Updated August 3, 2026. Quick answer: most people pay the entrance fee from the sale of a house, and the order of operations decides both the tax and whether you are ever holding two housing costs at once. Sequence it before you sign anything with a deposit deadline attached.
The sequencing problem
A CCRC wants a deposit to hold a unit and the balance before you move in. A house sells when it sells. Those two timetables are not related, and the gap between them is where the avoidable costs live:
- Selling first means somewhere to live in the interim and possibly storage, but you know your number and you are not forced to accept an offer.
- Committing first means a deadline, which is the worst position from which to sell a house. Bridge financing exists and is expensive.
Ask the community directly: how long will they hold a unit, what is the deposit, and under what conditions is it returned? Deposits are their own subject.
The tax question, before you sell
The gain on a main home is excluded up to a limit if you meet the ownership and use tests — and for a long-held house in an appreciated market the gain can exceed the exclusion. How the exclusion works after 65 and the wider tax picture on a sale.
Two things worth knowing before you list: there is no age-based exemption — the old over-55 rule has not existed for decades — and the gain is measured against your basis, which decades of capital improvements can raise if you have the records. Finding those records is worth real money and takes an afternoon.
Where the money sits between sale and payment
This can be a six-figure sum in cash for weeks or months. It is not a moment to reach for yield, and it is a moment to check insurance limits, because ordinary deposit insurance limits are per depositor per bank per ownership category. Which insurance covers what and how brokerage cash is treated.
What the entrance fee is, financially
It is worth being blunt: you are converting a liquid asset you control into a claim against one business, whose return depends on contract terms and possibly on someone else moving into your unit. What that claim is actually worth and how to check the business first.
That is not a reason not to do it. It is a reason to do the financial review before the money moves rather than after, because afterwards there is nothing to review.
One item people forget entirely
Part of the fee may be deductible as a medical expense in the year paid — which is also, conveniently, a year in which a large one-off deduction has the best chance of clearing the AGI floor. The allocable-portion rule. Worth raising with a preparer before the year ends, not at filing.
A house sale and an entrance fee in the same year is a lot of moving parts.
Sale timing, the gain, where the proceeds sit, and the deductible portion of the fee all interact, and most of them are decided before the money moves. If you want someone to look at the sequence with you, this is a reasonable place to start.
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General information drawn from IRS, Medicare, HUD and state statute and regulation, not legal, tax or financial advice. Continuing-care law is state law and differs materially between states; every figure here is year-labelled and every source named so you can check it against your own contract. Read your own signed agreement before relying on any general description, including this one.