Can an adult child stay in parent's home when parent qualifies for Medicaid and goes to nursing home?

Another thing to take into consideration is the mortgage itself. Read the mortgage paperwork to see if you or other family members are allowed to pay on the mortgage once the Mortgagee is no longer able to do so.

Another thing, some mortgages become due and payable once the owner/mortgagee has passed. Read the fine print on the mortgage. Hope this isn't the case.

Thus, you could need to re-finance the mortgage in order to stay in the property. If that isn't possible, then all the money spent on trying to stay in the house paying on Mom's mortgage, the property taxes, homeowner's insurance, etc. would be for naught.

Cannella, you mentioned staying in the house temporarily. Will another family member move in, or will the house sit vacant?

For families or heirs, their elder wants to continue to own their home & allowed as exempt asset under your states Medicaid, it can totally be done.

But family has to pay all property costs from day 1 of medicaid till beyond death & then after death deal with Estate Recovery (MERP) and however your state deals with probate & property laws. And have the purse or wallet to afford all on a property that they do not own and may not own... So it runs risk.

To me if the elder still has an outstanding traditional mortgage (horrors!) that’s a deal breaker for keeping the home unless the mortgage is about to clear or if you live in the home & the costs to stay are cheaper than going out & renting. The rub on living in home may be IF you state requires a non-caregiver exemption tenant to pay to the elder property owner FMV rent. 

If property is empty, some states allow for required property costs (taxes, insurance, some maintenance) to be deducted or excluded from the Medicaid tally, but you have to keep serious documentation on all costs to submit to MERP.

You may pause to think IF before she goes onto Medicaid IF you could possibly caregive another 1& 1/2 years as her full time caregiver in her home to possibly qualify for the caregiver exemption. If you go this route please have your mom meet with an NAELA or CELA level elder law attorney to come up with a caregiver agreement to pay you for caregiving. You save as much of that as you can as you may or may not be successful in getting the exemption. 

It's business

Talkey, that's true. It's a federal exemption so is valid in all states. I didn't bring it up since OP said she's only done it for 6 months. Also, she says that they have been paying for an aid. The exemption is that the adult child caregiver has to be the reason that the parent didn't have to go on medicaid for 2 years.

This is an old exemption and in my experience many elder law attorneys don't even know it exists. I've had to explain it to them so that they would go look it up. The TOD deed has superseeded it in many states.

My understanding is that there is a provision whereby the adult child who has provided at least 2 years of care for the parent may stay in the home until the adult child's death. I'm guessing there's an application or other paperwork involved. You may be able to find more details online.

This is a question for Medicaid in your state. If you r allowed to stay there you are going to have to prove you can keep the bills paid. You maybe asked to pay rent that will go towards Moms care. One question is what happens when gma passes and you have been allowed to live there.

Need, Unfortunately New Jersey does not have a statute for the ladybird deed or straight TOD deed. Mom can’t just sign that kind of deed. You can’t change deed once Medicaid applied for.
Your mother can sign intent to return paperwork on the house which means she can keep until death as exempt asset and someone can live there. However, you can’t pay mortgage, utilities etc on the house from mom’s income while mom is on Medicaid. Her income covers her share of cost at nursing home and Medicaid picks up the rest. If you can cover all house expenses on your own and fight during probate you might keep house. You might not.

Medicaid won't do anything about the house as long as your mom is still alive. It's an exempt asset. They don't place a lien or do anything else until after she dies. So medicaid is not the concern. As others have stated, can you afford it's up keep. As long as you can, you can stay in it at least as long as your mom is alive and possibly forever. You should look into having your mom sign a transfer on death deed. With that, in many states, medicaid cannot attempt recovery. The house will be yours after your mom dies free and clear. Once again, that's if you can afford to keep it.

When mom goes on Medicaid, ALL her income will go the nursing home as her share of cost less a small personal needs allowance. As freq says, if you cannot pay mortgage, utilities, taxes without help from mom to pay bills then you won’t be able to stay in the house because Medicaid won’t let you use her income for anything but facility payment.

Cannella, it would be best to make an appointment with an Elder Law Attorney to see what is the best approach.... you living in the house for awhile, or just selling the house now and use the equity for Mom's cost at the nursing home.

Otherwise, if the house sat vacant or you live there for awhile, someone would need to pay the mortgage, the property taxes, utilities, maintenance, and repairs as Mom can no longer make those payments. Medicaid will place a lien on the house, and when the house is sold, Medicaid will need to be paid first before any equity that is left goes to the heirs.