My grandmother was on Medicaid when she passed.
Because she had a transfer at death deed filed, her home automatically transferred to me upon her death. I received a letter from MERP with a bill of over $130,000 which needs to be paid.
Since the house is excluded from recovery all that is left is her personal belongings, furniture, and contents of the house.
If I advertise and hold an estate sell, and send all proceeds to MERP will that close out the account?
What else do I need to do to close it out?
Did you send this info to the outside contractor for MERP in response to the NOI (Notice of Intent) and within the required time frame?
Has the title actually changed & recorded? If so did the courthouse ask for any paperwork beyond that Lady Bird? (And as an aside on this, is the house in a real rural county?)
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You didn’t opened probate (as in theory house transfers outside of probate), right? but did you file to get the MERP lien lifted (its like a Release document) from the State? Not with the outside contractor for MERP up in Irving but Medicaid legal central in Austin? You kinda have to have this done to get clear title (unless your doing probate and get it transferred via an order). MERPs $135K will not show up on the recordings attached to the property at the courthouse necessarily (like a mortgage or HELOC does) but will be a more subterranean lien. Title companies know to look for. Without the clearance, the title will be cloudy should property need to be sold via a mortgage or you need lending on it or you put it up for collateral. This may not matter to you now but may matter later. Normally the atty who did the Lady bird initially does the follow up on the filings, transfer, estate recovery letters as there’s details that need to be just right & really not a DIY.
fwiw Lady Bird Deeds are a very specific type of TOD / transfer on death deed. It’s also called an Enhanced Benefit Deed (& it has nothing to do with assets of LBJ but their names were used in an example by a FL atty in the 1980’s and it stuck). It’s like 6 states that do them (the more property rights states) and each State has its own lil requirements as to validity. Like MI (Stacy’s state) allow for one to be done at any time… even after Medicaid applied for. But TX doesn’t allow this.
Now on the household stuff, here’s my suggestions:
- simplest is get the atty to deal with this
but if that’s not feasible….
- probate court should have a generic document for “assets of the Estate”. Get it and it’s your template.
- You’d do a listing on the contents of the home and with a value that’s a “standard”. Goodwill has a list of $ value on goods. You can use that. Take photos of the rooms and then use the goodwill price point to base the value and make all this a “asset document”.
- Add it all up, do a document with photos & get it notarized.
- if it’s under 10k do a Xerox on all of it and send up to MERP and ask for a waiver to recovery.
But
- if it’s over 10K - and if she had a ranch with equipment or extensive collection of something, autos, it will be - the $ is subject to recovery & in that letter you are asking how to proceed and need an response within 30 days of receipt of the certified letter sent to them and if not received then you are having a tag sale and donating the $ to a charity.
10K is the federal cost benefit point for recovery.
the transfer at death deed was prepared by an attorney and file with the courthouse. This was done in 2017
she had been receiving Medicaid benefits since 2005.
after her passing in 2021 an affidavit of death was filed as the second step in this process which transferred the title to me both at the courthouse and with the tax appraisal district.
copies of both documents were provided to MERP.
She had a will but these documents supersede the will.
she had no other real property requiring probate. No savings.
all that is left are her personal belongings and collectively they will be under $5000.
I hope forum writer "Igloo" see this posting as she knows the ins and out of Medicaid.
If a TODD has been set-up for an owner of real property, that property would also benefit from being classified as “non-probate property” and therefore be protected from MERP.
My question is about how to close out the account through an estate sale of her personal belongings.