Guides for real money decisions

Guides › Medicaid and Your House Updated July 31, 2026. Quick answer: federal law (42 U.S.C. §1396p(c)(2)(A)(iv)) lets a parent transfer the HOME to an adult child with no look-back penalty when two conditions are both met: the child lived in the home for at least two years immediately before the parent entered a facility, […]

The divisor in your state, all 51 jurisdictions Each row is that state’s own quick answer, excerpted from its own detail page, which cites the state’s own Medicaid manual or regulation. State Quick answer Alabama Quick answer:Alabama publishes the division and withholds the amount. Rule 560-X-25-.09(5)(b) divides the cumulative uncompensated value by the average monthly […]

Guides › Medicaid and Your House Updated July 31, 2026. Quick answer: “can Medicaid take the house” is really TWO questions with different timelines, and most articles blur them. Before and during care: the home is usually an EXEMPT asset — it does not count against eligibility while a spouse, minor, or disabled child lives […]

Guides › Settling an Estate Updated July 31, 2026. Quick answer: a sibling co-owner living in the inherited house generally owes the others no rent by default — every co-owner has the right to occupy the whole property, and absent an “ouster” (excluding the others) or a written agreement, courts in most states will not […]

Guides › Settling an Estate Updated July 31, 2026. Quick answer: you cannot make a co-owner sell by insisting — but you are not stuck either. The realistic ladder, cheapest first: (1) a buyout at appraised value, which turns an argument into arithmetic; (2) a written co-ownership agreement (who pays taxes and insurance, who can […]

Guides › Settling an Estate Updated July 31, 2026. Quick answer: while an estate is still in administration, there is a way to move the house to one heir that is not a sale at all: a non-pro-rata distribution — the executor distributes the house to the sibling who wants it and offsetting assets (cash, […]

Guides › Settling an Estate Updated July 31, 2026. Quick answer: three tax rules decide a sibling buyout, and ranking articles state two of them wrong. (1) The sellers’ gain is appreciation since death, not the sale price: every heir’s share took a stepped-up basis at the date-of-death value, and inherited property is automatically long-term. […]

Guides › Settling an Estate Updated July 31, 2026. Quick answer: a sibling buyout has four numbers, and most families only compute the first: the equity split. The others — the buyer’s cash to close, each seller’s taxable gain (their share of appreciation since the date-of-death value, not the whole check), and the buyer’s blended […]

Guides › Settling an Estate Updated July 31, 2026. Quick answer: whether the house is separate or marital property usually comes down to four facts: when it was bought (before the marriage leans separate), what money maintained it (marital earnings paying the mortgage or funding the remodel pull it toward marital, at least in part), […]

Guides › Settling an Estate Updated July 31, 2026. Quick answer: community-property and common-law states do not just use different percentages for a will-less estate — they divide different pools of property by different machinery. In the nine community-property states, the surviving spouse already owns half of everything earned during the marriage; that half never […]

Guides › Settling an Estate Updated July 31, 2026. Quick answer: under intestacy, stepchildren inherit nothing in nearly every state — no matter how long they were raised, no matter that everyone called them family. The statutes distribute to blood and adopted relatives; “step” is not a legal category of heir. The exceptions are narrow […]

Guides › Settling an Estate Updated July 31, 2026. Quick answer: it depends on three questions asked in order, and the statute is only the third. (1) How is the house titled? Joint tenancy or a TOD deed passes it outside intestacy entirely — the will-less split never touches it. (2) Is it community or […]