Attorney Thomas B. Burton answers a reader question about whether holding her assets inside of a Revocable Living Trust in Wisconsin will protect them from being used to pay for her nursing home care.
Transcript of Video: With a Revocable Living Trust Are All My Assets Protected From the Nursing Home?
Today's question comes from Somerset
Wisconsin and it
is the following with the revocable
living trust are all my investments
protected if I went into a nursing home
can they take all my assets so this is a
very important question and I'm glad you
brought it up the short answer is with a
revocable living trust it's not going to
provide you with asset protection for
nursing home purposes revocable living
trusts are great for incapacity planning
and for probate avoidance meaning
avoiding probate court at debt but they
do not provide Medicaid asset protection
if you want a trust that will protect
your asset in order for you to qualify
for Medicaid or prevent the nursing home
from going after those assets you're
going to want what we call an
irrevocable trust now in order to do any
of this type of planning there's a five
year look-back period so you need to do
the planning five years before the date
that you plan to enter the nursing home
and need Medicaid assistance if you have
a revocable living trust that's dated
before August 1, 2014 there is some
limited protections that are available
to trust that were made before that date
now I dropped a trust before that date
and I've seen them and if a client has
when I always advise them about this
date however it does not mean all the
assets are protected it's just right now
the state of Wisconsin says for any
trust after August 1, 2014
revocable trusts they're going to go
after those assets in a state recovery
just like they would with a will or
anything else for trust before that date
for right now they're saying those
assets they will not go after them for a
state recovery purposes however those
assets will still be countable to you
when you try to qualify for Medicaid so
watch some of my other videos if you
want to get into the distinctions
between qualifying for
Medicaid and Medicaid asset protection
but the short answer is if you want that
nursing home protection you're going to
want to talk with a qualified state
planning and elder law attorney about an
irrevocable trust to protect your asset
so great question and thank you for
asking.
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Transcript and captions provided for ease of access for the hearing impaired.
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