Answer: Your daughter's contract should be in force just as it has been all along. Either the property owner is still handling her own affairs, or else someone else has been appointed to do it. If your daughter can find the name of the owner's attorney, she may get some information there. Otherwise, she should talk with her own lawyer, who can find out exactly whom she should be dealing with.
Mother Is Worried
Dear Edith: Our mother is 90, in good health and lives in her own home unassisted, as she has for 15 years since Dad passed away. The small house is probably 100 years old and kept in good repair. She has the house and some small CDs as assets.
Lately she has become concerned about the house being "taken" if she should need nursing home care, and wonders what she ought to do, if anything. The house is in her name, and she has left it to her granddaughter and to me in her will. Do you have suggestions for us? -- K.G., Henrietta
Answer: Your mother's question should be taken to a lawyer who specializes in estate planning or in elder law. If she's thinking about qualifying for Medicaid to pay for health care, she should know that the "lookback" period has been extended to five years. That means if she applied for help, assets she gave you during the preceding five years would be counted as if she still owned them.
Some people feel it wouldn't be so wrong for her own money to be spent on her own care. Medicaid is, after all, a form of welfare. At any rate, a professional who specializes in such matters can explain what options are open to her and what the drawbacks might be.