Will selling belongings while trying to get approved for Medicaid matter?

Cattails:Just saw your post for the first time. Thanks for all of the advise. I am still in the Medicaid process, unfortunately, the social worker isn't helping matters by not returning phone calls. I only had to do a change of programs for the long term application, so it shouldn't take as long. The hold up has been 3 years bank statements that social services was ordering from the bank. After a month, I found out the social service department had not gotten them, so I went to the bank and ordered them. I had one year of statements, but I had to order the previous 2 years, at a cost to my mom's account of over $700! I only had 1500 in the account for her, and was going to send a payment for her burial policy with that. I did call the bank branch manager and ask for a review and some credit since she has been a long standing customer and that this charge was due to her receiving long term Medicaid. So, fingers crossed, the bank will credit her account.
As far as the siblings go, my brother is (and has been) drinking heavily and the only contributions he is making is causing confusion. He calls the nursing home and gets information mixed up and passes it along to my other two sisters who seem to be incapable of making common sense judgements. Then my brother drinks and forgets things he has said or done.
The credit card debt of over $50k was relieved in 2010 when he had my mom sign for bankruptcy. I found out about this debt by running a credit report on her.
I found out last week when I went home to see my mom that the nursing facility is transferring her to long term care in 2 1/2 weeks because she is not making further progress with physical therapy, therefore, Medicare will not pay for a longer stay. If Medicaid is not approved by then, someone has to pick her up and keep her until Medicaid is approved and if it takes over 30 days, I have to start over with the process.
My brother is going home this weekend, and I know one huge reason is to get things from the house to sell, or to prepare for a sale. Anything I say he will do the opposite because he won't accept that I had to step in when I found out he was doing my mom wrong. He is also blaming me for my mom falling and breaking her hip because I went to get her to bring her to my home 7 hrs away. I had bought a baby monitor to watch her and I took her to the bathroom every time she got up...but, he has told everyone I should have slept with her. He is using this to deflect what he has done to my mom. I think he is having alot of inner struggles with what he has done, hopefully, enough to stop continuing in the wrong direction.

Icross: One of my big concerns is that your brother borrowed against your mom's life insurance. The cash value of her life insurance policy is deemed by Medicaid as an asset. One that must be liquidated for her care, not for your brother's personal use. It could be viewed by Medicaid as a gift of assets and then there will be a penalty for that gift and it will delay Medicaid coverage. Meaning your mom will receive a penalty, based on the amount of the asset liquidated (gifted) and for the interim period of the penalty, your mom will be responsible for the full cost of her care at a facility. After the penalty, Medicaid will pick up.

In the state of Washington, your mom would be allowed to have $2,000.00 in cash assets and a cash account of $1,500.00 for burial. My dad has a $10,000.00 life insurance policy and over the years it has accumulated a cash value of $2,600.00. The state will allow my dad to keep $2,000.00 of the cash value as his allotted $2,000.00 in cash assets and they will allow him to count the excess ($600.00) towards his burial allotment of $1,500.00 and make up the remaining burial fund in cash.

You can't borrow against an insurance policy that does not have a cash value, so there was a cash value and your brother has taken some or all of it. That money is going to have to be accounted for and returned or your mom is going to be penalized.

Do you know how much he borrowed on her policy? Your brother may have done this before you were listed as co or secondary POA. You can call the insurance company and tell them that you are also POA. See if they have the POA on file showing you. They may only have the first one showing your brother. The insurance company WOULD HAVE TO HAVE a POA on file to allow your brother to act on her behalf in taking out a loan against the policy. You can ask them to send you a form that will allow you to submit the new POA, listing both of you, if they do not have that one on file.

Here's the thing, are you listed as secondary POA, which means if your brother is not available, you are then to act on her behalf. Get the forms from the insurance company, send in a copy of the current POA, if they don't have it, and see if they will then divulge information to you.

Another thing you might be able to do is set up an online account with the insurance company. I did on my dad's policy. You usually just need all of the policy info and you can go online to the company and set up an account that will then let you access the condition of the policy. It will tell you if the premiums are current, what the cash value is, if there are loans against the policy, etc. Your brother, however, may have already done this, so you may not be able to set up a second account.

With regard to the credit card debt of $50,000.00 that your brother ran up on your mom's card. It's possible that the company could go to court and receive a judgement against your mom for payment of the debt. That judgement could possibly become a lien against anything she owns, like her house.

You have some homework to do and you need to get some legal advise. Again, I recommend an elder attorney. Igloo was right in advising you to do a title search on your mom's property. You can do that directly through a local title company and I would strongly suggest you do that as soon as possible.

I would also suggest you do obtain a credit report on your mom to see what else is pending. It may give you more info on the credit card debt and anything else your brother has done in your mom's name.

By all means, set up another mail address for your mom and go to the post office to arrange forwarding of her mail to you.

Your mom is very sadly the victim of fraud and you have a lot more to worry about here than a tag sale. I agree with you that any money made from the sale of her belongings should go to her care, but for now, I would put my foot down to both your brother and sister that nothing is to be sold until other financial issues are resolved.

Get some legal guidance. File a police report and let your sibs know that the gravy train has come to the end of it's track. For your mom's sake, go kick some butt. You have grounds to do so.

Good luck and stay in touch, Cattails.

Depending on what state u live in. I'm in Florida and even if a brother has coPOA and won't abide mom's wants and Will, I can call Florida State Elder Care for advice. Even with POA here if mom hasn't been declared legally incompetent he doesn't have right to sell things. If she has a legal will with her wishes, then he has broken the law. I was legal guardian for aunt and uncle and the rules r very specific, even with POA. My sister has mom's poa but cannot use it without permission and i can question it anytime, as mom has no legal gurardian yet. So, based on the hell i went thru with lawyers, i say be tuff and kick ure broither off the DPOA. My sis ran up $65,0000 debt and she knows i'll stick her butt in jail if she does any other stuff cuz that is considered fraud. I am so sick of adult children screwing over their parents. Well, Karma is real so b ready. I feel for u much. Best wishes Karen

The Elder Law Attorney I contacted said there is a 5 year "lookback period" to determine medicaid eligibility. If everything is out of your mom's name for a period of at least 5 years, there shouldn't be a problem but assets she has during the last five years will be considered in the determination. This includes those things you sell during the past five years.

Thanks for all the advise. As far as the funeral home, I did get a policy in MY name for my mother and it is irrevocable. In other words, the monies paid toward her preneeds cannot be cashed out by her executor (my brother), or even myself. It must go toward her funeral. The sad thing is my mother has very little, and makes under $800 per month, so she hasn't had to file taxes in a long time due to her limited income.
I have signed everything in my name, by DPOA for my mother. Like I said, he is the coDPOA, but has not taken an active role in anything other than attempting to acquire cash.

You sense there are going to be even more problems in the future, don't you. I can tell that you already know that by your posting.

Geez, selling household stuff how much real $ is there in that.....I'm assuming this is the usual old lady stuff and not things that are going to auction and valuable. So tell us do you think bro is going to also try to sell the house & keep the proceeds? Medicaid might not find out about a tag sale but for sure will know about a house sale.

One thing you can do is have him sign off on mom's NH admission packet, so that he is the one they come after as the responsible party.

Whatever you do NEVER EVER sign your name on any documents. If need be sign it as "Ann Smith as DPOA for Jane Jones" on everything, really. Always!

You can also send a letter to the state Medicaid program that any and all on your mom is to go to your brother as the coDPOA - this would be sent registered mail and after she gets accepted. If he is type to just ignore everything it could be even more of a problem BUT it will give you the documentation to go for guardianship of your mom. That may be what you end up needing to do so start making a list of what they are doing and the amounts.

Important: about the 50K in cc debt. If the cc has written this off, then mom is likely to get a document "Cancellation of Debt" a 1099-C, from each of the cc companies. This will come in January for the prior tax year or years. Now it is really important that you go to a good CPA and get them to do the taxes for her so that it shows she is impoverished otherwise the cancellation of debt from the 50K can be viewed as income and it is taxable income too. And that "income" could cause her to lose her Medicaid status. Most 1099-C is from mortgage forgiveness but the cc companies can go back for like 10 years on written off debt and send a 1099-C. You can't ignore it as if you do and there are taxes to be paid on the "income" then IRS can place a lien on the house because of the unpaid taxes. yep it can be a nightmare but workable if you get the taxes filed as impoverished for her. 1099-C are sticky & not something file on your own.

About the funeral/burial stuff, see if the FH will put the policy in your name so that you own it for your mom, so your brother cannot access it. Was it such that the policy had a cash value and he took that? Then see if FH can make the policy NCV - no cash value. Which you need to do for Medicaid anyways. Same for any insurance policy as if they are convertible to cash, the state Medicaid program is going to want it to be cashed out & spend on their care. NCV policies are fine.

Where is mom's mail going to? One good idea when there is all sorts of stuff constantly coming up is to establish a new address for her that everything should go to and you can monitor. You as DPOA can do that and set aside a couple of days to get the letters out. Like get an address at a UPS store that has mail boxes
or other shipping storefront with mailboxes and have everything go to that. Is it that your bro has been keeping paperwork and bills and not letting you know about the 50K in cc debt or other debts?

You might want to run a lien check on the house. If you have a friend that is a Realtor or works for a title company they can do this for you. You can in most counties go on-line to the tax assessors site and see if there are any active mechanics liens on a property too. You could do this as a part of being proactive on selling the house as you need to know if there are any issues that could be a problem in selling the house.

Icross: I think you are heading down a very difficult road. Based on what you have said, you may have problems with the Medicaid application due to your brother borrowing on your mom's life insurance, etc. My suggestion would be that you see an elder attorney and get some guidance. Your brother is surely abusing his position as POA. I'm not sure what you can do about it other than calling Adult Protective Services. You need some legal advise. Please stay in touch and let us know how things go. Hugs, Cattails

Myself and my brother are the DPOA's. However, I was added to the DPOA after my brother charged up over 50k of credit card debt to my mom. My feelings are exactly as yours, any money from her assets should go to her. I have a preneed funeral pkg I'm paying on because my brother borrowed from her insurance policy. So, I want him and my sisters to put the money into that, or leave the items for now. The only rush to sell her belongings now is that my brother and one of my sisters are in need of money. How do I stop them from selling it anyway, if he is also on the DPOA?

So what is the plan for mom's home?
Why the need to empty out the house?

Under Medicaid rules, personal possessions are "non-countable" assets while they are in possession but if they get sold the money from the sale is now an financial asset. Assets are to be used for her care and her needs. My best guess is if her belongings are tag sale value then selling her stuff for a few hundred dollars won't make a difference in the application but if there is real $$ involved the $$ needs to go towards paying for her care and her needs. So if there is 3K from the tag sale then the 3K should go for new easy care clothes for her stay in the NH, dental work, new glasses, new hearing aids, a tricked out walker or electric chair, etc which are all items that have spotty or no coverage on Medicaid. Or goes into a fund to pay for maintenance on the house. Keeping receipts on all this too. And not into your sister-in-laws purse.

Who is the DPOA for mom? They should be the one to carry out the wishes of mom as her advocate.

When I moved my mom into IL, we moved her BR and DR only into the IL apt and downsized big time. Tag sale of almost everything else out of the house - 50+ years of old lady stuff.... nothing but fun on that! - and used the $ to pay for yard care and maintenance on the house. On her Medicaid application, it asks the status of the house, so I can check off vacant, not occupied and it remains a non-countable asset to this day under Medicaid rules.