What the South Dakota Veterans Home Takes From an Estate

This is the provision a family finds out about after the funeral, and it is the sharpest version of it in this catalog. Section 33A-4-16 provides that when a resident of the State Veterans Home dies without legal dependents, the resident's property must be distributed to the State Veterans Home as sole heir, for the sole use and benefit of the home. Not a share, not a lien on the house: sole heir to the property. The same section then says the resident may by will dispose of the estate, subject to the preferred claim in 33A-4-17 to 33A-4-20. A spouse residing at the home counts as a legal dependent for this purpose. So the will is the whole of the difference between the home taking everything and the home taking what it is owed. Making one is the single most consequential thing a resident of this home can do, and no statute requires anyone to tell them so. What the preferred claim is worth even with a will. Section 33A-4-18 requires the home to file a claim against the estate of a deceased resident who left no surviving spouse or dependent, in the amount of the full maintenance charge for each month the resident was in the home, retroactive to the date of admission, with credit for payments the resident made but expressly without credit for any allowances of the state government. That is the full published cost of care for the entire stay, less what was paid privately. Section 33A-4-19 makes it a preferred claim. The claim survives the spouse. Where a deceased resident leaves a spouse or other dependent, the estate passes to them, and then on the death of that spouse or dependent the home files a claim against their estate for the claims against both estates. A widow who inherits the house keeps it for her lifetime and the home collects from her estate afterwards. Transfers made to escape it are voidable. Section 33A-4-20 says any transfer of property to avoid payment of a claim of the home shall be voidable, with no stated look-back period, which is a wider power than the federal Medicaid transfer rules that most families have heard of. Two softer provisions. Section 33A-4-15 lets a resident or former resident pay the full maintenance charge in advance of death, retroactive from admission with credit for payments made, in which case the money goes to the home's capital fund. And 33A-4-17 lets the superintendent turn over cash or personal property left at the home to the department without administration, subject to refund within three years to a creditor, legal dependent or heir who establishes a right to it where the resident left a will, with the attorney general certifying a valid claim. None of this is a tax. South Dakota repealed its inheritance tax effective July 1, 2001 and has no estate tax. This is a creditor's claim, and it has priority. A nonveteran spouse, widow or widower admitted to the home is subject to all of it, because 33A-4-28 makes them a resident subject to every statute affecting the person, property and estate of a veteran resident.