Caretaker Child Exception
You can receive Medicaid coverage while still keeping an ownership interest in your home. However, at your death the state will have the right to recover from your probate estate—essentially your home—whatever it pays out for your care. Your home could escape this claim if it were transferred to one or more of your children. A problem with doing this is that under the general transfer penalty rule, you would be ineligible for Medicaid benefits for up to 60 months following the conveyance.

The Caretaker Child Exception to the transfer penalty can be a valuable tool to preserve the home of parents.
However, an exception to the transfer penalty allows a Medicaid applicant to transfer his or her home to a qualified caregiver child. The law defines a caregiver-transferee as a child of the Medicaid applicant “who was residing in the applicant’s…home for a period of at least two years immediately before the date of the applicant’s…admission to the institution, and who (as determined by the DHS) provided care to the applicant…that permitted him or her to reside at home rather than in an institution. “ In order to qualify under this exception, an applicant should be prepared to submit a certification by his or her attending physician which basically states that, but for the caregiver, the applicant would have had to move to a nursing home.
If you can get the necessary certification, and if you would feel comfortable with the property in your caretaker’s name solely, it is recommend that you transfer your interest in your home to your caretaker child. No transfer penalty would be triggered and, in addition, the unit would not be subject to any reimbursement claim by the state. Once the transfer is made, your caretaker child would be free to sell the house or simply rent it out. If you choose to transfer the house to your caretaker child, you should discuss the form of conveyance—trust, life estate, or outright ownership—and the tax consequences to each approach.
If you decide to make the transfer, you will have the option of doing so after you qualify for Medicaid, or before you submit the application. To make the transfer before you have qualified for Medicaid may prolong the application process. For that reason, it may be easier to make the transfer after you have been determined eligible for Medicaid. However, we have submitted applications where the home was transferred before and after and all were approved.
Want to discuss how to take advantage of the Caretaker Child Exception with your family? Call us to schedule a no obligation consultation.
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