I own the home my parents live in and I gift to them a combined $26,000 each year. These funds are used to pay their health insurance supplement, long-term care policies, and living expenses. We are looking at moving them to an apartment with services, and if needed they will eventually go into a nursing home. How will this affect their eligibility for Medicaid if and when they ever go into a nursing home? They each receive Social Security, which gives them a combined net income of $1,800 a month. They have no other pension or income and do not own any assets. Because I have been gifting them funds to help support them, will I then be obligated to pay for their nursing home care? 

My mother's life insurance policy was purchased to benefit my disabled sister, who receives Social Security disability benefits. My mother is applying for Medicaid and the policy's value is too high.  She needs to spend down the policy in order to qualify, but this will leave my sister with nothing. Is it possible to transfer the policy's cash value to my sister so that my mother can qualify for Medicaid? 

My mother has had financial issues for the past nine years. Over the course of that time, I have: loaned her money (that has yet to be repaid); provided for her room and board for a period of 18 months; and paid for services, supplies, and tools during the renovation of her house. She recently sold the house and purchased a condo. The original understanding was that the condo would be deeded to me to repay me for my expenditures on her behalf. After learning more about the Medicaid look-back, we're concerned that this may jeopardize this plan, as she is starting to get to an age when she could need extended care at any time. Could this repayment bypass the look-back considering it's to satisfy a debt instead of a being a gift? 

If a person has two power of attorney (POA) forms dated at different times to two different people and neither has anything in it regarding voiding the prior POA, is the more recent one valid? Both were drawn up by an attorney. 

A husband and wife sold their condo. The husband is a Medicaid recipient who moved into a nursing home a month before the sale. Can the husband transfer his share from the sale to his wife and still be eligible for Medicaid? 

My father-in-law lives in Indiana and has contracted with a home care agency to provide daily home care. We learned yesterday that he gave $3,000 to one of the women who cares for him so that she could buy herself a car. He has also bought her some clothes. He is 82 years old and in bad health. We also learned that there were some inappropriate texts from the caregiver. Are there laws against caregivers accepting large gifts? Should that be in the contract that he signed with the home care agency? Does he have recourse to recoup the money he gave the caregiver to purchase a car? The caregiver is not related to him or the family and is an employee hired to provide care. 

I received money from a lawsuit and have not transferred it to anyone else. I haven't saved receipts for what I have spent it on. Now I have to go into a nursing home. Will Medicaid penalize me through the five-year look back?

You aren't technically required to hire a lawyer to draft a will, but failing to do so could lead to costly problems for your family and other heirs.

While collecting Social Security benefits may seem straightforward, there are actually several strategies for collecting benefits -- especially if you are married -- that can increase your retirement benefits.

For a variety of reasons, people sometimes want some or all of their assets to pass directly to specific individuals upon their deaths, outside of probate.  POD and TOD accounts are one way to accomplish this.

Is your family of the “Leave It to Beaver” variety -- opposite-gender parents, the first marriage for each, one or more kids, all healthy and thriving? If so, your estate plan will probably be pretty straightforward. But if not, it's not as