Q: Mom is 74. She has been disabled for 14 years and receives both Medicare and Medicaid. A year and a half ago, she had to go into a nursing home. All of her income except for $30 per month goes to the nursing home, and Medicaid pays the rest.

My brother and I have been paying the bills to maintain her interest in a home, her only asset. We had a niece living there and paying nominal rent. (The social worker at the nursing facility said this is acceptable as long as we are not profiting, which we are not.)

However, we are asking the niece to move out, and we have a prospective buyer who has been approved for a loan in the amount of the appraised value of Mom's house ($55,000). We will likely have to make some repairs for a sale to go forward. I would like to proceed with a contract and sale without engaging a Realtor. I have recently begun a pre-burial payment schedule to cover future cost of mother's burial. I want to pay this off from the proceeds of the house sale as well as pay for her other needs before we have to reimburse Medicaid with any remaining proceeds.

Obviously, my brother and I want to come out of this with minimal impact to our own finances.

Here is another potential complication: When my father died 10 years ago, my mother's house was still in his name although they had been divorced for a number of years and she was to get a half interest by court order. He never deeded it to her, so I had to probate his estate. Now, half of the house is in my mother's name and, since my father died without a will, my brother and I own the other half along with my deceased sister's two minor children. My brother and I have power of attorney. Here are my questions:

• Can my brother and I proceed to sell the house with Mom's power of attorney or do we have to have each individual family member's approval (my mother, me, my brother, one niece and one nephew)?

• Can my mother sign in the nursing home and not have to be present at a closing?

I'm assuming we will have to pay for any repairs off the top of the purchase price, then pay for mother's needs out of her share of proceeds, thus some minimal amount will be left to all of us, which would be a nice carrot to dangle to the others to get them to agree, but I'm not sure. This is something I have been discussing with the social worker at the nursing home. She has had experience with Medicaid situations. She says we have a window of opportunity after sale to pay for justifiable expenses, such as burial costs, clothing and personal needs expenditures.

A: Your complex situation is an example of what lack of planning will do. First, in order to sell the house, if your mother's power of attorney contains appropriate authority, you can use it to sell her half interest. You and your brother can certainly sell the one-sixth interest each of you own. However to sell the one-twelfth interest of your underage niece and nephew, there will have to be some type of protective proceeding brought in the probate or surrogate court to secure an order authorizing the sale and assuring the protection of the minors' funds.

Therefore, to make the sale, either your mother (if she has capacity) or you using her power of attorney, you and your brother personally, and the minors by court order will all have to participate. From the proceeds, one half will belong to your mother, and we suggest that you pay off the pre-need burial plan from those funds. Her remaining funds will disqualify her from Medicaid, and you will have to use the money to pay the nursing home until her bank account is at or below $2,000 again.

You really need to be talking to a lawyer, rather than a social worker, due to the significant legal issues that exist. Without assessing blame, this is a mess that could and should have been avoided with proper legal assistance.

Doug Oster writes a blog, "Growing With Doug," exclusively at PG+, a members-only web site of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Our introduction to PG+ gives you all the details.