"Stuart O. Bronstein" <spamtrap[at]lexregia.com> wrote:
- quote -

Not a living trust such as the OP's grandmother had, but
there are so-called Medicaid trusts for this purpose; they
are also used in California with Medi-Cal. Estate planners
and elder law specialists are conversant with them. The two
huge drawbacks of this kind of trust are (1) it must be
irrevocable -- if there is any way of getting the property
back out of the trust, it fails; (2) it triggers a 5-year
lookback period, as opposed to 3 years for ordinary gifts.

You're quite right, grandmother's house passes subject to
Medi-Cal's lien, whether or not they can still pull it into
the trust. Avoiding this outcome would require planning that
would have had to be done years ago.

--
Not a lawyer,

Chris Green

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bobby wrote:

- quote -

That depends on whether or not you WANT the property.

Remember that grandparent-grandchild transfers (if the
intervening generation is deceased) will qualify under "Prop
58" transfers such that the property tax basis carries over.
If she owned the house for a long time and you plan on
staying there, it may be more cost effective to pay off the
lien and keep it for the low property tax value than to let
the state execute their will.

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cj.green[at]worldnet.att.net (Christopher Green) wrote:
- quote -

I suspect that having placed the property in trust earlier
would not change the State's ability to be repaid. You may
well be able to get a court order that the property be
placed into the trust without probate (I was able to do that
recently for one client in a similar situation). But that
wouldn't affect the debt to Medi-Cal.

Stu

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muzzzzic[at]yahoo.com (bobby) wrote:

- quote -

You're more likely than not SOL. The state is within its
rights in demanding its pound of flesh.

In the infinite wisdom of the legislators who set up
Medicaid/MediCal, which is the vehicle by which "the state
was taking care of her medical bills", this support is only
for those who are destitute or darn near to it and have not
the means to provide for their own care. The state is not so
heartless as to demand that an elderly person sell his or
her home to pay for medical care, but it is entitled to
recover its costs once the person dies. One way it does this
is to file liens on the person's real property.

Two common tactics to avoid this outcome are (1) to sell or
give the house to one's heirs, with a retained life estate;
(2) to place the house in a special irrevocable trust (not a
living trust, which isn't irrevocable). Both trigger
lookback periods during which the value given away is
converted to months of ineligibility for benefits, so they
have to be put into place months or years in advance.

--
Chris Green

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muzzzzic[at]yahoo.com (bobby) writes:

- quote -

And my goal, were I still a CA prisoner/taxpayer, would be
for the state to recover every penny it could. You need an
elder law lawyer.

Phil Marti
Topeka, KS

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"bobby" <muzzzzic[at]yahoo.com> wrote

- quote -

Why do you figure that the state (which really means the
taxpayers) should cover her medical bills rather than them
being paid for out of her assets? And even if the house had
been "signed over" prior to her having been admitted, there
is a "look back" period taking into account such gifts
anyway.

Vida Freeman

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I inherited my grandmother's estate (the only thing left in
her estate is her house) as she passed away a few weeks ago.
She has a living trust. The deed for her house is still in
her name. She was in a home where she received medical
attention for the last year of her life. Because the state
was taking care of her medical bills and allowing her to
live in a home for the elderly, they put a lean on her house
as we were unable to get her to sign over the deed prior to
her being admitted to the hospital. The state is now going
to try and get what they are owed by using the funds from
her house.

My question here is: Am I going to be completely at the
mercy of the state, and be required to pay them what is owed
for her medical bills because we failed to sign the deed for
her house over prior to her being admitted? Although it may
seem the "obvious", I'll just say just for the sake of being
abundantly clear that my objective is to remove the lean
paying little to nothing to the state.

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