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Spouse terminally ill; how do I protect our rental property investment; should I remove his name from deed?

If my spouse should be admitted to a nursing home, can I protect our rental property investment by removing his name from the deed? Or will the government force me to sell the property to pay for the nursing home?

Public Comments

1. Make sure you have taken title as "joint tenants", that gives you the right of surviorship show he pass. You should each have a will stating whom will receive your assets. I suggest going to an estate attorney. They can help you set up the estate so you don't pay inhertance taxes and such. It's too important for you in later years.
2. Form an LLC and have it hold ownership. Unfortunately, your spouse probably can not qualify for key person life insurance at this point so you will have to forego that part. Make yourself President of the LLC and you shouldn't have any issues. Double check for laws in your state however.
3. Removing his name from the deed may not help you in the event of medicaid, because it would still be in yours. You could look at moving the asset into a trust, or transferring it to a family member, however medicaid can go back a certain number of years (I think it is 5), and invalidate the transfer if it appears to have been done simply to hide the asset. I know this is a canned answer, but you REALLY need to see an attorney now, because properly planning now will stop financial ruin later.
4. So sorry to hear -- such a hard time for you both. To protect your property and income, form an LLC and transfer ownership of the property to the LLC (a New Mexico LLC is particularly good, & it could own property anywhere in US). You must then establish a separate bank account for the LLC to deposit income and pay expenses. You two also need wills. He needs to execute a "durable power of attorney" so that you can handle matters if he becomes too ill to manage. And he needs a "living will" to prevent wrangling with other family members over life support issues - he will specify exactly what his wishes are.
5. You cannot simply transfer assets out of a persons name to get public aid. There is a lookback period of a number of years that could make him ineligible. And if you are in a community property state, everything is shared between spouses, so transferring it might achieve nothing anyway. They may not force you to sell, but they could put a lein on it so you cannot sell it without paying off whatever his half would cover to the state.