# Wisconsin — Medicaid Estate Recovery Rules by State

For Wisconsin, what counts as the estate is “Property of a decedent” means all real and personal property to which the recipient held any legal title or in which the recipient had any legal interest immediately before death, to the extent of that title or interest, including assets transferred to a survivor, heir, or assignee through joint tenancy, tenancy in common, survivorship, life estate, revocable trust, or any other arrangement, excluding an irrevocable trust; survivor protections is A claim under par. (a) is not allowable if the decedent has a surviving child who is under age 21 or disabled or a surviving spouse; citation is Wis. Stat. § 49.496, recorded from its source on 2026-08-31.

- **State:** Wisconsin _(our reading, not quoted from the source)_
- **What counts as the estate:** “Property of a decedent” means all real and personal property to which the recipient held any legal title or in which the recipient had any legal interest immediately before death, to the extent of that title or interest, including assets transferred to a survivor, heir, or assignee through joint tenancy, tenancy in common, survivorship, life estate, revocable trust, or any other arrangement, excluding an irrevocable trust. _(verified: appears in its own passage below)_
- **Survivor protections:** A claim under par. (a) is not allowable if the decedent has a surviving child who is under age 21 or disabled or a surviving spouse. _(verified: appears in its own passage below)_
- **Citation:** Wis. Stat. § 49.496 _(our reading, not quoted from the source)_

## What the source says

> (3) Recovery from estates. 49.496(3)(a) (a) Except as provided in par. (b) , the department shall file a claim against the estate of a recipient, and against the estate of a nonrecipient surviving spouse, for all of the following, subject to the exclusion of any amounts under the Long-Term Care Partnership Program established under s. 49.45 (31) , unless already recovered by the department under this section:

## Where each value comes from

This source states these in separate places, so each value is shown with the passage that states it.

### What counts as the estate

> 49.496(1)(cm) (cm) “Property of a decedent” means all real and personal property to which the recipient held any legal title or in which the recipient had any legal interest immediately before death, to the extent of that title or interest, including assets transferred to a survivor, heir, or assignee through joint tenancy, tenancy in common, survivorship, life estate, revocable trust, or any other arrangement, excluding an irrevocable trust.

### Survivor protections

> 49.496(3)(b) (b) A claim under par. (a) is not allowable if the decedent has a surviving child who is under age 21 or disabled or a surviving spouse.

## Source

- https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/document/statutes/49.496

Last verified: 2026-08-31. Review by: 2027-08-31.
Part of [Medicaid Estate Recovery Rules by State](https://referencesource.org/medicaid-estate-recovery-rules-by-state/).