---
title: "Delaware Medicaid Estate Recovery | Funding LTC Marketplace"
url: https://fundingltcmarketplace.com/states/delaware/medicaid-estate-recovery/
description: "Delaware defines the recoverable estate by reference to its probate law and publishes specific recovery exceptions and hardship-waiver standards."
last_updated: 2026-10-20
author: George A. Mellendorf, CLTC, LTCP (Central States Insurance Services, Inc.)
publisher: Funding LTC Marketplace
note: Educational content; not legal, tax or financial advice. Markdown copy of the HTML page at the URL above.
---
Delaware · Estate Recovery

# Delaware Medicaid Estate Recovery

Last updated 2026-10-20

Delaware's Medicaid long-term-care regulation defines the recoverable 'estate' as all real and personal property that counts as assets of the individual's estate under Title 12, Chapter 19 of the Delaware Code — Delaware's probate statute. Because that's a reference to probate law rather than an explicit list of every non-probate ownership arrangement, title and beneficiary designations still call for case-by-case review, since lien and estate-claim rules can operate separately.

DHSS pursues recovery either after the individual's death or when property subject to a lien is sold, provided long-term-care assistance was actually paid on the person's behalf. The ceiling on what can be recovered is the total amount DHSS disbursed or incurred — including the federal matching share — while that individual was receiving DHSS long-term-care services.

## Sources and official resources

- [Delaware DHSS: Long Term Care Medicaid Programs](https://dhss.delaware.gov/dmma/home/medicaid/long-term-care-medicaid-programs/)
- [U.S. Code: 42 U.S.C. § 1396p (liens, estate recovery, transfers of assets, Partnership disregard)](https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/1396p)

Rules and figures change. Confirm current details with the agency before you act.

[← Back to the full Delaware guide](https://fundingltcmarketplace.com/states/delaware/)