Nursing Home Asset Protection

Barbara is widow of 20 years. She has a modest nest egg of around $300,000 and owns her home worth about $200,000. Lately she has been forgetting things, and getting lost, and the doctors have told her daughter, Miranda, that it is time to think about placing her mother in a nursing home. Miranda knows that nursing homes are expensive and that in just a few short years, the cost will consume all of her parents’ hard-earned savings.

She knows that people who didn’t bother working hard and saving get that type of care paid for by the government, but the case worker she talked to said her mother would not qualify for those programs until she had spent everything except $4,000. Miranda thought this was unfair. Why should responsible people be punished while irresponsible people get care for free? Fortunately she found the Morton Law Firm on an internet search and made an appointment. In that meeting Miranda learned that there are two sets of rules that apply to nursing home benefits – one set for people that plan, and another set for everyone else. While it was too late to protect all of her mother’s assets, the firm could show her how she could protect over half of them. That would leave her mother with enough money to pay for extra things that would bring her comfort while she was in the nursing home (like cable TV, a private room, and occasional sitters) and might result in enough left over for her to receive a modest inheritance when her mother passed.

Our firm helped develop a plan for Barbara to restructure her assets so she can afford nursing home costs, keep her home, and have the peace of knowing some of her assets will be passed down to Miranda.  With the firm’s guidance, Miranda was able to get her mother qualified for Medicaid and was able to protect over $200,000 and her house. That’s money that can be used to pay for extra things that Barbara may need while in the nursing home, to keep her more comfortable.  And whatever is not spent can be passed down to Miranda at her death.  Without help from the Morton Law Firm, Miranda might have done what the case worker told her and just spent all of Barbara’s savings at a rate of $8,000 per month until she had nothing left.