My father has been taking care of his sister since 1965 until her death this year. She had to spend all of her money for the nursing home, before assistance would be given to her. My father would mow her lawn, maintain the house, take care the finances, and whatever was needed. In 2003, she had a stroke, but was incapacitated whereas my father did more. Then in 2010 she had to go back to the nursing home and finally she actual spend all of her money for care. My father applied Medicad for her. She broke her hip in the nursing home whereas she couldn't go back home. The house was still in her name, but my father had to spend his money to take care of her in the nursing home because they took her check, and medicad didn't pay all . He continue to take care of water, electrical bill for the house, mow the lawn and took care of maintain. My father is elderly and this was the family home. Is there anyway that he recoup the expenses he incurred, as well as the administrator fee from her estate.
Further, can he sue the nursing home for breaking allow his sister to break her hip?
If your aunt has a home and is in a NH and on Medicaid, in her application there will be some sort of notification or acknowledgement of MERP. MERP is Medicaid Estate Recovery Program and is required to be done by the feds in order for the state to get federal funding for Medicaid. Under Medicaid, their home is an exempt asset which most states have it for their lifetime. But upon death the house looses that exempt status and MERP will attempt to be reinbursed for all costs the state Medicaid program paid on your aunt. That usually means MERP has a claim or a lien on the house and the house has to be sold to pay MERP.
But there are required exemptions to MERP. You can google MERP & your state's name to see what the specifics are for exemptions. If your brother was a caregiver to her full time for at least 2 years and his caregiving delayed her entering a NH (and Medicaid paying for it) then he can file an caregiver exemption to MERP; if he has been paying for everything for the house (taxes, insurance, yard, utilities, etc) then he can add up all those costs with documentation and submit them as exemptions to MERP - this one works if they have another home. If he is living in the house, then the MERP expenses exemption isn't there as they seems to view it as he is benefitting from her ownership of the house by living there for free. The key with MERP is that the exemptions HAVE TO BE FILED within whatever timeframe is in the MERP letter you all get after she dies. MERP is a legal process and costs time & money, they have to evaluate whether their claim or lien is likely to be worth the time to do so. A lower value home with exemptions may not be worth the time to peruse. That is why it is critically important to file any & all MERP exemptions. Understand?
Also your dad can have an agreement with his sister regarding all expenses on the house. It would state something like for "management of my property and finances, I allow my brother, Tim Jones, to be reinbursed 100% from my estate for all expenses paid from 2003 to whenever to the final disposition of my property via probate". It should be signed and notarized. Then when your aunt dies, he can submit it to probate as his independent claim against her estate. To make this easier, you or another younger person, should be the one named executor in aunt will. If she can do a codicil to her will to make this happen, it might be a good thing as you will have alot more energy to deal with all this. Now dad's tally of all expenses will need to be paid from her estate and usually before MERP too. If the expenses are significant (and they will be if it has been years of his doing all this), and the assessor value of the home is low, then MERP may decline from doing a claim or lein and give you a release of their claim. This is an important document & you have to get this if there is any MERP issue. Then sell aunt's house and reimburse dad for everything he paid to the penny from the proceeds of the sale. You too should be paid for administration / being executrix of the estate too.
Good luck and start getting the receipts, canceled checks, etc. lined up!