Seniors and the Law is authored by the attorneys at JacksonWhite
Attorneys at Law and addresses legal issues that arise for the elderly and
their families. Questions can be sent to
firm@jacksonwhitelaw.com.
Q: At
only 66 years of age, my husband had to move to an assisted living community
where he could receive care for early onset Alzheimer’s disease. To make ends meet, he applied for ALTCS,
which now covers most of his monthly care costs. As part of that process, I learned that his
eligibility was contingent upon me having no more than a certain amount of
resources. Now, several years later, I
want to sell my home, but I fear it will cause my husband to lose eligibility
for ALTCS. Is there anything I can do?
A very
general answer to your question is that, yes, there probably is something you
can do here. In fact, depending on
whether you did any planning prior to applying for the ALTCS program, it is
possible that you can sell the home and keep all of the proceeds in your name,
without regard to any requirement to which you adhered during the application
process. The reason for this flexibility
stems from what is referred to as post-eligibility rules.
In short,
there are two different sets of rules that apply to the ALTCS eligibility
process – initial rules and post-eligibility rules. The initial rules limit the amount of
resources that a well-spouse can keep, and they apply during the application
process. Post-eligibility rules, on the
other hand, eliminate the inquiry into a well-spouse’s resources, and they
begin to apply after the ALTCS application is approved.
Depending
on your particular situation, and on whether you did any planning at the outset
of this process, it is likely that the home is already in your name only. If you were to sell the home for a
significant profit, you could keep the proceeds from the sale without
jeopardizing your husband’s eligibility, as long as those proceeds remained in
your name.
Richard White is an elder law attorney at
JacksonWhite Attorneys at Law. For more
information on Elder Law at JacksonWhite, please visit www.ArizonaSeniorLaw.com.
This article is
provided for informational purposes only and is not intended to replace
individual legal advice.
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