Case Examples

It's Never Too Late

Lori became a Medi-Cal recipient and entered a nursing home about 8 years ago when she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. She and her husband Dave owned a home together in joint-tenancy. After Lori entered the nursing home, a lawyer who was unfamiliar with Medi-Cal planning advised the couple to change the joint-tenancy on their home to community property and told Dave to create a living trust for Dave’s half-interest in the home. Dave died unexpectedly a few years later from a heart attack. Around the same time, Lori’s dementia worsened to the point where she could no longer speak or recognize her family members. Dave’s death came as a surprise to his children. They had always assumed that their mother would die before their father since she was the one in the nursing home. Lori’s children discovered that the state would assert an estate-claim on their mother’s interest in the house upon her death in order to reimburse Medi-Cal for the benefits that Lori had received. Assuming that they could do nothing to avoid the estate claim, Lori’s children did not seek legal advice and took no further actions. Instead, their mother passed away and the state claimed reimbursement of the $120,000 the state paid in Medi-Cal benefits.

Lori’s children could have prevented the states’ estate claim had they consulted an elder law attorney before their mother’s death. An elder law attorney would have advised them to file a petition with the Superior court asking the court to appoint one of them as Lori’s conservator and another petition asking the court to grant the conservator the authority to transfer Lori’s interest in the family home to her children. This transfer would have left Lori with no ownership interest in the home when she died, thereby allowing her to avoid the $120,000 estate claim.

For more information on estate claims and the petitions discussed above, click here.