Month: November 2007

Can I give assets to my children and still get Medicaid to pay for nursing home care?

On: By: Bill Gatesman

Many seniors have heard that giving assets to one’s children is a way to safeguard those assets so that they will pass on to the younger generation upon the senior’s death even if nursing home care is required. However, the law governing Medicaid has changed and it now appears that Medicaid will not be available to those who make such gifts.

Nevertheless, while the strategy of making gifts to children in anticipation of requiring nursing home care is much more complex under the new law, it still may be possible for you to preserve assets in this manner.

Continue reading “Can I give assets to my children and still get Medicaid to pay for nursing home care?” →

What is the value of a life estate?

On: By: Bill Gatesman

A technical notice for Maryland elder law professionals.

When a homeowner executes a deed retaining for himself a life estate, such action will be considered a transfer of resources for Medicaid eligibility purposes. However, the homeowner has not given away the entire property. What the homeowner has given away is a remainder interest, that is, the right to own the property after the homeowner dies.

The value of the transferred remainder interest depends on the age of the homeowner who retains the life estate. Maryland uses a table, Schedule MA-7, to assign value both to the transferred remainder interest and to the retained life estate. You may view that table by clicking here: Life Estate and Remainder Interest Table.

My spouse needs nursing home care; Can I keep all of our money?

On: By: Bill Gatesman

Medicaid law allows an individual whose spouse needs nursing home care to keep as much as $101,640 in 2007, as well as the house, a car, certain life insurance policies and a few other assets. But this rule is misleading. Consider the following example.

Husband and Wife own a house, a car, and $100,000 in investment assets. Suppose that Husband needs to go to a nursing home. One would think he could get Medicaid immediately because there is only $100,000. However, the rule says that the spouse in the community can keep half of the total assets (the house and car are exempt and not included in this computation) but not more than the maximum amount, or $101,640.

In other words, in this example, Medicaid will not pay the nursing home costs until the couple has spent $50,000 because Wife is allowed to keep only half of the $100,000 they had when Husband entered the nursing home.

Is this the end of the story, or can Wife do something to enable her to keep the whole $100,000?

Continue reading “My spouse needs nursing home care; Can I keep all of our money?” →

Fed up with complicated legal language?

On: By: Bill Gatesman

“Whereas, Wherefore, Where art thou?” Did you ever wonder why lawyers use such archaic language in their legal documents? One reason is that lawyers like to stick with tried and true methods. Another reason legal documents tend to be so complex is that lawyers want to be sure to cover all the bases, so they write paragraphs full of synonyms for the same descriptive term just in case one of the synonyms has a slightly different shade of meaning to ensure that the legal document will be effective in all relevant circumstances. But is this really necessary?

The Gatesman Law Office has undertaken the task of simplifying our legal documents. However, we must exercise great care to ensure that our more simple language does not result in a document that fails to cover all the bases. After careful review, we have created a five page, easy to understand Will to accomplish sophisticated estate tax planning that replaces our more archaic fifteen page document.

While there has been a movement in the legal profession that supports the use of “plain language” documents, it does not appear to have caught on with most lawyers. We are doing our best to promote the plain language ideal to simplify matters for our clients.