Rep. Claire Snyder-Hall

This Act updates the Delaware Volunteerism Act to specify that high school students may complete their community service with local fire departments to obtain up to 1 elective credit. It also requires schools to notify students of the opportunity to earn elective credit through volunteer work at or before the time students select their classes. This Act also allows the Department of Education to promulgate regulations to implement the Delaware Volunteerism Act. This Act also makes technical corrections to conform to the standards of the Delaware Legislative Drafting Manual.

Delaware currently permits the nonprobate transfer of bank accounts, investments, and vehicles. This Act provides a mechanism for the nonprobate transfer of real estate without requiring the creation of a revocable trust. This is done by permitting an owner of an interest in real estate to execute and record a transfer on death (“TOD”) deed designating a beneficiary who will automatically receive the real estate on the owner's death. During the owner's lifetime the beneficiary of a TOD deed has no interest in the real estate and the owner retains full power to transfer or encumber the real estate or to revoke the TOD deed. This Act is a Substitute for House Bill No. 147. Like House Bill No. 147, this Act adopts the Uniform Real Property Transfer on Death Act authored by the Uniform Law Commission. The Uniform Law Commission “provides states with non-partisan, well-conceived and well-drafted legislation that brings clarity and stability to critical areas of state statutory law.” The Uniform Real Property Transfer on Death Act has been enacted in 19 states (including Virginia), the District of Columbia, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, and a substantially similar law has been enacted in 10 additional states. The Uniform Real Property Transfer on Death Act is pending before 6 state legislatures (including New Jersey and Maryland). In adopting the Uniform Real Property Transfer on Death Act, this Act, like House Bill No. 147, also makes the following changes to the uniform law and Delaware law: (1) Provides clarity that a transfer on death deed controls over any contrary instruction in a will to transfer the same real property. (2) Provides in the optional forms included in this Act, which may be used to create a transfer on death deed or revoke a transfer on death deed, that a transferor is a grantor and a beneficiary is a grantee. This change is made to assist the Recorders of Deeds in integrating the forms in their computerized databases. (3) Authorizes the Registers of Wills to adopt a form to be used by a beneficiary to provide notice of the death of a person whose real property has transferred to the beneficiary by a transfer on death deed. (4) Authorizes a beneficiary to file with a Register of Wills the death certificate of a person whose real property has transferred to the beneficiary by a transfer on death deed. (5) Makes abundantly clear that which is already permitted under the law of this State, that a person may obtain from the Office of Vital Statistics a death certificate to establish their legal right to real property and may disclose that death certificate to a Register of Wills to prove the person’s legal right to real property. This Act differs from House Bill No. 147 as follows: (1) By providing that an owner of real property may transfer the property only to an individual. (2) By making clear that a transfer on death deed, including all signatures required to execute a transfer on death deed, must be notarized. (3) By requiring a transfer on death deed be witnessed by 2 individuals, at least 1 of whom must not be a beneficiary. (4) By requiring a revocation of a transfer on death deed be witnessed by 2 individuals and making a conforming change to the optional form. (5) By making changes to the optional transfer on death deed form in this Act to do the following: a. Making clear a mailing address is required for a beneficiary. b. Making clear on the deed how the deed may be revoked. c. Bolding the acknowledgement related to the effect a transfer on death deed has on a contrary instruction in a will and rewriting this acknowledgement in plainer language. An owner’s transfer of real property to a beneficiary by a transfer on death deed controls over a contrary instruction in a will that is prepared before or after the transfer on death deed. d. Requiring printed names and signatures for owners and witnesses and updating the form to make clear 2 witnesses are required. (6) By making clear that the Court of Chancery has jurisdiction over challenges to the validity or revocation of a transfer on death deed. (7) By relocating Section 5 of this Act to another chapter in the Insurance Code and making other changes to conform the language to existing law.

This Substitute for House Bill No. 212 corrects a technical drafting error to underline new language contained in Section 2 of the Act, and is otherwise identical to House Bill No. 212, which does the following: Section 1 of this Act amends the time period during which health insurers may initiate overpayment recovery efforts from 24 months to 12 months of a claim being paid. This Act also amends one of the exemptions to the overpayment recovery deadline to require an indication of fraud, abuse, or other intentional misconduct based on a physical review or review of claims data or statements as opposed to merely having a reasonable belief of such fraud, abuse or other intentional misconduct. It aligns requirements for provider-oriented clawbacks with those for pharmacies. Section 2 of this Act requires written notice from pharmacy benefit managers or entities conducting pharmacy audits. Because Department examinations have indicated that PBMs misuse this provision in the law to conduct audits outside the parameters of the Pharmacy Audit Integrity Program, Section 3 of this Act amends the exclusions to the applicability of the pharmacy audit rules to require that pharmacy benefits managers have more definitive proof, based on physical review of claims data or other investigative methods, to believe misconduct has occurred before the rules related to the Pharmacy Audit Integrity Program become inapplicable to an investigative audit. This Act also makes technical corrections to existing law to conform to the requirements of the Delaware Legislative Drafting Manual.

Section 1 of this Act makes a pattern or practice of violations by a landlord of a Manufactured Home Community of subchapters I through V of Chapter 70 of Title 25 of the Delaware Code, or a provision of a rental agreement, an unlawful practice under the Consumer Fraud Act, subchapter II, Chapter 70, of Title 25, under specified circumstances. Section 2 of this Act authorizes the Attorney General to file a petition to establish a receivership of a Manufactured Home Community in a Justice of the Peace Court on specified grounds after notice to the landlord. Section 3 of this Act requires the Justice of the Peace Court to send written notice to the Director of Consumer Protection at the Department of Justice within 10 days of its receipt of a petition for tenants’ receivership under Title 25 of the Delaware Code, Sections 5901 or 7061, except in those cases where the Attorney General files the petition.

This Act updates the Right to Representation statute by moving certain duties to the office of the State Courts Administrator and clarifies terminology used within the statute.

In Chapter 70, Subchapter V of Title 25, the Manufactured Home Relocation Trust Fund was established. It is administered by a Board of Directors. The Board was directed to set a monthly assessment for deposit in the Trust Fund for each rented lot in a manufactured home community. This Act removes the cap of the Trust Fund, currently set at $15 million. This Act also raises the amount of the tenant portion of the monthly assessment to be redirected to the Delaware Manufactured Home Owner Attorney Fund from 50 cents of the tenant portion to $1.50. This Act takes effect on the date of enactment.

This Act allows Sussex County to apply an impact fee to building permits within the respective school district for the purpose of collecting funding for the local share of school capital construction programs.

This Act amends the long-term care resident’s bill of rights to provide that residents may not be subject to discrimination based on their membership in a protected class. Specifically, this Act does the following: 1. Adds “or domestic partner” to the provision of the resident’s bill of rights that gives spouses the right to visit and, if feasible and not medically contraindicated, to share a room if both are residents of the facility. This addition is being made to ensure that domestic partnerships entered into in other states are recognized. 2. Adds a non-discrimination provision to § 1121 of Title 16, which enumerates the rights of residents of long-term care facilities. 3. Requires the Department of Health and Social Services (“Department”) to provide a revised notice of resident rights under § 1121 of Title 16 to each resident or the resident’s authorized representative within 30 days of any changes to those rights. 4. Requires each facility to provide appropriate staff training whenever there is a revision to the resident’s bill of rights within 60 days of that revision. The purpose of this Act is to protect long-term care facility residents from discrimination and to ensure that residents, their representatives, and facility staff are aware of residents’ rights.

This Act creates a special open enrollment period for persons who are already enrolled in a Medicare supplement policy or certificate to cancel their existing policy or certificate and purchase another Medicare supplement policy or certificate that provides the same or lesser benefits. Only persons who are already enrolled in a Medicare supplement policy or certificate are eligible for the special open enrollment period. The special enrollment period begins 30 days before an eligible person's birthday and remains open for at least 30 days following the eligible person's birthday. During this special open enrollment period, individuals switching from one Medicare supplement policy to another cannot be denied coverage and coverage and rates cannot be dependent upon the person’s medical history. The Act also obligates issuers to notify eligible persons who are enrolled in their Medicare supplement policies or certificates of the dates of the open enrollment period, at least 30 days before it begins, and of any modification to the benefits provided by the policy under which the person is currently insured. This Act also allows persons enrolled in a Medicare Advantage plan to cancel their existing policy, enroll in Medicare during the annual Medicare open enrollment period and apply for a Medicare supplement policy. For individuals switching from Medicare Advantage to a Medicare supplement policy, the Act prohibits issuers of Medicare supplement policies from denying applications for such policies but does allow issuers to individually rate and apply a pre-existing condition limitation.

This Act creates the Affordable Rental Housing Program (ARHP) within the Housing Development Fund. The ARHP is modeled on the federal Section 515 program and provides loans to increase the supply of affordable housing for families with very low-, low-, and moderate-incomes, individuals who are elderly, and individuals with disabilities.