Has Chicago Title gone too far to help Texas recover Medicaid payments from deceased recipients?

Chicago Title has issued instructions to their agents and direct operations to, in certain cases, collect the amount claimed by the Medicaid Estate Recovery Program (MERP) and send it directly to MERP from the sales proceeds of the deceased beneficiary’s homestead sales proceeds.

By doing this, Chicago Title imposes themselves as a self-appointed, out of court collector, for a Class Seven claim under the Texas Probate Code, potentially ahead of six other classes with superior rights to the proceeds.

A detailed response letter to Chicago Title’s new activities has been prepared by four Texas elder law attorneys and is available here.