Money Manners: Don’t foist mom’s care onto taxpayers

Question: My mother is failing mentally and at some point will need to move into a nursing home or assisted-living facility. Meanwhile, my brother, on the advice of an estate-planning attorney, wants us to put all of her assets into some sort of special trust that would enable her to qualify for government assistance at a care facility, while allowing her to leave her house and her money to her children. I guess I believe him when he says this is what smart people do. But can this really be right?

Answer: Forget about smart people. What do ethical people do?

What they don’t do is dump the cost of their mother’s care on their fellow taxpayers, not when Mom has the resources to pay for it herself.

You and your brother shouldn’t dishonor her and yourselves by hiding her resources in order to line your own pockets.

There’s a word for what you propose, and the word isn’t “smart.”

Question: My father has decided he wants the lakefront home he’s leaving me to always remain in our family. I’m in my second marriage, and my children are from the first. So Dad’s revising his will to see that the property goes to my children or grandchildren upon my death. Since we live in a community property state, I feel Dad and his lawyer are circumventing the law to keep the house away from my husband. Isn’t this wrong?

Answer: In a word, no. Your father’s house is not part of your and your husband’s community property. It belongs to your dad, and he has a right to leave it to whomever he pleases and subject to whatever conditions he wishes.

Question: My wife and I are selling our home, and we’ve just received two offers That are $5,000 apart. Of course we want to accept the higher one, but it comes from a family with two dogs who are incessant barkers (the dogs were tied up in our yard each time the family went through the house, and they never quieted down). Do my wife and I have an obligation to our next-door neighbors, who are our good friends, to turn down the higher offer so as to spare them the barking?


Answer: How do you know the low bidders are not without a commensurate, but as yet undiscovered, flaw. But you are under no obligation to pass up $5,000 in order to protect them from the dog owners. What you could do is share your concern with your neighbors and see if they’re interested in making up the difference between the two offers.

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