My mother is getting up there, and she really doesn't have much to retire on. It is quite clear that I will be helping support her. However, in an effort to maximize things like medicare and social security benefits, we wanted to talk to a professional about the kinds of things we can do now that will deflate whatever assets she has and otherwise check the correct boxes to get ahead of any reason she would receive reduced support or be denied support entirely.
To her name, she really only has her house, which is mostly paid off. She works as a caretaker. She was married for over 10 years to someone, so she might possibly be able to draw off those benefits while she waits for her own to maximize (not sure the rules on this, I've seen a good deal of conflicting info).
For example, medicare will look back 5 years to any assets that were given away to induce eligibility for long term care. So one strategy at this point would be to give me the house now, in preparation for such an event. Now, her house does not fall under the rules that would exclude her from long term care support since she lives in it, holds the title and its worth less than 543k. However, that is an example of the kind of advice I am looking for.
Do standard financial planners fall under the kind of professional it would be useful to talk to about this? What other type of adviser? What resources, paid or otherwise, are available? I myself am not too worried about the cost of advice, I would happily pay for good advice. I am just not sure to whom I should turn.
Thanks for reading!
Submitted July 08, 2019 at 11:04PM by FuriousGeorgeGM https://ift.tt/30qrzq2
