[luba]

I have a question about my mother,
Me and my husband own a house in which we live with our kids. Both of us are working. My mother lives in public housing and getting SSI.
She is 83 and is getting disoriented frequently and we are thinking that she should not be living alone. If we are going to take her into our house, is she going to loose her SSI?
Another question I have is, if I will become her legal representative and she will be getting SSI, would SSI payments affect my income?
Thank you in advance for all information you can offer.

[finz]

You might be able to protect that money by charging her rent......though then you would owe taxes on it.

There are rules for SSI recipients about how much income their spouses can make, I'm not sure if that applies to all household members though.

[Janke]

Originally Posted by luba

I have a question about my mother,
Me and my husband own a house in which we live with our kids. Both of us are working. My mother lives in public housing and getting SSI.
She is 83 and is getting disoriented frequently and we are thinking that she should not be living alone. If we are going to take her into our house, is she going to loose her SSI?
Another question I have is, if I will become her legal representative and she will be getting SSI, would SSI payments affect my income?
Thank you in advance for all information you can offer.

She could live in your house and pay her 'share' of the basic household expenses for shelter and food; if there are three of you, she needs to pay 1/3 of the mortgage, property taxes, home insurance, heating fuel, gas, electricity, water, sewer, garbage, and food. Then she is considered to be living independently and SSI would remain the same as if she were living on her own. SSI does not care if she pays for cable TV, telephone, her credit card, her transportation, her medical co-pays, or any of those expenses. You can pay for those as long as she pays her share of food and shelter bills. The form you complete is an SSA 8011.

https://secure.ssa.gov/apps10/poms.nsf/lnx/0500835160

SSI is her income. Even if you were her legal representative, it is still her income.

If she needs a representative payee to manage her money, you can apply to SSA to be that person. You need a doctor's statement that she is incapable. The form is an SSA 787. SSA does not recognize power of attorney, but you may wish to get it for other reasons.

If you have the doctor's form completed, you could go to your local office and take care of the payee change, the address change and provide the sharing information in one visit. Bring your mother.