Medicaid and the Living Trust

Durable Power Of Attorney - Medicaid and the Living Trust

Good afternoon. Yesterday, I learned about Durable Power Of Attorney - Medicaid and the Living Trust. Which is very helpful to me and you. Medicaid and the Living Trust

You've probably gotten a postcard or seen an ad for a seminar on "Living Trusts" and all the benefits they supposedly offer you. Basically, a Living Trust is a trust you create and fund while your life and which you keep the ability to convert and revoke at any time. They have their place and can be quite useful, in the right circumstances, but the interrogate of today is whether they are beneficial if you may be applying for Medicaid.

What I said. It isn't the final outcome that the actual about Durable Power Of Attorney. You look at this article for information about an individual need to know is Durable Power Of Attorney.

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The problem with Living Trusts for someone applying for Medicaid is that everything titled in the name of the Living Trust is considered an available asset, even if it was exempt face of the Living Trust. For instance, your home is exempt (up to 0,000), but if you deed it into your Living Trust, it suddenly loses its exemption. That alone can cause you to come to be ineligible for Medicaid, forcing you to deed your house out of the Trust back into your own name. The same would be true of your car or even your other personal property.

Now bank accounts and investments can certainly be titled in the name of the Living Trust, since such assets are countable whether they are titled in your name or in the Trust's name. However, if you are single, you will have to spend down those assets in any case, in order to qualify for Medicaid, so that's a dubious benefit.

Since you basically have to withdraw all the Trust assets and retitle them back into your own name, as you can see it makes certainly no sense to pay an attorney to create a Living Trust for you if you are singular and facing long-term care, and if you think that you may need or want to apply for Medicaid at some point.

If you are married, it is inherent for the society Spouse (i.e., the spouse not in the nursing home) to have assets titled in the name of a Living Trust, but there is usually limited advantage to doing so in a state like Colorado which has relatively inexpensive and easy probate procedures.

As a matter of fact, there is a type of trust that the society Spouse can set up to be funded after the death of the society Spouse, which can hold assets for the advantage of the nursing home spouse yet not count against that spouse's Medicaid eligibility. However, such a trust cannot be used in a Living Trust and can only be used in a Will.

So the lesson of all this is that Living Trusts may be beneficial for general estate planning purposes but are inappropriate--or worse--in a Medicaid planning situation.

I hope you get new knowledge about Durable Power Of Attorney. Where you possibly can offer easy use in your daily life. And just remember, your reaction is passed about Durable Power Of Attorney.