The Utah Department of Health policy manual section 371-4 provides that the home of a Medicaid applicant may be transferred to the following protected classes without incurring a transfer penalty or impacting the applicant’s eligibility:
(i) Spouse;
(ii) Blind or disabled son or daughter;
(iii) Son or daughter under 21;
(iv) Son or daughter who has lived in home AND provided care which allowed applicant to remain at home rather than being institutionalized; AND lived in that home for two years prior to client’s entry into medical institution.
(v) Home is transferred to sibling with equity interest in home and who has lived in the home for at least one year immediately preceding the client’s entry into the medical institution.
***Note that the Utah Estate Recovery statute set forth in Utah Code Annotated (U.C.A.)Sec. 26-19-13.5, exempts some but not all of the transfers listed above from estate recovery. Estate recovery excludes transfers to a spouse; transfers to a child under 21; and child who is blind and permanently and totally disabled. Utah has expanded estate recovery which allows for recovery from not only the probate estate of a Medicaid recipient, but also from the augmented estate of the deceased Medicaid recipient. The augmented estate includes some non-probate transfers to others including transfers that were made 2 years prior to the decedent’s death. See U.C.A. Sec. 75-2-205 (3)(a).