Is buying a house while receiving Medicaid possible?

Question

Hey there, first time caller, longtime listener here.

I have a tricky question regarding medicaid.  My father wants to help me build my business by getting a VA loan with me (he's a vet, Im not) and we will have a tenants in common ownership that will transfer the ownership to me in his will.

The tricky part is that he has transitioned into an assisted living home and just had to go onto medicaid.  We've gone through the process of depleting his assets and all that.  Does anyone know if its still possible for him to get a VA loan without it jeopardizing the medicaid.  To make things slightly more complicated, he lives in WV and I live in PA and will be purchasing the house in PA.

Thanks for any advise!

Nicholas Covington · Answer

@Josh Barker Hello!

To start I will say that a lender will probably have a hard time believing that this will be your father's primary residence as he would be required to live in there technically.

When taking out a VA loan for a subject property in another state, lenders will want proof as to why you are doing so. IE received new orders to relocate, relocating for job, things of that nature. Potentially he could be moving to be closer for you to "take care of him," but I don't see this going in your favor since he just transitioned.

Also you would have to find a lender that is ok with having a non VA eligible family member (other than a spouse) attached to the loan. Normally this will effect the VA program and won't insure the full 25% of the loan amount. This would force you to come up with a down payment (potentially 12.5%), which would partially defeat the purpose.

The only other option that I could see flying by a lender is him just getting the loan on his own, provided that they believe him to be living there, and you just assume the loan later after their specified amount of time.

So the main hurdle would just be that he won't be using it as his primary residence.

Best of Luck,

Nick