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West Virginia Income Maintenance Manual Chapter 5

West Virginia Income Maintenance Manual Page 66 Chapter 5 Assets

5.6.1.C.1 All Joint Owners Are in the AG When all joint owners are in the AG, the total equity is counted, unless one of the joint owners is a WV WORKS or Supplemental Security Income (SSI) recipient. See 5.6.1.D. 5.6.1.C.2 All Joint Owners Are Not in the AG If all of the joint owners are not in the AG, the asset owned jointly is considered available in its entirety to the AG, unless it can be demonstrated that such assets are inaccessible. If the AG can demonstrate that it has access to only a portion of the asset, the value of that portion is counted as an asset. All Joint Owners Are Not in the AG Example 1: Three people own a racehorse valued at $20,000. One of them applies for SNAP. The horse cannot be sold without the consent of all three owners and each person may sell his interest only to the other two owners. The other two owners do not want to buy the applicant's interest in the property at this time. The asset is excluded. All Joint Owners Are Not in the AG Example 2: Same situation as above, except that the agreement does not stipulate that only the other two owners may buy the interest in the asset. One-third of the equity in the property is assigned to the client as an asset.

NOTE: When a client cannot dispose of his share of an asset without the consent of the other owner(s), and the consent is withheld, the asset is excluded as inaccessible. EXCEPTION: Bank accounts that are jointly owned with deployed service persons are considered inaccessible as long as the AG can document that the access is for the sole purpose of attending to the service person’s affairs and cannot be used for the AGs own purposes. See Section 7.3 for verification. If the funds are used for the AG, the account is considered accessible.