If I should ever need to go into a nursing home, I hear that they take everything that you own. My question is, How do I protect my Annuity from the nursing homes ?
A will, nor a transfer on death of property will protect assets. Medicaid will place a lein on all property. Medicaid will recover the total amount spent on care of an individual before ant sort of assets are disbursed to beneficiaries. Read up on Medicaid Estate Recovery Program for your state.
If you want to protect assets and/or prepare for Medicad spend down you hire a Certified Elder Law or Estate Planning Attorney. If you have assets you do not want to get your plan on a chat board that is for supporting caregivers with care related needs. You need a plan that is recreated based on your situation.
gladimhere, I hate to tell you this, but I must disagree with you on this because my bio dad did a transfer on death of his house before he ever entered a nursing home, and the nursing home could not touch his house. Somehow he was also able to take care of his life insurance policy and anything else he wanted protected and the nursing home could not touch anything. I happened to be the one who previously asked a question when I was discovering stuff about my dad's life insurance policy, there was a problem and I discovered certain things along the way, which is how I know what I know. I know who got the house and it wasn't the nursing home, and I have a good idea who also got all the money. I don't agree with how everything turned out because I think someone took advantage of my dad, which is most likely the reason why things turned out the way they did
1Rare...problem is that it might be different today then when your dad did it. With NH care and other medical care going sky high in most cases, more and more states are changing their recover laws. It may not be the NH looking to recover...it could be the state now looking to recover any Medicaid aid it spent on senior care and that law could have changed from what it was to what it is now quite recently.
And so talking with an Elder Law attorney, even if you think you can't afford it, would be the prudent choice when you really think about it.
glorygirl51: You appear to be totally in the dark about Medicaid. Go to Medicaid.gov and educate yourself about the app process. Just like Kimber said "you pay for everything now" so why would you think that an NH is a free ride?
If assets (like bank accounts) are titled jointly with a living person, they are not eligible for MERP. Real property is protected as long as it's in a "trust" (belonging to the trust, not the person) or in something called a "life estate." Google "life estate." As for your annuity, I believe as long as it's willed to someone, it will go to them after you die. MERP applies only to probatable assets. As for protecting your annuity when you go into a NH, there are ways, but they all involving re-titling your asset. There's a "life trust" where you sign your annuity over to the trust and you can use the proceeds of the trust to pay your expenses, but the asset belongs to the trust. You could transfer the annuity to someone you REALLY trust and hope they don't pre-decease you or you don't need NH care in the next 5 years. There are ways, a small, finite number of ways. Good luck.
And so talking with an Elder Law attorney, even if you think you can't afford it, would be the prudent choice when you really think about it.