Legal Question in Wills and Trusts in Connecticut

Re: Mother's house

Hello. There are several ways to achieve your mother's goal of passing the house to you. You are correct - given the situation, passing the house through your mother's will might not be the best approach, for several reasons, including the following:

1. If your mother ever needs to be on Medicaid, the house will be considered an asset of hers and could cause some difficulty.

2. Even if the house is deeded to you right now, the Medicaid problem would still exist for the next five years, as Medicaid has a five-year look-back period.

3. If your mother has any other potential heirs and there is a problem with the will, it will not go to you in its entirety.

4. The house will need to go through probate in order to clear your mother's name off of the title after she passes, which will be necessary in order for you to refinance or sell the house.

A couple of other ways to achieve this goal:

1. Like the bank suggested, add you to title and redo the mortgage with both of you on it. This fixes one problem, but does not fix the probate issue. Your mother's estate would still have to be probated in order to clear her name off of title. In Connecticut, the probate process is relatively straightforward, so this might be the best approach. I would still have her will say that you get the house, just to cover all bases.

2. Gift the property outright to you from your mother. This creates another problem - your mother is no longer protected. Also, it sounds like you won't be approved for the mortgage.

3. Create a living trust and place the property inside the trust. This will avoid the probate process, protect your mother, and give the house to you when she passes (as her successor beneficiary). More expensive upfront, but you won't have to pay as much to probate the estate after she dies and title will clear much more quickly. And your mother would not have to refinance the mortgage now, which would save her the cost of closing costs for a refi.

Question:

1. After your mother passes, how will you pay for the mortgage without her income? You want to make sure you're not going to lose the house after all of this. (If your mother has life insurance, the proceeds could be used for paying off the mortgage, paying estate taxes, paying burial costs, etc. )

Hope that helps! There are lots of ways to achieve what you are trying to do - I see this all the time with my clients with elderly parents. It's all a matter of what makes the most sense for you.

Attorney Bartolotta