Florida Transfer of Assets Rules
Transfer of assets is the conveyance of anything valuable from one place, situation, or person to another. Persons are generally entitled to transferring assets to anyone they desire according to the laws, despite of the reasons. These may be wills, gifts, or trusts. The statistics shows that people who transfer properties and money to secure government funded nursing care keeps on increasing. Most of them also evade paying creditors or Internal Revenue Services. Nevertheless, the federal and state law forbids transfers defrauding creditors. Therefore, the change of ownership reduces or eliminates the person’s control of the assets immediately.
The transfer of assets rules applies to;
- Resources- any property, liquid resources, annuity, or the funds that is owned by a person or the spouse that is agreed to be given away, sold for lesser price, or used to secure a promissory note, mortgage, loan, or life estate.
- Income- unearned or earned income that includes a lump sum amount, of a person and the spouse that can be transferred to a different individual.
Asset transfer rules
The applicant may be having only $2,000 and exempted assets to be considered eligible for the Medicaid. The well spouse may be entitled to $126,300 with an exempted property in addition. Incase the couple has a higher amount, they may decide to transfer some of these assets. Therefore, transfer of asset is situation that the applicant or a well spouse decide to transfer his/her assets to a different person other than his/her known spouse, without getting fair transfer consideration. The applicant automatically becomes ineligible for Medicaid for a given period of time.
Penalty period
The penalty period is that period of time where the person transferring assets will be ineligible for this Medicaid. This penalty period is always determined by dividing amount that is transferred by what the Medicaid determines as an average private cost to be payed for nursing home in your area. A person that applies for Medicaid is expected to disclose all financial transactions involved during set period of time. This period is known as a look-back period. Penalty period that is created by transfer within look-back period will never begin until;
- Individual making transfer is in a nursing home
- He spent down to asset limit for Medicaid
- Applied for Medicaid coverage
- Has approval for the coverage but transfer
Look-Back Period
The maximum time that the DCAF is legally allowed to look-back at the transfer of assets is known as the look-back, which is currently 60 months. Therefore, it is imperatively scrutinized closely especially when the situation involves living trust.
Kindly contact The Mattar Firm for more inquiries, questions, or clarifications about transfer of asset rules. Feel free to contact one of our asset protection attorneys; we are here to serve you!