I ask the same question someone else here asked. Why would your mother not want to pay for her care legally and legitimately if she can? If she is on Medicare, that will pay for a good deal of her care as she gets older and has increasing health problems. There is always a possibility she will fall over one day like a tree in the wind, never having experienced a long drawn out stay in a skilled nursing facility. How old is Mom now?
Assisted living facilities are usually self funded. If she wants to go into one, and thinks is would be more comfortable for her than living in a house, she will need to use her own assets to pay for it. So selling her home would be the honest and legal and reasonable way to cover moving into assisted living, which would be the same as if she traded in her full size home for an apartment.
But saying Mom is 75 now and her health is declining. She deeds her home to you or another family member now. If at any time in the next five years, she becomes extremely ill, has to be placed in a skilled nursing facility (nursing home) Medicare will pay for only a very short time. Then they will see if she qualifies for Medicaid, which is needs based program. Her assets such as a house, car, property, etc. will be used. If in examining her assets, they see that during the last 5 years, their "look back" period, she has deeded over property to someone, they will deny her Medicaid and say that this transfer was fraudulently done to hide her assets. They will deny payment through Medicaid for a penalty period.
She may want to talk to an estate planner if she has any sort of extensive assets. But really, if this is just a matter of grandma not wanting to have to use her home to pay for possible health care expenses, so she can leave it to her children instead and have someone else assume her bills, it's just a bad idea to try it.
