How to protect real estate assets if you go on Medicaid in order pay for long term nursing home care.

If you suspect your aunt is going to need to go into a nursing home, you should consult with an Ohio lawyer who practices "medicaid planning." This area of the law looks at a person's assets and helps them plan what to do with those assets so as to minimize the period of disqualification for medicaid that occurs when people give assets away, such as an interest in a home. The price of the consult with the Ohio medicaid-planning lawyer should be well worth it as it may help your aunt to preserve thousands of dollars' worth of assets. One device that Medicaid-planning lawyers sometimes recommend is to have the elderly person give the family home to her child except for to a "life estate" that permits the person to reside there until her death. It was explained to me that this device avoids a period of disqualification for medicaid benefits under medicaid regulations, so it is something for your aunt to look into with an Ohio lawyer. An Ohio-licensed medicaid-planning lawyer will be able to provide details and confirm or disconfirm the accuracy of what I am saying. Go get your aunt a consult! Your local bar association will be able to refer you. Good luck. I am not licensed to practice law in Ohio so the foregoing should not be taken as legal advice, but simply as information based on general principles of law which is intended to educate.