get clear answers as to grans finances. I’ve been on this site for quite a while and folks post pretty regularly confusion as to expecting Medicare (which is health insurance available to almost everybody over 65) to pay for their or their parents LTC costs. MediCARE does not pay for LTC. It’s Medicaid that pays for LTC and Medicaid has tight rules on assets. Transferring an asset within 5 years is not allowed and will place a penalty. Property ownership is recorded at the courthouse and is easily found out by Medicaid. Really before you start paying your $ on the place make sure that the plan is going to work and that means grans DPOA runs everything by an experienced elder law atty. Property transfers are rarely a DIY project. Good luck in dealing with your folks and aunts and uncles.
And the house is an asset even though Grandmother's children's names are now on the Deed, sounds like this was all done within the past two months, thus during the 5 year look back. There are exceptions, thus a good reason to check with an Elder Law Attorney.
It's never a good idea to change the name's on the Deed to the grown children and remove the parent's name. But I can understand why some parents do this for their grown children. It just becomes a tangled mess.
There could be Capital Gain Taxes to be paid as the math bases goes all the way back to when Grandmother had purchased the house. And the grown children, if they are not living in the house, said house could become an "investment property" in the eyes of IRS.
Oh why does all of this have to be so darn complicated when our parents get older... [sigh]. So sorry to hear that your Grandmother is failing. She will get good care with Hospice.