Expert: Dick Dennis - 8/31/2006

Question
My mother has a life estate in a home which my brother and I are joint tenants in common.
She has had to go to a nursing home.
Medicaid is asking us to market her life estate within 30 days with a sign in a obvious location.
What would be the value of a life estate like this?  I can't imagine why anyone would want to buy it.  
They have not provided us with any instructions.
She is 82 with Alzheimers.

Answer
Well, Luci, it is obvious that the person who asked you to "market" the life estate doesn't know his/her elbow from a hole in the ground.

A life estate is only in existence as long as the person to whom the life estate was given is still living in that property. Since your mother no longer lives there, the life estate is no longer in existence.

To put in different words, someone wanted to make sure she would always have a place to live at no cost (in most cases). Some life estates require the owner (not the life estate beneficiary) to do EVERTHING, including property maintenance, taxes, etc.

The life estate beneficiary cannot be evicted or asked to move without her/his permission. When he/she cannot control their own life or moves out and lives elsewhere, then the life estate is no longer in effect. A document to that effect, perhaps created by a real estate attorney, should be recorded against the title of the property.

That would make the title clean later when the property is sold. Go online and look up "life estate" and bring that definition to that "brilliant" person who asked you to market the life estate.

I do wish you well.

Dick Dennis