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They can't manage living in their house any longer but can't afford to move. Their income is just above the limits for assistance so there is no financial assistance. They live in a remote area with little services and their children are older and do not have the money to help them. They won't consider selling their house because they are too old to do the work needed to sell.

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Entropy - have you or your folks looked into doing a Miller Trust to get their income to be restructured to qualify for Medicaid? Miller is totally legit and done all the time for those who have a guaranteed income source to high to qualify for Medicaid. It will be needed to be done by an elder law atty as it as to be done to meet & be flexible for however your state laws require.

In a nutshell, how miller works is.....say dad gets $ 2500 a month income of which $1k is SS, 1k is federal retirement & $ 500 state pension. It's guaranteed income. His state has the maximum income set at $ 2,062 (this was the max when my mom applied for TX Medicaid). So every mo dad is $ 438 over. What miller does is that it becomes the payee of all income and pays dad $ 2062 with the $438 either going to the NH or into a state trust ( this is why you need an atty to do this as required structure varies by state laws). Viola! Problem solved!

property can almost always be sold, although it may be way below tax assessor value. I'd suggest that whichever kid that is their DPOA speak with the adjacent property owners to see if any are interested in your folks place. Or if this is ranch or farmland type of rural, if any of the workers on other ranches want to buy your folks place. I'd suggest to get a very conservative appraisal of the property done to have a realistic sale price before speaking with others though.

Your folks under most medicaid rules can keep the property an an exempt asset for their lifetime. They do NOT have to sell it to qualify for medicaid. But once on medicaid, someone in the family will need to pay on all costs (taxes, insurance, utilities, etc) on the house from day 1 of Medicaid till they die and then through probate and deal with MERP (estate recovery). Medicaid requires them to do a copay (or their share of cost) of all monthly income (like their SS) to the facility less a small personal needs allowance (about $60 a mo each). The copay requirement often comes as a total surprise to family. Often families sell the parents homes& use the proceeds as the spend-down of assets to qualify for Medicaid. Sometimes family just walk on dealing with their parents home and let it go to tax sale....this could be sticky for the DPOA later on.

Often someone younger in the family just has to take on becoming the bossy in charge personality and get them up, out and moved and get the DPOA to work with them. It could mean that it's the 45 yr old grandchild to does this with their 70 yr old uncle as the nominal DPOA for their 93 yr old parents. Good luck.
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