If a person owns their home outright, could the lien holder sell the house (forcing the people out)? A friend has told me of 2 separate cases where an elderly person in a nursing home was cut off Medicade or Medicare (due to Obama-care CUTS). She said the spouses of the patients will somehow have to care for them at home, and the nursing home is going to put leins against their homes and they will have to move out. I tried to tell her this didn't make any sense (the nursing home would not be OWED any money if they "kicked them out" when their coverage was cut). The only way I can imagine a creditor could force a house sell is if there were no other lein-holders (like a mortgage) and the owners owed more money to the lein-holders than they could borrow on the house; so the nursing home (IRS,etc) would be just like a mortgage company - they could forclose on the house - and the personal circumstances of the residants wouldn't matter. But what if there are LOTS of leins against a property (mortgage, IRS, other things like the nursing home)? Can the house still be "forclosed"? Who gets paid first?

1. If a home is owned outright, there is no mortgage, so who is the lien holder.

2. next you need to find out more, since medicaid still pay for nusing homes, there are 1000's of people in them.

3. if this home required more money than they pay, they could have merely found a home that accepts that payment.

4. But if the person in the home owns it, and they run up debts in the nursing home, a lien can be put on their house for these debts, it is done all the time.

... the nursing home (IRS,etc) would be just like a mortgage company - they could forclose on the house - and the personal circumstances of the residants wouldn't matter. ...
Yes.



...But what if there are LOTS of leins against a property (mortgage, IRS, other things like the nursing home)? Can the house still be "forclosed"? Who gets paid first?
Yes, it can be.

As a general rule, the earliest lien gets paid first, then the lien recorded next, and so forth, until there is no money left.