Out of State Filing and other questions

Hi,

My mom is eligible for A&A due to being a Korean War veteran and I am just getting started understanding the process. She is currently in a home in California due to dementia, draws about 900 a month in Social Security and Pension, has a condo (that is in a Living Trust of which I am the administrator now), and some monetary assets the bulk of which are in the living trust with the remainder being well below the 80K limit I have read about. I live in Texas and have considered bringing my mom here however she does have an elderly sister who lives in the same town where the home is and both want to be near each other. My mom can expresss her opinion that she wants to stay in California and indeed is happy where she is at so I am just going to go with that.

My questions are:

1) Should I file in California or Texas? I can go out to Ca if I need to meet with someone, not a problem there but would like to file locally if possible to avoid unnecessary trips and expenses.

2) From reading the various posts it sounds like assets that are in Living Trusts are not counted as an asset when determining eligibility. All of my mom's expenses for the home are paid from the trust account. Is this a problem? Is the bank account in the trust really not counted as an asset?

3) I was working on renting out the condo of which any rental income would go into the trust but I was told by someone that I should not as it would mess up my mom's eligibilty. Any thoughts on this?

4) Where should I start? Just start completing and filing forms? Any guidance here would be appreciated!

Thanks in advance!

K