The previous Business Manager did not know much about Medicaid and I believe I was misguided. I have siblings. However I do not have a strong support system. Being the dutiful daughter I spent every penny on my mom's care. Now I'm left with the outstanding bill.
michigan signing nursing home responsibility under duress
and you will find an article by a law firm called delaney on this topic of signing under duress or other defenses and other areas you mentioned.
Perhaps you or your mother is eligible for free legal aid ? to find out what her rights are regarding your questions.
Now about the house, I'm assuming that it is still in your mom's name and it is fully owned so no mortgage or HELOC or reverse out there. This is the situation I am in with my mom. SHe is in a NH on Medicaid and still has her home. It is totally exempt under Medicaid rules till she dies, but she has no real $ for anything on the house. So i and naother fmaily member pay for all (taxes, utilites, insurance, etc). Under Medicaid rules every state has MERP. Medicaid estate recovery. Her home, like your mom's will be subject to MERP. But the big issue will be if you qualify for any exemptions that will make the property ineligible for MERP to happen. If you lived at the home and provided care for at least 2 years that kept her out of the NH, then you have that exemption. If the house is empty and you pay for stuff, then all those costs are an exemption - this is my situation. there are lots of other MERP exemptions, which should be on-line in your states DHHS program.
As far as sell the house, that is imho a terrible idea, as then the proceeds from the house would make mom ineligible for Medicaid NH as the $$ is now gotten her waaaaay above the Medicaid limits. If you kinda need to stay in the house to have a place to live or like living in the house, I'd just continute to stay there, pay for whatever, keep records and keep it as homesteaded in mom's name (lower taxes). If the NH wants to put a claim or a lien on it for whatever is due, that's fine. The probablity is that over time, they are going to forget to renew the claim or lien and just too bad for them. Or they do keep it up and then when mom dies, and her estate goes to probate, they place their claim or lien and maybe it get's paid or maybe it doesn't depending on what mom's assets are. Oh and all that $$ you have spent on the house will be your claim against the estate too. Now if you live there the probate judge is probably going to discount part of it, but maybe not.
ALso you can run probate out for quite a while, which gives you or your attorney time to negotiate out what gets paid and by how much.
Whatever you do take your time and no rush. If the NH is pressuring you, then you can move mom into another NH. If she is now on Medicaid and Medicaid is all OK with her, then you can move her at any time with no penalty. Medicaid pays a day rate and the participating NH have to accept Medicaid's terms. If you have had issues with this NH continuously and it seems they are unable to fix or perhaps don't want to fix it, then I'd look to move her. Good luck.
As for letting your mother down, I think you can safely give up the guilt on that one. The business manager of the NH didn't even know how to advise you. There is an entire profession (attorneys specializing in elder law) that has expanded and thrives in part because applying for Medicaid is so complicated. If you blew this off and weren't trying to do your best, then, OK, you can feel a little guilty. Otherwise, just move on toward handling the next complicated obligation.-