Legal Question in Elder Law in New York

Re: supplemental needs trust

Bottom line is that since mom is already on Medicaid there's probably very little you can do now to "save" the apartment. It's probably too late. If the lien has already been placed on the property, you probably can't record a deed transfer to a trust anyway. And if a lien hasn't been placed on the property yet, it's unlikely the DSS would allow you to make the transfer to a SNT. But each county in New York has their own guidelines, and each has discretion as to how they interpret the rules. Each county is different too with respect to how aggressive they are in recovering their costs after the death of the Medicaid recipient. So don't give up hope, but don't get your hopes too high either. Unfortunately, as you know, Medicaid planning became a lot more difficult after the Deficit Reduction Act was passed, and I'm afraid your situation may be right in the crosshairs of why the law was enacted in the first place, which (in part) is to recover costs the government has paid. I'm sure you hardly need me to tell you, which I will anyway, that this is a very technical area of the law, and you need to sit down with someone and go over all the facts to see what can be done. I hope you do so.

Good luck.

Rick Bryan

New York, NY