Medicaid asset recovery on car in Alabama.

Was the car mentioned on the Medicaid application? If not, don't worry about it.

Worry about this when you get the recovery paperwork from Medicaid. Maybe have a car dealer come out and give you a value of the car, non- working. Get it in writing to present to Medicaid. You will need to sell it at what Medicaid thinks its worth or buy it.

I guess the question is ...
Is the car that does not run a
Classic 1969 Chevrolet Corvette (value about 1 million dollars)
or
1997 GEO Metro (value about 1500)

Medicaid is not in the car selling business. They will not want the car. If there is value and the car was gifted within the 5 year look back period then they will want to recoup some money. If the car was given 6 years ago then they are not going to bother. (I would also think if the car was "given" as payment for services then that would not be looked at ask a "gift" as it was payment)

Someone needs to decide what is to become of it. Is it just scrap metal? You can get a quote for that. Is it saleable as-is? Put it up for sale (at a higher price than you expect to get), see what you can get for it. Is it supposed to be repaired? Get a quote for repairs and deduct that from the list value.

Speaking as one with a DH who is a car nut, how many unrepaired elderly cars do you need? We have just one at the moment, having just had another one towed away only 3 days ago. Some guys in the car club have three or four waiting to be repaired. Unless it is a very old vintage or super-special in some way, there is nothing very special about a dead car and its hypothetical value.

If the car was gifted within the look-back period, Medicaid will not ‘go for the car’ but they will probably ask for the value of the gift. If the car didn’t run when it was gifted but has since been repaired at the caregiver’s expense, what you need to do is to establish the (low) value of the gift. An easy way to do this might be to check the 'list' value of the car now, and deduct the cost of repairs plus depreciation since the gift. (Or the 'list' value of the car at the time is was gifted, less the cost of repairs)