Massachusetts Lien on a Dependent Parent’s Home for Chapter 115 Benefits

This is the one provision in chapter 115 that a family should read before applying rather than after, because it attaches to the house. Section 5A applies where the applicant for, or recipient of, chapter 115 benefits is a dependent parent with an interest in one or more parcels of real estate whose fair market value exceeds fifteen hundred dollars. In that case the veterans' agent signs and records a notice of lien in the registry of deeds for each parcel, after sending a like instrument to the parent by certified mail and waiting three business days. The recording is free of charge. The lien attaches to so much of the parent's interest as exceeds $1,500 in fair market value and is superior to any deed, mortgage, lien or encumbrance recorded afterwards. Three features soften it considerably, and a reader who stops at the first paragraph will overestimate the risk. No lien under this section is enforceable until after the death of both parents, and then only with the written permission of the Secretary of Veterans' Services. The Secretary may waive enforcement in whole or in part where undue hardship might be caused, and order a discharge to the extent waived. So this is not a charge that can be called in while a parent is alive and living in the house. The lien dissolves and becomes unenforceable twenty years after it was recorded. And the whole section does not apply where the applicant is the dependent parent of a person who, while in the armed forces during wartime, was killed in action or died from a service-connected disability incurred in wartime service. A Gold Star parent takes chapter 115 benefits with no lien at all. Two things to be careful about. The agent may, with the Secretary's prior approval, agree in writing to subordinate the lien to a mortgage the Secretary considers necessary for repairs to the property, so a parent needing roof work is not simply stuck. But any conveyance of real estate by a parent within two years before an application, other than for fair market value, is deemed to be in avoidance of the section and makes the parent ineligible for benefits altogether. Transferring the house to a child before applying does not defeat the lien; it defeats the claim. Enforcement, when it happens, is by a petition in equity in the superior court for the county where a parcel lies, brought against everyone appearing of record to be interested in the property. Proceeds are apportioned between the commonwealth and the town in proportion to what each contributed, capped at what each contributed and without interest. If the agent neglects or refuses to refer enforcement to the Secretary or to bring a petition in time, the Secretary brings it and the commonwealth keeps all the proceeds. Note the scope. The lien reaches dependent parents only. A veteran receiving chapter 115 benefits in their own right, and a surviving spouse, are not subject to section 5A. This catalog has found no equivalent provision in any other state, which is unsurprising, because no other state pays this kind of benefit to a veteran's parent in the first place.