My father-in-law was placed in a nursing home. His insurance covered 100 days but that time is up. He will be paying out of pocket until his savings runs out. This will not take very long. He will then go on Medicaid. He owns four cars. Will they take them from him? One of the cars is ours, but the title was put in his name a few years ago for insurance reasons. Husband said if he ever got into an accident it would be on his insurance. We only loaned the car to him, he never paid for it (it’s a 1989 convertible). We want the car back before they try to take it. If they try to take it, can we just pay Medicaid to keep it? It’s worth less than $2,000 as it needs lots of repair. We live in Wisconsin but father in law lives in Minnesota.
2. In order to qualify for Medicaid, FIL will only be allowed to keep one of his four cars and that only until he passes. See 1 above.
FIL assets will have to be liquidated and the money used for his care BEFORE Medicaid will start paying for his care.
If he is using a certified elder law attorney to file for his Medicaid, the attorney can explain the best way for you to acquire the car.
Since the title is in FILs name, he or his POA will need to show that he sold the car for FMV and used the proceeds to help pay for his care (is my guess).
However, the attorney or other Medicaid professional is the one who would know what FILs state Medicaid program will allow w/o penalizing FIL the $2,000 or whatever the actual value of the car is determined to be.
I have heard others suggest that the car be taken for appraisal, get the value in writing and then pay that amount for the car to FIL not to be given to Medicaid but to be used for paying for his care before Medicaid starts paying. The same as he will need to do with his other cars.
My experience with a similar situation. My DH aunt gave her car to a relative. At the time aunt had to file for Medicaid, I, as her POA, went to the DMV and got a document showing the value of the car at the time the title was transferred. That amount of money was then used as the basis for how many days of care aunt would have to pay before Medicaid would start paying. This all submitted by aunts elder law attorney when filing for Medicaid. There may have been other ways to handle this…that’s just the way I did it with approval of attorney.
https://www.agingcare.com/questions/my-father-in-law-was-recently-put-in-a-nursing-home-need-advice-on-car-issue-491717.htm
This question can be answered by a Medicaid caseworker. He will only be allowed one car on Medicaid. All others will have to be sold at Market value and the money spent down. It can be used to pay for his room. Prepay his funeral costs.