Am I responsible for 100% of the upkeep of the home or only 50%? And if we do sell the home can I get back the money that I put in towards the park rent,heat,electric,insurance etc.We have been paying 100% of her bills for almost 6 months now and it is getting to the point where I can not pay my own bills.She is Medicaid pending and we live in New Hampshire
Good luck,
Carol
The feds require all states to do MERP - Medicaid Estate Recovery or Reinbursement Program. How each state does it varies. For some, like Texas, all the monies family or whomever spend/spent on the EMPTY homesteaded property (mom's house) can be deducted from the Medicaid tally. This is important because, MERP has to evaluate whether to actually go after an estate for the MERP claim or lein. So say mom's house is 100K, her Medicaid tally is
50K but you have spent 23K on taxes, insurance, yard maintenance, utitilies etc.
The max MERP claim or lien can be 27K. Now you have to provide documentation for all you spent. But this should be easy.
Also Each state's law on probate makes a HUGE butt difference in how MERP can be done. For Texas, Merp is a class 7 claim, so kinda low on the list of what has to be paid from the estate in priority.
As Carol said you should contact an attorney. If there isn't an elder law certified one close to you then a really good probate attorney. How her estate is done for NH law they (probate attorney) will know. Just keep really good records of everything....even the guys you paid cash for removing the dead tree kind of thing
The good part is if you sell the home, only 50% of what the home is sold for has to be used to pay for her care. The other 50% is yours. From her 50% you also should be paid for whatever was "her share" since she has been in the NH and had none of her $ to use. Getting this accross to a $ 8 and hr Medicaid worker is best done by presenting documentation and notarized whatever's that an attorney does and not you telling your story. So if you plan on selling the home you really need an attorney to work with on all this. Good luck.