Lawyer Visit: 2002-01-04
From audio journal episode: 2002-01-05-02-20.
06:00 PM: Mom and I visited her lawyer this afternoon and found out some interesting things. We learned that since she has a pension of only just over $3K a month for the rest of her life, that would make the scenario of the nursing home asking for the money that she’d get by selling her house to me very unlikely. They might deny her medicaid services for a certain number of months, to use up those assets. W we don’t have to worry about the nursing facility putting a lien on the estate in order to secure her medical care. Her pension will provide what she needs.Â
Also, we need not worry about Mom’s live-in friend taking the propertybecause the two of them are not really in a common law relationship, because they do not advertise their togetherness, as a couple. They’re just roommates. They do not file tax returns jointly and do not share a checking account. They do not have both of their names on any bills here at the house that I’m aware of. Thus, they’re not representing themselves as lovers.Â
Further more, the lawyer said that in PA, common law relationships are, sort of, viewed with disdain by judges. It’s quite hard to substantiate them in a judge’s eyes. So Mom’s roommate being granted ownership of the should Mom die while he’s living here, is extremely unlikely. This is another good reason therefore, why she should keep the property in her name until she passes.Â
The third reason — protecting myself from having the property sold right out from underneath me — we do have some options. In fact, the lawyer is going to come up with a contract that Mom and I are going to sign. This would basically say that upon Mom’s death, I’ll be allowed to live here for a certain amount of time, which we have yet to determine, without being compelled to sell it or buy my sisters out. Then, at whatever the end of that time is, I’d get the option to buy out my sisters or to move out. Or, if Mom dies, I could either rent out my trailer, or rent out the house and have some money for food and property upkeep coming in each month. Either way, thre are lots of options, and as we discussed, I don’t believe that my sisters would force me to sell the house if I was unable to afford it. One sister might, and so to keep the peace, I might at least have to buy her out and give her her share. But none of the other sisters would require this. So I feel much better that the lawyer answered a lot of our questions today.Â
Now one thing that she (the lawyer) did suggest was that I might have trouble securing a mortgage because of where we’d like to put the trailer (in a flood plane). But I don’t believe that this will be a big issue it seems that the township would have said something to us if locating the trailer there is very unusual. The bank might require me to carry flood insurance, which I think would cost $600 to $700 per year. That would amount to $60 per month. But I’ll have to talk to some banks and find out the specific details.
So the next part of this process is to visit the mobile home seller again and choose a trailer. I might go a little cheaper than I first imagined two years ago. I’d like the home to have the same space as I wanted back in 2000 but don’t need all those amenities like a hot tub and skylights. But I’ll look into it further and see what I can realistically afford. But I’m thrilled because we made some definite progress today.Â
Oh, I’m also going to have a will drawn up, but will get to this during another visit.
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