“Vest Pocket” Deed Is Valid to Transfer Family Farmland
OCTOBER 25, 2010 VOLUME 17 NUMBER 33 It has been a while since we wrote about “vest pocket” deeds. That reflects the reality that they are more common in fiction and mythology than in the real world of legal proceedings, but they occasionally do crop up. The problems of validity and effect can involve lawyers […]
Reciprocal Wills Enforceable After Death of One Spouse
JULY 26, 2010 VOLUME 17, NUMBER 23 Imagine a couple, each married for the second time. Perhaps each has children from a first marriage. Perhaps the couple has been married for years — even decades. They think of all the children as “their” children, even though they fully understand that the other spouse’s children are […]
Mother Sues Son Over Transfer of Home and Bank Accounts
MARCH 15, 2004 VOLUME 11, NUMBER 37 Louise Friar worried about what would happen to her modest estate if she ever needed to go into a nursing home. She owned her home, and she had two certificates of deposit that represented her life savings. Whether she got the idea from friends, professional advisors, her own […]
Purchase of Life Interest Does Not Gain Medicaid Coverage
JULY 7, 2003 VOLUME 11, NUMBER 1 Qualifying a family member for Medicaid assistance with the cost of nursing home care can be complicated. When Pat Monroe’s mother went into a nursing home in Arkansas, Ms. Monroe had a clever idea: she had her mother buy an interest in her own home. Unfortunately for her […]
Purchase of Life Estate Does Not Gain Medicaid Eligibility
MARCH 3, 2003 VOLUME 10, NUMBER 35 Stella Thompson was living alone in Virginia when she developed a serious leg infection requiring that she be admitted to a nursing home. Her sister Josephine Greene moved her to Florida, into a nursing home near Ms. Greene’s home, and applied for Medicaid assistance with the cost of […]
State Must Formally Adopt Its Medicaid Estate Recovery Rules
JANUARY 27, 2003 VOLUME 10, NUMBER 30 In our American system of government the legislature is in charge of making law and policy, and the administrative branch’s job is to interpret and implement those laws without imposing the bureaucrats’ own ideas on the legislature’s programs. That ideal conception, however, runs afoul of the reality of […]