In a good way, of course. She would probably agree to it in order to rectify a costly mistake. At this point, this is largely hypothetical , although it relates to my current situation. And I will note that I have an appointment with a lawyer next week.
My elderly mother is in a nursing home, consuming her life savings at an alarming rate. We are applying for Medicaid benefits. Which you can’t get unless you are destitute. She will be soon. Nursing care consumes middle class egg nests at an alarming rate. Half of all nursing home patients are on Medicaid. There is an exception for the house. But Medicaid is big into asset recovery and frequently takes houses although in some cases they defer it.
I believe that my mom will be able to gift the house to my brother under the caretaker child exception, he seems to be a textbook case. Which is why the below is largely hypothetical.
Back in 2013, ( longer than the Medicaid look-back period ) my mother transferred the deed to the house to me and my brother, with all three of us having survivorship rights. I found the document in a records search. To be honest, I knew I had signed something that would help us avoid probate when she died and I didn’t remember the nature of the document. I knew I had to sign papers when we took out home loans.
In 2015, that house burned down. Our insurance company deemed us to be underinsured. That meant we didn’t have to rebuild while accounting for every penny. Instead we got a check for the policy amount, free and clear. We did have to account for the contents ( furniture and personal possessions) which was handled as a separate claim.
So we took the money and purchased a new house. The insurance checks were made out to my mother. She purchased a new home, deeded in her name. I have no idea if she obtained legal guidance. But I think it was a mistake or misunderstanding because our conversations led me to believe she thought the previous ownership and survivorship arrangements were still in place. But they were linked to a specific property.
IANAL, so maybe I’m missing something about the essential nature of these documents and I’ll confess to not being attentive enough, but I can’t help but thinking that my brother and I have a legitimate claim on the house and that some one — my Mom or the insurer — screwed up somewhere. Either the homeowners policy should have been transferred to our names or the insurer should have done a public records check and made the check out to us. But it was legally our house ( I think) and she got the money for it.
So could I hypothetically sue my mom for the insurance money and put my own lien on the house before Medicaid gets to it? Could she agree to “settle” by handing over the house (the value of the house is considerably less than the insurance payout) Or would Medicaid just laugh?
Or am I missing something essential that makes this a dumb question. I’d actually like to know before I mention it to my lawyer.