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I have POA. My mom is normal and feisty. She tends to forget a little. She tells everyone she is going back to her home to live.


She does not know I am going to rent her home and I don’t know if it will affect my income?


Will it affect my moms Medicare and her $700 a month SS?


Should the utilities stay under my moms name?

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The rent is income to her only as she’s the property owner; should be deposited into her own bank account (or better she opens a new account for rent and to pay all property costs - it will make it easier to keep track of without commmingling personal & property stuff); and has to be reported on taxes. If she’s only Medicare & SS, her income is not a factor in having Medicare or receiving SS. She (or her hubs) paid into Medicare and SS from working and paying into FICA for years.

Doing taxes for rental property has specialized reporting, deductions, offsets. She may want to have a tax pro or CPA do her taxes for first couple of years so it’s capturing all & filed properly. Personally if you do not live in the same town as where house is and cannot be a forceful personality with dealing with renters, I’d suggest you get a property management company to deal with everything “house”. Also please find out what rental property need for permitting. If her home has been vacant & quietly existing in her old neighborhood for 2+ years with neighbors looking out for old Mrs Smiths house, the neighbors may not at all like having renters & will launch into reporting noise, blight, etc.

As an aside on all this, if later on your mom should need a higher level of care and needs a NH & needs to apply to Medicaid to pay for her care, that house might be viewed as a nonexempt asset and probably must sold with house sale $ spent down before she can be Medicaid eligible. It’s not her home as she lives with you. If it’s in another state, it absolutely will be a nonexempt asset for Medicaid.

There also could be an issue if she’s getting a homestead exemption. If tax assessor find out she lives in another state / has an instate change of address, the tax status on home should change. Could be a huge property tax increase as not homestead anymore. Assessors seem to do onsite or drive by of land & property every couple of years andcan revoke exemptions. You might want to factor increased taxes for what your mom needs to get paid for rent to cover all property costs (insurance, utilities, repairs, taxes, etc.) plus have a emergency fund.
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Do you mean Medicare or Medicaid? I’m not an Elder Law Attorney, but even though you are her POA, the house is still in her name and any rent money realized would be counted as her income. If you put it in your own account, that could be considered a gift and that also would count. The utilities are specific to the address of the house. It wouldn’t serve any purpose to change them to your name.

If you want to be absolutely sure contact an attorney. Every state is different.
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