ALJ Finds No Marital Relationship, No Resource Barrier for SSI
December 18, 2011
Author: Catherine M. Callery (Kate)| Louise M. Tarantino
Eligibility for Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits requires not only a finding of disability, but also compliance with detailed rules related to deeming of income and availability of resources below a certain level. Recently, DAP advocate Sally DeLuca of the Brooklyn Office of Legal Services NYC convinced an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) that her 62 year old Russian client should not be ineligible for SSI even though she continued to live with her ex-husband, and owned a home in Florida for several years.
We have all seen that the economic downturn has forced people to be creative about finding affordable housing, making for strange bedfellows, as it were. But in Sally’s case, she convinced the ALJ that her client and her ex were in fact not bedfellows at all, but merely roommates. The couple was divorced in 2003, but continued to live with each other in separate parts of their apartment for economic reasons. Sally’s client was found ineligible for Title II benefits on her ex-husband’s account because the marriage had not lasted for at least ten years. Other indicia of no marital relationship included Sally’s client resuming use of her maiden name, her refusal to cook and keep a kosher kitchen for her kosher practicing ex-husband, and the omission of the ex-husband’s name on any property documents relating to her home in Florida. This evidence was sufficient to rebut any finding that a marital relationship existed, according to the ALJ.
With respect to the property in Florida, the ALJ found that the bad economy ate away at any equity interest the claimant may have had in the home, putting it figuratively, if not literally, under water. The mortgage on the home was in excess of the market value of the property, making the claimant’s equity non-existent. The ALJ thus found that the claimant did not have any ownership interest in property over the $2,000 resource limit.
Sally did some creative lawyering on this case, to her client’s benefit. How do you say “Hooray” in Russian? Congratulations to her.
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