Estate planning

My parents in their late 70's own their home and vehicle, but have incurred a large amount of credit card debt. Our mother has had a stroke and may need to enter a nursing care facility in the near future. How do we best protect the one asset they have and avoid having to sell the house to pay for a nursing home. Is there a time limit as to transferring the asset out of my parents name before they can receive state aid/medicare for nursing home cost? We live in the state of Idaho.

I do not know Idaho law but all states have laws designed to protect the public treasury. People should pay for their own care before the government uses tax dollars, thus there are 3-4 year time limits to keep them from transferring assets. This is always tricky, and people need a lawyer if they want to set things up to get the government to pay.

YOU CANT......Its too late, the only thing you can do is have them sign over the house to the hospital and agree to let your father live there till he dies or goes into a home.

the house is probably not worth that much since $50-75,000 can be used up paying for a nursing home in a year or two.

And even if they declare bankruptcy they still have to get a home equity loan out of the house to pay off the credit cards, abit at a MUCH lower interest rate.

So this should have been talked about 5 years ago.

[Edited by djdj on 02-09-2001 at 11:55 PM]