My mom passed May 2020. I’m the only child and in charge of her estate. Medicaid filed a claim against the estate December 2020. My elder care attorney said I had to keep paying the mortgage and HOA on the townhouse until Medicaid takes possession - which still hasn’t happened. How long does this go on? I’m paying $1,500 a month for something I don’t get to keep. I can apparently apply to be a creditor and hope I get that money back. Helpppppp….
You should have never paid against her debt.
Medicaid doesn't take a house, they place a lien and get paid when the house is sold by the heir(s).
This is why I always recommend using a CELA and not just a self proclaimed elder law attorney.
Immediately put the townhouse up for sale, good time to sell as the real estate is moving quickly with higher prices. Monies from the equity will go to cover Medicaid, and the rest [hopefully enough to cover what you have paid into the mortgage/HOA] will go to you, since you are the heir.
Keep us up to date.
Now with an HOA things maybe different. You may have to keep the Mortgage going and the fees or the HOA takes possession.
Did you ever receive a recovery letter from Medicaid. If not, call ur local office and get the number of Medicaid Recovery dept. Tell them the house is being sold and you need to know how much is owed and they need to put a lien on the property if they want their money back. For me Mom only owed 3 months, $6000. Proceeds from the house covered all the debts. If the recovery is more than the Market Value of the house, you will do all the work selling it, but Medicaid will get the proceeds. And that is all they get. You are not responsible for what they can't recover.
If Moms house had not sold, it would still be standing there rotting away. It may go up for Sheriffs sale because of unpaid taxes but Medicaid would never had taken it.
The HOA would more likely to place a mechanics lien on the home that would be satisfied at time of sale or payment to the county treasurer of the lien amount.
You mention an “Estate” so a will has been filed, probate opened and executor named, correct? If so, you need to be filing your own claims against the estate for every penny you are paying on the mortgage, maintenance, HOA fees, taxes, etc. Every frickin’ penny. If you are having to come in from out of town or state to do estate stuff, you should also be filing MIE /mileage and incidental expenses as a claim as well. If that attorney of yours has never ever mentioned doing this, they are imo beyond inept.
Without you yourself filing claims for costs you have paid, you have no “standing” to ever be paid from the sale of the property if there should actually be money left after that mortgage is paid off. If you are the Executor, in my not an atty but been an executor x3, you definitely should be filing all this as administrative expenses claim against the estate and it may be a priority or higher level of claim than Medicaid MERP will be (this is a ? to ask the probate atty as it varies by state).
on the “taking the house”, Medicaid is not going to waltz in & start paying the mortgage, HOA, utilities, taxes, etc. LOL! Medicaid reimbursed a NH or an inhome care service at a preset $ amount. Thats what Medicaid will pay for. The tally of all those costs paid is what MERP is required to attempt a recovery of from the estate but the regulations as to how MERP runs is interdependent on your states Probate and property laws. They are not gonna pay the mortgage, etc.
On the mortgage, are they aware she died almost 2 years ago? Usually once a person with a mortgage dies, the mortgage holder becomes aware and they send out a “call in” letter to whatever address mortgage co has on file. Its a formal Notice that the balance of the mortgage is due in full within 120 days or whatever the mortgage paperwork reads as. The loan is “called-in”. Now usually when they die the regular payments stop so the mortgage gets a red flag so mortgage co knows somethings amiss. But it might be as you have been paying mortgage on time regularly that her mortgage co is unaware of her death. Mortgage can do an extension if it’s current but there will be paperwork needed and they probable will be especially concerned about property insurance as the old homeowners policy is now voided….. they are going to want vacant dwelling type of policy with them listed as a lienholder.
This is a sticky situation to begin with and then extra sticky due to Medicaid claim against the state filed…. So….
- right now IF the house sold at FMV (assuming someone like an executor legally has the power to sell the property) how much money would be left AFTER the mortgage is paid off?
- how much money left after all taxes & utilities paid to be current at the Act of Sale?
- & after the 2 above, is there enough $ to repay all the $ you have sunk into the house (which you will file as a claim), reimburse any other executor claims (like for funeral costs or legal costs) AND pay off the MERP claim?
On another tangent….
- has the HOA placed any lein or encumbrances onto the property?
- does HOA have covenants as to whom a property can be sold to?
- is there an assessment looming for 2022 from the HOA? Like HOA decided in 2021 that new roofs would be done and an assessment will be placed of $6789 onto all condos. If there is assessment scheduled, deduct that from the sale price as assessment usually come out of the sellers side on Act of Sale. HOAs are the devil imo.
Realize if you run the #’s and there’s no way for you to ever ever ever get repaid and you haven’t sign onto being responsible for any of this, you can just walk away. State, HOA and city / county (due to property taxes) can slug it out.
https://nelf.org
You current attorney has cost you some money although he/she might have been right about the HOA fees -- never having lived in one I don't know about their rules and regulations. Once you get a cert. attorney, depending on your feelings about this, you can consider reporting the "idiot" attorney to his/her state governing board. If he/she didn't know the correct information, there was nothing wrong with saying "I'm not sure about that. Let me research it and get back to you." I guess sometimes ego gets in the way of brains.
Had an attorney do that to a potential resident family when I was director of admissions once. In fact, what she told them to do ( putting the father's house in the name of the disabled daughter that had lived in the house and been his caregiver for over 8 years) made the father ineligible for Medicaid! Luckily for them, I represented a government facility and had a good working relationship with the Medicaid group in our county: however, I still had to drive to their office and buy them lunch before they agreed to give the family 7 days to get things back to the original state so they could look at application again. A new attorney got stuff squared away pronto and we got the applicant approved for Medicaid and into our facility. BTW, his disabled dgt. visited him everyday and became one of our great volunteers. I ranted and raved to the bar association about the first attorney constantly. She eventually lost her license to practice in our state. Good riddance.
Good luck!
My sister was caretaking my mom and living in my mom's townhome for several years. Mom went into skilled nursing home after we put her in Medicaid, she was there 5 years. When we lost mom Medicaid allowed my sister to keep the townhome since she was living there as caregiver for several years, and still there. Similar to a spouse, it's not counted as a medicaid asset in this case.
States run their Medicaid differently but sounds like you need to find a better Medicaid attorney.
Why would anyone let a home go into foreclosure when it can be sold.
I find letting the bank have all the equity unsound judgment.
You will get a recovery letter from Medicaid if you already haven't. Its a law they must try to recover what they put out. That letter will ask if there are any assets. You Moms house became an asset upon her death so you have to list it now as an asset. You will be asked if someone is living in it. You say yes and I think it gives you the ability to say who and why. Your sister may need to prove that she is capable of keeping up the house like paying taxes. Because, in my state anyway, a lien may be placed on the house and when ur sister passes or sells the house that lien will need to be satisfied.