How To Protect Assets From The Nursing Home

When a family member has a health event that requires them to enter a nursing home or need full-time home health care, it can be an extremely stressful financial event for their spouse, children, grandchildren, or caretaker.  The monthly cost of a nursing home is typically between $10,000 - $15,000 per month and without advanced planning it often requires a family to spend through almost all of their assets before they qualify for Medicaid. 

As we all live longer, we become more frail in our 80’s and 90’s, which increases the probability of a long term care event occurring.  Many individuals that we meet with have already experienced a long term care event with their parent or grandparents and they have seen first hand the painful process of watching them spend through all of their assets.  For couples that are married, it can leave the spouse that is not in need of care in a very difficult financial situation as pensions, social security, and martial assets have to be pledged toward the cost of the care for their spouse.  For individuals and widows, the burden is placed on their family or friends to scramble to liquidate assets, access personal financial records, and watch the inheritance for their heirs be depleted in a very short period of time. 

I often ask my clients this simple question, “Would you rather your house and assets go to your kids or go to the nursing home?”  As you would guess, most people say “my kids”.  With enough advanced planning you have that choice and today I’m going to walk you through some of the strategies that we use with our clients to protect assets from long term care events. 

Strategies Vary State By State

Since the Medicaid rules vary from state to state, the strategies that I'm presenting in this article can be used by New York State residents. However, if you are resident of another state, this article will still help you to understand asset protection strategies that are commonly used but you should consult with an elder law expert in your state to determine the appropriate application of these strategies. 

Long Term Care Insurance

While having a long term care insurance policy in place is ideal because if a long term event occurs it pays out and covers the cost, there are a number of challenges associated with long-term care insurance including: 

• Insurance companies will rarely issue policies after you reach age 70

• If you have any issues within your health history, they may not issue you a policy

• The cost of the policies can be expensive

It’s not uncommon for a good long-term care insurance policy to cost an individual between $4,000 and $6,000 per year.  The reason why the insurance is more expensive than other types of insurance is there is a high likelihood that if you live past age 65, at some point you will experience a long term care event.  Insurance companies don’t like that. Insurance companies like issuing policies for events that have a low probability of occurring, similar to life insurance.  In addition, when these long term care policies pay out, they pay out big dollar amounts because the costs are so high.  For these reasons, long-term care insurance policies have become more of a luxury item instead of a common solution that is used by individuals and family to protect their assets from a long term care event.

So if you don’t have a long-term care insurance policy, what can you do to protect your assets from a long-term event? 

Establish A Medicaid Trust

If an individual does not have a long term care insurance policy to help protect against the cost of a long term care event, the next strategy to consider is setting up a Medicaid Trust to own their non-retirement assets.  Non-retirement assets can include a house, investment account, stocks, non-qualified annuities, permanent life insurance policies, and other assets not held within a Traditional IRA or other type of pre-tax retirement account.  This is how the strategy works: 

• Establish a Medicaid Trust

• Transfer assets from the individual’s name into the name of the trust

• Assets are held in the trust for at least 5 years

• The individual experiences a long term care event requiring them to enter a nursing home

• Since the trust has owned the assets for more than 5 years, they are no longer countable assets, the individual can automatically qualify for Medicaid as long as their assets outside of the trust are below the asset allowance threshold; Medicaid pays the nursing home for their care, and the trust assets are preserved for the spouse and their heirs.

Medicaid 5 Year Look Back Period

In New York, Medicaid has a 5 year look back period.  The 5 year look back period was put into place to prevent individuals from gifting away all of their assets right before or after they experience a long term care event in an effort to qualify for Medicaid.  In 2020, New York requires residents to spend down all of their countable assets until they are below the $15,750 asset allowance threshold.  Once below that level, the individual qualifies for Medicaid, and Medicaid will pay the nursing home costs.  When an individual submits a Medicaid application, they request 5 years worth of financial records. If that individual gave any asset away within the last five years, whether it’s to a person or a trust, those asset will be brought back in as “countable assets” required to be spent down before the individual will qualify for Medicaid. 

Example:  Jim is 88 years old and has $100,000 in his savings account. His health is beginning to deteriorate and he gifts $90,000 to his kids in an effort to reduce his assets to qualify for Medicaid.  Two years later Jim has a stroke requiring him to enter a nursing home, and only has $10,000 in his savings account.  When he applies for Medicaid, they will request 5 years worth of his bank records and discover that he gifted $90,000 away to his kids two years ago.  That $90,000 is a countable asset subject to spend down even though he no longer has it.  But it gets worse, his kids spent the $90,000, so they are unable to return the $90,000 to Jim. Jim is not eligible for Medicaid and there is no cash available to pay for his care. 

Medicaid Trust Strategy

For the Medicaid Trust strategy to work, the assets have to be put into the trust 5 years prior to submission of the Medicaid application.  Once the assets are owned by the trust for more than 5 years, regardless of the dollar value in the trust, it’s no longer a countable asset, and the individual can automatically qualify for Medicaid. 

Example: At age 84, Jim sets up an Medicaid trust, and moves $90,000 of his $100,000 in cash into the trust.  At age 90, Jim has a stroke requiring him to enter a nursing home, but now since the assets were in the trust for more than 5 years, he is no longer required to spend down the $90,000, and he qualifies for Medicaid. That $90,000 is now reserved for his kids who are the beneficiaries of the trust. 

Establishing a trust instead of gifting assets away to family members can help to preserve those assets against the situation where the individual does not make it past the 5 year look back period and the money gifted has already been spent by the beneficiaries. 

How Do Medicaid Trusts Work?

Medicaid trusts are considered “irrevocable trusts” which means when you move assets into the trust you technically do not own them anymore.  By setting up a trust, you are essentially establishing an entity, with it’s own Tax ID, to own your assets.  The thought of giving away assets often scares individuals away for setting up these trusts but it shouldn’t.   Estate attorneys often include language in the trust documents to offer some flexibility.  Before I go into some examples, I first want to define some trust terms: 

Grantor:  The grantor is the person that currently owns the assets and is now gifting it (or transferring it) into their trust.  If for example, you are doing this planning for your parents, they would be the “grantors” of the trust. 

Trustee:  The trustee is the individual or individual(s) that are responsible for managing the assets owned by the trust.  This is typically not the grantor.  The reason being is if you gift your assets to a trust but you still have full control of it, the question arises, have you really given it away?   In most cases, the grantor will designate one or more of their children as trustees.  The trustees are responsible for carrying out the terms of the trust 

Beneficiaries:   The beneficiaries of the trust are the individuals that are entitled to receive the assets typically after the grantor or grantors have passed away. It’s common for the beneficiaries of the trust to be the same as the beneficiaries listed in a person’s will. 

Access to Income

When you gift assets to a Medicaid trust, you technically no longer have access to the principle, but grantors still have access to any “income” generated by the trust assets.  This is most easily explained as an example. 

Mark & Sarah have traditional IRA’s, their primary residence, and an investment account with a value of $200,000.  They do not anticipate needing to access the $200,000 to supplement their income and want to protect that asset from a long term care event so they know that their kids will inherit it.  They establish a Medicaid trust with their two children designated a co-trustees and they move the ownership of the house and the $200,000 investment account into the name of the trust.  If the holdings in the $200,000 investment account are producing dividend and interest income, Mark & Sarah are allowed to receive that income each year because they always have access to the income generated by the trust, they just can’t access the principal portion of the trust assets. 

Revoke Part Of The Trust

Estate attorneys may also build in a feature which allows the trustees to “revoke“ all or a portion of the trust assets.  Let’s build on the Mark & Sarah example above: 

Mark and Sarah gift their house and the $200,000 investment account to their Medicaid trust but two years later Sarah incurs an unforeseen medical event and they need access to $50,000.  Since the trustee was given the power to revoke all or a portion of the trust asset, the trustee works with the estate attorney to revoke $50,000 of the trust assets in the investment account and send it to the grantors (Mark & Sarah).  The $150,000 remaining in the investment account continues to work toward that 5 year look back period, and Mark & Sarah have the money they need for the medical expenses. 

Gifts To The Beneficiaries

An alternative solution to the same scenario listed above is that the trustees can be given the power to gift assets to the beneficiaries while the grantors are still alive.  Essentially the trustees, who are often also the beneficiaries of the trust, gift themselves assets from the trust, and then turn around and gift those assets back to the grantors.  In the Mark & Sarah example above, instead of revoking part of the trust assets, their children, who are the trustees, gift $50,000 to themselves, and then turn around and gift $50,000 to their parents (Mark & Sarah) to pay their medical bills. But with gifting powers, you really have to trust the individuals that are serving as trustees of your Medicaid trust because they cannot be required to gift the money back to the grantor. 

Putting Your House In The Trust

It's common for individuals to think:  “Well all I have is my house, I don’t have any investment accounts, so there is no point in setting up a trust because my house is always protected.”  That's incorrect.  If you own your house and you experience a long term care event: 

• Your primary residence is not a countable assets for Medicaid eligibility and you can qualify for Medicaid while still owning your house

• Medicaid cannot force you to sell your house while you or your spouse are still alive and then spend down those assets for your care

However, and this is super important, even though your primary residence is not a countable asset and they can't force you to sell it while you or your spouse are still alive, Medicaid can put a LIEN against your house for the amount that they pay the nursing home for your care.  So when you or your spouse pass away, the value of your house is included in your estate, Medicaid will force the estate to sell the house and they will recapture the amount that they paid for your care. 

Example:  Linda’s husband Tim passed away three years ago and she is the surviving spouse.  Her only asset is the primary residence that she lives in worth $250,000 with no mortgage. Linda has a stroke and is required to enter a nursing home. Because she has no other assets besides her primary residence, she qualifies for Medicaid, and Medicaid pays for the cost of her care at the nursing home.  Linda passes away 2 year later.  During that two year period in the nursing home, Medicaid paid $260,000 for her care.  Linda's children, who were expecting to inherit the house when she passed away, now find out that Medicaid has a lien against the house for $260,000; meaning when they sell the house, the full $250,000 goes directly to Medicaid, and the kids receive nothing. 

If Linda had put the house into a Medicaid trust 5 years prior to her stroke, she would have immediately qualified for Medicaid, but Medicaid would not be entitled to put a lien against her primary residence. When she passes away, since the house is owned by the trust, there is no probate, and her children receive the full value of the house. 

Again, the way I phrase this to my clients is, would you rather your kids inherit your house or would you rather it go to the nursing home?  With some advance planning you have a choice. 

The Cost of Setting Up A Trust

The other factor that has scared some people away from setting up a Medicaid trust is the setup cost.  It’s not uncommon for an estate attorney to charge between $3,000 - $8,000 to setup a Medicaid trust. But in the example that we just looked at above with Linda, you are spending $5,000 today to setup a trust, that is going to potentially protect an asset worth $250,000. 

The next objection, “well what if I spend the money setting up the trust and I don’t make it past the 5 year look back period?”   If that’s the case, the $5,000 that you spent on setting up the trust is just $5,000 less that nursing home is going to receive for your care.  To qualify for Medicaid, you have to spend down your assets below the $15,750 threshold so if you have countable assets above that amount, you would have lost the money to nursing home anyway. 

Countable Assets

I have mentioned the term “countable assets” a few times throughout this article; countable assets are the assets that are subject to that Medicaid spend down.   Instead of going through the long list of assets that are countable it's easier to explain which assets are NOT countable.  The value of your primary residence is not a countable asset even though it's subject to the lien.   Pre-tax retirement accounts such as Traditional IRA’s and 401(k) plans are not countable assets.   Pre-paid funeral expenses up to a specific dollar threshold are also not a countable asset. Outside of those three assets, almost everything else is a countable asset. 

Retirement Accounts

As I just mentioned above, pre-tax retirement accounts are not subject to the Medicaid spend down, however, Medicaid does require you to take required minimum distributions (RMD’s) from those pre-tax retirement accounts each year and contribute those directly to the cost of your care. Notice that I keep saying “pre-tax”, that’s because Roth IRA’s are countable assets subject to spend down.  If you have $100,000 in a Roth IRA, Medicaid will require you to spend down that account until you reach the $15,750 in total countable assets qualifying you for Medicaid. 

Pensions & Social Security

You can use Medicaid trusts to protect assets but they cannot be used to protect “income”.  Monthly pension payments and Social Security income are subject to the Medicaid income threshold.  For individuals that are single or widowed, your income has to below $875 per month in 2020 to qualify for Community Medicaid and below $50 per month for Chronic Care Medicaid.  If an individual is receiving social security, pensions, or other income sources above that threshold, all of that income automatically goes toward their care. 

If you are married and your spouse is the one that has entered the nursing home, you are considered the “community spouse”.  As the community spouse you are allowed to keep $3,216 per month in income. 

Example:  Rob and Tracey are married, Rob just entered the nursing home, but Tracey is still living in their primary residence. Their monthly income is as follows: 

Rob Social Security:         $2,000

Tracy Social Security:      $2,000

Rob Pension:                     $3,000

Total Monthly Income:  $7,000

Of the $7,000 in total monthly income that Tracey is used to receiving, once Rob qualifies for Medicaid, she will only be receiving $3,216 per month. The rest of the monthly income would go toward Rob’s care at the nursing home. 

Community Spouse Asset Allowance

If you are married and your spouse has a long term care event requiring them to go into a nursing home and you plan to apply for Medicaid, you as the community spouse are allowed to keep countable assets up to the greater of: 

• $74,820; or

• One-half of the couple’s total combined assets up to $128,640 (in 2020)

Take Action

Unless you have a long term care insurance policy or enough assets set aside to offset the financial risk of a long term care event occurring in the future, setting up a Medicaid trust may make sense.   But I also want to provide you with a quick list of considerations when establishing a Medicaid trust: 

• You should only transfer assets to the trust that you know you are not going to need to supplement your income in retirement.

• Step up in basis: By establishing a Medicaid trust as opposed to gifting assets directly to individuals, the estate attorney can include language that will allow the assets of the trust to receive a step up in basis when the grantor passes away which can mitigate a huge tax hit for the beneficiaries.

• For these strategies to work it takes advanced planning so start the process now. Each asset that is transferred into the trust has its own 5 year look back period. The sooner you get the assets transferred into the trust, the sooner that clock starts.

• If you are doing this planning for a parent, grandparent, or other family member, it's important to consult with professionals that are familiar with the elder law and Medicaid rules for the state that the individual resides in. These rules, limits, and trust strategies vary from state to state.

Contact Us For Help If you are a New York resident doing this type of planning for yourself or for a family member that is a resident of New York, please feel free to reach out to us with questions.  We can help you to better understand how to protect assets from a long term care events and connect you with an  estate attorney that can assist you with the establishment of Medicaid trust if the trust route is the most appropriate strategy for asset protection. Disclosure:  This article is for educational purposes only.  It does not contain legal, Medicaid, or tax advice. You should consult with a professional for advice tailored to your personal financial situation. 

About Michael……...

Hi, I’m Michael Ruger. I’m the managing partner of Greenbush Financial Group and the creator of the nationally recognized Money Smart Board blog . I created the blog because there are a lot of events in life that require important financial decisions. The goal is to help our readers avoid big financial missteps, discover financial solutions that they were not aware of, and to optimize their financial future.

Should You Put Your House In A Trust?

Should You Put Your House In A Trust?

When you say the word “trust” many people think that trusts are only used by the uber rich to protect their millions of dollars but that is very far from the truth.  Yes, extremely wealthy families do use trusts to reduce the size of their estate but there are also a lot of very good reasons why it makes sense for an average individual or family to establish a trust.   The two main reasons being the avoidance of probate and to protect assets from a long-term care event.  This article will walk you through: 

• How trusts work

• The difference between a Revocable Trust and an Irrevocable Trust

• The benefits of putting your house in a trust

• How to establish a trust

• What are the tax considerations

What Is A Trust?

When you establish a trust, you are basically creating a fictitious person that is going to own your assets.   Depending on the type of trust that you establish, the trust may even have it's own social security number that is called a “tax ID number”.  Here is an example.  Mark and Sarah Williams, like most married couples, own their primary residence in joint name.  They decide to establish the “Williams Family Trust”.  Once the trust is established, they change the name on the deed of their house from Mark and Sarah to the Williams Family Trust. 

Revocable Trust vs. Irrevocable Trust

Before I get into the benefits of establishing a trust for your house, you first have to understand the difference between a “Revocable Trust” and an “Irrevocable Trust”.   As the name suggests, a revocable trust, you can revoke at any time.  In other words, you as the owner, can take that asset back. You never really “give it away”.   Revocable trusts do not have a separate tax identification number.  They are established in the social security number of the owner.  A revocable trust is sometime referred to as a “living trust”.

With an Irrevocable Trust, once you have transferred the ownership of the house to the trust, it’s irrevocable, meaning you are never supposed to be able to take it back. The trust will own that house for the rest of your life.  Now that sounds super restrictive but there are a lot of strategies that estate attorneys use to ease those restrictions and I will cover some of those strategies later on in this article.

In both cases, in trust language, the owner that gave property to the trust is called the “grantor”.  I just want you to be familiar with that term when it is used throughout this article.

So why would someone use an Irrevocable Trust instead of a Revocable Trust?  The answer is, it depends on which benefits you are trying to access by placing your house in a trust.

The Benefits Of A Revocable Trust Owning Your House

People transfer the ownership of their house to a revocable trust for the following reasons: 

• Avoid probate

• They have children under the age of 25

• They want maximum flexibility

Avoid Probate

From our experience, this is the number one reason why people put their house in a revocable trust. Trust assets avoid probate.  If you have ever had a family member pass away and you were the executor of their estate, you know how much of a headache the probate process is.  Not to mention costly.

Let’s go back to our example with Mark & Sarah Williams.  They own their house joint and they have a will that lists their two children as 50/50 beneficiaries on all of their assets.

When the first spouse passes away, there is no issue because the house is owned joint, and the ownership automatically passes to the surviving spouse.  However, when the surviving spouse passes away, the house is part of the surviving spouse’s estate that will be subject to the probate process.  You typically try to avoid probate because the probate process: 

• Is a costly process

• It delays the receipt of the asset by your beneficiaries

• Makes the value of your estate accessible to the public

The costs come in the form of attorney fees, accountant fees, executor commissions, and appraisal fees which are necessary to probate the estate. The delays come from the fact that it’s a court driven process. You have to obtain court issued letters of testamentary to even start the process and the courts have to approve the final filing of the estate. It’s not uncommon for the probate process to take 6 months or longer from start to finish.

If your house is owned by a revocable trust, you skip the whole probate process. Upon the passing of the second spouse, the house is transferred from the name of the trust into the name of the trust beneficiaries.   You save the cost of probate and your beneficiaries have immediate access to the house.

The Difference Between A Trust and A Will

I’ll stop for a second because this is usually where I get the question, “So if I have a trust, do I need a will?”  The answer is yes, you need both.   Anything owned by your trust will go immediately to the beneficiaries of the trust but any assets not owned by the trust will pass to your beneficiaries via the will. Trusts can own real estate, checking accounts, life insurance policies, and other assets.  But there are some assets like cars and personal belongings that are usually held outside of a trust that will pass to your beneficiaries via the will.   But in most cases, people have the same beneficiaries listed in the will and the trust. 

Children Under The Age of 25

For parents with children under the age of 25, revocable trusts are used to prevent the children from coming into their full inheritance at a very young age.  If you just have a will, both parents pass away when your child is 18, and they come into a sizable inheritance between your life insurance, retirement accounts, and the house, they may not make the best financial decisions. What if they decide to not go to college because they inherited a million dollar but then they spend through all of the money within 5 years?  As financial planners we have unfortunately seen this happen.  It’s ugly. 

A revocable trust can put restrictions in place to prevent this from happening. There might be language in the trust that states they receive 1/3 of their inheritance at age 25, 1/3 at age 30, 1/3 at age 35.  But in the meantime, the trustee can authorize distributions for living expenses, education, health expenses, etc.  The options are limitless and these documents are customized to meet your personal preferences.

Maximum Flexibility

The revocable trust offers the grantor the most flexibility because they are not giving away the asset. It’s still part of your estate, it’s just not subject to probate. At any time, the owners can take the asset back, change the trustee, change beneficiaries of the trust, and change the features of the trust. 

The Benefits Of An Irrevocable Trust

Let’s shift gears to the irrevocable trust.  The benefits of establishing an irrevocable trust include: 

• Avoid probate

• They have children under that age of 25

• Protect assets from a long-term care event

• Reduce the size of an estate

As you will see, the top two are the same as the revocable trust. Irrevocable trust assets avoid probate and are a way of controlling how assets are distributed after you pass away. However, you will see two additional benefit listed that were not associated with a revocable trust. Let’s look at the long-term care event protection benefit. 

Protect Assets From A Long-Term Care Event

When individuals use an irrevocable trust to protect assets from a long-term care event, it’s sometimes called a “Medicaid Trust”.    If you have ever had the personal experience of a loved one needing any type of long-term care whether via home health aids, assisted living, or a nursing home, you know how expensive that care costs.  According to the NYS Health Department, the average daily cost of a nursing home is $371 per day in the northeastern region.  That’s $135,360 per year.

For an individual that needs this type of care, they are required to spend down all of their assets until they hit a very low threshold, and then Medicaid starts picking up the tab from there.  Now the IRS is smart.   They are not going to allow you to hit a long term care event and then transfer all of your assets to a family member or a trust to qualify for Medicaid.  There is a 5 year look back period which says any assets that you have gifted away within the last 5 years, whether to an individual or a trust, is back on the table for purposes of the spend down before you qualify for Medicaid.  This is why they call these trusts a Medicaid Trust.

Medicaid Will Put A Lien Against The House

Now, your primary resident is not an asset subject to the Medicaid spend down.  If your only asset is your house and you have spent down all of your other assets that are not in an IRA or qualified retirement plan, you can qualify for Medicaid immediately.  So why put the house in an irrevocable trust then?  While Medicaid cannot make you sell your primary residence or count it as an asset for the spend down, Medicaid will put a lien against your estate for the amount they pay for your care.  So when you pass away, your house does not go to your children or heirs, Medicaid assumes ownership, and will sell it to recoup the cash that they paid out for your care. Not a great outcome.  Most people would prefer that the value of their house go to their kids instead of Medicaid.

If you transfer the ownership of the house to an Irrevocable Trust, you can live in the house for the rest of your life, and as long as the house has been in the trust for more than 5 years, it’s not a spend down asset for Medicaid and Medicaid cannot place a lien against your house for the money that they pay out for your care.

So if you are age 65 or older or have parents that are 65 or older, in many cases it makes sense for that individual to setup an irrevocable trust, transfer the ownership of the house to the trust, and start the 5 year clock for the Medicaid look back period.   Once you have satisfied the 5 year period, you are free and clear.

Frequently Asked Question

When I meet with clients about this, there are usually a number of other questions that come up when we talk about placing the house in a trust.  Here are the most common:

If my house is in a trust, do I still qualify for the STAR and Enhanced STAR property tax exemption?

ANSWER: Yes

If my house is gifted to a trust, do my beneficiaries still receive a step-up in basis when they inherit the asset?

ANSWER:  As long as the estate attorney put the appropriate language in your trust document, the house will receive a step up in basis at your death.

What if I want to sell my house down the road but it’s owned by the trust?

ANSWER:  It depends on what type of trust owns your house and the language in your trust document.  When you sell your primary residence, as a single tax filer you do not have pay tax on the first $250,000 of capital gain in the property. For married filers, the number is $500,000. Example, married couple bought their house in 1980 for $40,000, it’s now worth $400,000, which equals $360,000 in appreciation or gain in value. When they sell their house, they do not pay any tax on the gain because it’s below the $500,000 exclusion.

If a revocable trust owns your house, you retain these tax exclusions because you technically still own the house. If an irrevocable trust owns your house, depending on the type of irrevocable trust you establish and the language in your trust document, you may or may not be able to utilize these exclusions.

Many of the irrevocable trust that we see drafted by estate attorneys that exist for the purpose of avoiding probate and protecting asset from Medicaid are considered grantor trusts. The estate attorney will often put language in the document that protects the assets from Medicaid but allows the grantor to capture the primary residence capital gains exclusion if they sell their house at some point in the future.  But this is not always the case.  If you establish a irrevocable trust for your primary residence, it’s important to have this discussion with your estate attorney to make sure this specific item is addressed in your trust document.

Now, here is the most common mistake that we see people make when they sell their house that is owned by their irrevocable trust.  You put your primary residence in an irrevocable trust six years ago so you are now free and clear on the five year look back period.  You decided to sell your current house and buy another house or sell your house and put the cash in the bank.  At the closing the buyers make the check payable to you instead of your trust.  You deposit the check to your checking account and then move it into the trust account or issue the check to purchase your next house.  Guess what? The 5 year clock just restarted.  The money can never leave the trust. If your intention is to sell one house and by another house, at the closing they should make the check payable to your trust, and the trust buys your next house.

Does the trust need to file a tax return?

ANSWER: Only irrevocable trusts have to file tax returns because revocable trusts are built under the social security number of the grantor. However, if the only asset that the irrevocable trust owns is your primary residence, the trust would not have any income, so there would not be a need to file a tax return for the trust each year.

Are irrevocable trusts 100% irrevocable?

ANSWER: There are tricks that estate attorneys use to get around the irrevocable restriction of these trusts.  For example, the trust could make a gift to the beneficiaries of the trust and then the beneficiaries turn around and gift the money back to the grantor of the trust. Grantors can also retain the right to change who the trustees are, the beneficiaries, and they can revoke the trust.  Bottom line, if you really need to get to the money, there are usually ways to do it.

How To Establish A Trust

You will need to retain an estate attorney to draft and execute your trust document. For a simple revocable or irrevocable trust, it may cost anywhere from $2,000 – $5,000.  Before people get scared away by this cost, I remind them that if their house is subject to probate their estate may have to pay attorney fees, accountant fees, appraisal fees, and executor commissions which can easily total more than that.

In the case of a long-term care event, I just ask clients the question “Do you want your kids to inherit your house that you worked hard for or do you want Medicaid to take it if a long-term care event occurs down the road?”  Most people reply, “I want my kids to have it.” Putting the house in an irrevocable trust for 5 years assures that they will.

About Michael……...

Hi, I’m Michael Ruger. I’m the managing partner of Greenbush Financial Group and the creator of the nationally recognized Money Smart Board blog . I created the blog because there are a lot of events in life that require important financial decisions. The goal is to help our readers avoid big financial missteps, discover financial solutions that they were not aware of, and to optimize their financial future.