I have been caring for her home paying taxes, insurance, water, garbage,electric, and many upgrades, however i live in calif.mom is in fla. and I cannot afford this expense to keep continuing. I work for the airlines so i can easily get to fla. to visit, however its becoming overwhelming. The house is in a trust & I am the only trustee as well as living relative, she has advanced dementia so i must take over trustee duties. do you have any legal advice so i do not lose the entire sale proceeds to medicaid clawback.
You should be keeping track of all house expenses & with receipts. The costs of regular maintenance, taxes, insurance should be deductible from the medicaid tally the state paid &/or owed to the state from the proceeds of the sale IF the house is an asset of moms for FL Medicaid rules.
If you decide to sell the house, what often is the case for elderly homeowners is that the home has been owned by them 30 - 50 years and has decades of delayed maintenance. Perhaps never renovated but just things replaced as needed. Now also during these decades property values have increased. The elderly homeowner since their taxes are frozen really doesn't care that house value is not accurate. If tax assessor value is not realistic for what the old unrenovated house could ever sell for this could be an issue for selling the house as Medicaid expects property to be sold for a value close to assessor value.
If this could be the situation for moms house, I'd suggest that you do 2 things:
- get house inspected. Inspector needs to be registered or certified by how FL does this. Fee usually based on sq footage, 2,000 sq ft maybe $ 400. The report will go in detail as to status on all the majors on the home & with photos.
- get house appraised. Again the appraiser needs to be licensed, etc for FL. They get a copy of the inspection. Appraisers use the details of inspection along with their comparables to come up with a truer figure of value. $ 300-500.
If you want to sell it quickly, it likely will need to be priced to move & way under assessor value. Having these both done gives a more accurate # to work with.
Alternatively, you will continue to pay taxes and upkeep.
Yes, the proceeds of the sale will go to mom's care, but that will be the case either way.
I hope that you have kept receipts for all the money you have spent maintaining the property and taxes. That money can be reimbursed to you if the house is subject to Medicaid recovery.
I am not an expert on Medicaid recovery and am totally ignorant of trusts. I hope our Medicaid expert member will be along soon. She could give you much better guidance.