My father-in-law is in a nursing home, in the process of Medicaid. He owns a car. Can we sell the car to a family friend with out issues?

As said, you need to sell it at fair market value. The proceeds received will effect his spend down for Medicaid. Like said, at this point Medicaid will allow him to own one car. But then, if still owned when he passes, Medicaid can recover money by u selling it.

Under medicaid rules ordinarily states allow a car and a home to be kept. Selling the care, if title is in his name would have to be done for fair market value and only by a financial POA that has rights to sell. The money would then go into the account of FIL and would ruin his ability to get medicaid.

I think that the short answer is likely not. This car can be sold after FIL death, and likely there will be clawback by the state to recover taxpayer funds now being invested in FIL's care.

Check in with an elder law attorney or with medicaid itself, but the above is my educated guess in this.

Whatever amount you sell the car for must be considered part of FIL’s assets, at least in our state.

Have you prepaid funeral expenses? Doing so proved to be an enormous Blessing in our situation, as well as a totally appropriate way of managing our LO’s spend down needs.

The simplest way to consider Medicaid and his costs is, “What IS (or was) HIS, REMAINS HIS whatever his living situation, and therefore must be used for HIS CARE”.

Hope this helps. Hard times at the beginning. We understand.

Are you his POA?

The sale would need to be for value. The proceeds need to be used for his needs. Make a shopping list for him to spend any proceeds, quickly, without causing Medicaid issues.