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For 3 years my father has POA for his 99 yr old mother (seemingly competent-just deaf and old) who is living in an assisted living facility. My father is seriously ill, has months to live, has end stage liver disease. He went into the hospital, then rehab, then LTC, back to hospital. He has given up taking care of his own financial affairs; I am his POA. I pay his bills now and have since he went into the hospital. He can't go home as he needs round the clock care.
The POA he has for his mother has no secondary POA-I've checked. I informed grandma's only other child-my uncle- of the situation. He has done very little for his mother over the years. My father first lived with grandma and my grandfather died, took her to appointments, cooked and shopped, hired people to clean and do her hair and bathing for 3 years before he got POA. Eventually, she went to a nursing home and then ALF and set up my dad as POA. Now he's dying and her bills are going unpaid.
Uncle wanted to get POA at first. He sent the form to her (he lives out of state) and the ALF notary was present. Grandma didn't sign it because she couldn't compare it to the current POA and she wants to sign only if it's the same in substance. Uncle got frustrated, seems to have backed off on POA . His attorney announced that he was going to petition for guardianship but he seems to have dropped that too and likely would not have been successful since grandma is sharp for 99.
As you might expect, my uncle and my father hate each other. My uncle was suspicious of my father's handling of grandma's finances because he couldn't oversee and says the way my dad did the accounting (hand done, not on computer) was too confusing. In a nutshell, my uncle is obsessed with keep tabs on all of my grandmother's money and how my dad managed it and doesn't seem very concerned about what will happen once my dad passes away from his disease and noone is in place to carry on for grandma.
I have been trying to help my father set something up to help keep grandma's bills paid but we haven't gotten much advice we can act on. It comes down to if grandma is competent (we think yes) and she has to decide who next POA is. I'm thinking of sending a packet of information to her since calling and even visiting (remote visit, talking on a phone) doesn't work due to her deafness. I will explain how dad can't continue and it is her choice to decide POA. I can provide a copy of the current POA again, give her the attorney's contact info that prepared the POA, make sure she has my phone number and her other son's number (she forgets numbers). This was recommended by someone here on this forum and I like this idea of sending the information packet.


I can't keep spending 6-8 hrs a day calling elder law attorneys, office for the aging, etc trying to solve this problem that I have no authority over when my father is dying and I have to help him. I actually CAN help him since I have POA for him. My grandmother can choose me as POA, if she wants and I'll probably accept but I want her to make the decision since my uncle doesn't trust me, either. I'm my father's daughter, after all.


If my father dies, there is no POA. No one except my grandmother would have authorization to access her accounts. She has funds in multiple places that sometimes need to be moved into checking accounts to pay her bills.


What will happen to my grandmother? Will the social worker at her ALF talk to the state about who should get guardianship? I think it's weak that my uncle has seemingly walked away. He wrote the ALF and cc'd me, saying that since ALF says grandma is competent and my father is lucid, my father should find a way to figure it out. He also wrote me to say that because my father didn't hire an accountant to keep financial records it's too complicated for him to understand.


I hate to say I'm ready to walk away from this because I love my grandmother but I do feel that way. I feel like my uncle should step up.

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LAnn123 - the fact that your grandmother did not appoint an alternate person (her other son - your uncle) speaks volumes. I believe moving forward without him is the right thing to do.
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Thanks for all of the input. A lawyer has been contacted and is planning to visit my grandmother to discuss a new POA with her. At that time, her competency will be evaluated. I can’t continue to get wrapped up in this situation because my dad is dying.
I've traveled to be with him in his last days/hours as I’m all he has, really.
I have so much to do to attend to his affairs. I’ve given the attorney the information he needs to draw up a new POA for my grandmother and it’s her choice. If she wants me to be involved, of course I will step up.
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VeronicaJo Apr 2021
LAnn123, you are really just getting started. Competently written POAs for financial and medical decisions are just one step. Does your grandmother have a will? Who is executor? Powers of attorney expire on death so the will needs to be updated if it exists and if your father is her executor. Does she have a trust to help avoid probate? If so, who is the executor of her trust? If it is only your father, that will have to be changed as well. Finally, Social Security doesn’t recognize a POA because of the potential for fraud so they have completely separate paperwork for what they call a representative payee which includes a background check and requires annual financial accounting. If you are asked to take this on, the brother saying he doesn’t understand what your father has done in managing their mother’s money is a huge red flag. I spent weeks, with the help of the bank, going over my MILs bank statements, locating insurance policies, and other financial records before I was able to account for her finances (and realized my husband’s brother had been stealing from her.) Given your father and his brother don’t have a good relationship, keeping meticulous records will at least minimize, but may not prevent, the potential for lawsuits.
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Imho, perhaps you would do yourself a favor by retaining an elder law attorney.
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Since there has been problems between dad and his brother, maybe brother resented that mom made your dad poa to begin with. Seems that if he wanted to know all about the finances he would take on the job, but since he's making excuses - let it go.

Give your g'ma the old POA and a new one with you doing same service for her as your dad did. Uncle had the opportunity to step up and he didn't. Do what you can to mind her affairs. If uncle says anything later on, remind him that he had the chance.
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I was the POA for my brother. I was able to delegate much of the work/bill paying to my father until his death. Perhaps Your grandmother is ok if your dad delegates the bill paying to you? GM should still be part of the investment stuff. You may feel comfortable with this arrangement moving forward and can be the POA for GM. My GM was competent until her death at 103. I took care of the day to day stuff for years. She was only interested in her investments.... I worked closely with a CPA to set up beneficiaries/accounts to honor wills, making estate settling simpler...
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Have you spoken with the social worker at your father's facility? It may be she can be of some assistance in helping GM understand the problem; give you direction on what your options are. If your father is able to phone in while you meet with the social worker. Maybe after speaking with you and your father, the social worker could call your uncle about GM's welfare with your father's decline and unable to continue his responsibility as agent for their mother.

I don't know if you GM would qualify for guardianship or conservatorship if she is competent but unable to take care of her finances, but it is something to check into if your uncle is unwilling to step up and your GM is unwilling to sign a new POA. If GM is willing find an attorney who can visit your GM.

Good Luck and remember to breathe.
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If she no longer has a POA, the ALF can ask for a court-appointed legal guardian. That may be your best option.
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If Uncle wanted to step in he would or maybe he knows his mother wouldn't want him to.

You shoukd let Grandma know that Your Dad can not do it anymore and tell her her choices would be the State to handle it or you, or you could ask point blank If she wants to ask her other son.
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Is there an reason she can't just keep the old POA paperwork and do an addendum to add you as secondary? Otherwise the ALF will probably petition for it and the state will take over.
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Your uncle sounds like a suspicious, habitual malcontent and your sharp grandmother does not trust him. In the interim, prepare her bills for your father and have her sign the checks so she can see what her obligations are. Offer to serve as her POA before your father passes and tell your father what you intend to do. Waking away is not an option regardless. Your grandmother has an estate that must be attended to. Offering your services to her now, a person she trusts, is the right thing to do while your father can help guide the process. Forget about your uncle. He has always found excuses not to step up and he always will do. His excuses make me think he has no confidence in his ability to take care of the estate and is just waiting for someone smarter to step up so that he can criticize and then get an equal share of his mother’s estate without having to do any work. It happens all the time in these situations.
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I can understand your uncle's position. He does not really know your grandmother's affairs, does not want to be involved in any accusations of negligence and since your grandmother has to decide on the POA, what can he "step up" to? He offered, was refused and I can see why he is done. Does your grandmother realize that the son she appointed POA is dying? Can no longer act for her? That her bills are NOT being paid? That her financial affairs are NOT being handled? If she is competent, then she has to make decisions or she will suffer financial consequences. I think your idea of sending her information, etc. is a good one. Perhaps someone at her facility can give her some "down and dirty" examples about having no POA and what that will entail.
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From the research I have done as a POA for a nursing home resident, if there is no one to take over (and in this case there is no one to call for help), it gets dumped on the nursing home and they have to apply to the state where resident is located and have the courts appoint a guardian. That is what I was told. Go seek out an eldercare attorney to verify this and find out how to go about it. No one should be forced to be a guardian if it is not realistic or would cause even more problems. That is what courts are for - they can and will help in this situation.
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rosebush2 Mar 2021
Thank you, Riley, for your helpful answer. For years I have been wondering what would happen to me if there is no one to care for me. Your information helped clear my mind. Thank you for explaining.
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I think you are going the right way here. I always tried to do as much as I could without a lawyer involved but when one finally was involved made my life so much easier.
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I don't know if I missed this but does your grandmother have a will? Given her advanced age regardless of how sharp she is there may not be endless years were you to take over the POA.

I doubt your uncle would do a good job if his heart is not in it. Are there potentially assets to protect? I think it might be possible to revisit an elder care attorney whom you trust. It is possible that this attorney could become POA for your grandmother. This would avoid the quardianship issue which will eat into funds. I am not saying cut the uncle out. Just distribute evenly. It will take longer once she passes but may be the best option. Assets and properties would be sold by the lawyer and ideally they would take a percentage. This is what is happening to a late friend of my mother's. She had no family assigned but she had a law firm overseeing the distribution of assets. In this case it is taking longer as she had many beneficiaries,an apartment full of antiques and the apartment in NYC itself to be sold. My mother is one of the beneficiaries. I am dealing with the lawyer now with my POA sent to them as this is too confusing for my mother. This woman died in 2018 and it is not finished yet although the apartment was sold in late 2020 which took years to clear. Just my thoughts.
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Debstarr53 Mar 2021
Are you aware that this whole time while it's taking "so long" to take care of, the Law Firm is paying themselves to oversee it? You will be lucky if there is anything left.
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thank you all for your advice. I’m going to go with my gut feeling that I’ve had from the start and interview an Elder Law Attorney. I talked to my father (who could hire said lawyer for grandma) and will put them in touch with each other. This situation is too complicated: grandma has money to protect, dysfunctional family dynamics and legal decisions with current POA living on borrowed time. My grandmother needs to have her own attorney.
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rovana Mar 2021
Sounds like the way to go.
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I think what needs to be done is get a lawyer to Grandma wherever she is. Making sure he has the copy of the original. He can pretty much just redo it. Take her a draft, have her ok, then type up an original. Have her sign it have it witnessed and notarized. One of the office staff maybe a notary. Have her assign her son if he wants it.

I don't see where Dads bookkeeping would be that bad. You see money being drawn out of one account, being put into another account. You see bills being paid on the account and checks written off that account. My moms bank statements showed it all. If I reimbursed myself, I kept the receipts in an envelope by month with the check # I used on the envelope. Your Uncle should just start where Dad finished off. How many bills could a woman living in an AL have? Unless she owns property.

Did Dad do transfers online? If so, you can do that. Whose to know it wasn't Dad. You can write checks and have Dad sign them.

I think at this point the responsibility falls on your Uncle. He needs to go see your grandmom with the paperwork. He then needs to get the financials from Dad and get all banking records changed. You should not be worrying about this and either should Dad. Maybe a lawyer can take over at this point.

Is not a copy of the POA assigned to Dad in grandmoms file at the AL. I am pretty sure mine was on file and with Moms PCP.
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LAnn123 Mar 2021
thank you. I found it very surprising that the ALF said my grandmother didn’t have a copy of the POA to compare to.
my dad kept pretty good records. It’s all there: statements, checkbook registers, receipts. My dad also kept a ledge that he’d update at the end of the year to show if CDs were cashed to deposit into checking account to pay for Grandma’s finances.
you’d be surprised at how complicated her finances are. There are funds in multiple places and she still has a property that’s been vacant for 3 yrs-ugh.
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There is almost always a "second" listed on POA paperwork if this was done by a competent lawyer. If no one wishes to serve, however, they need not do so whether listed as POA or not. In that case it should be reported to the Long Term Care facility which will notify the government through their social worker that conservatorship is needed. If no family member wishes to do this, the state will take over. There will then be no choice of family in dictating where person is placed, or in management of her funds and assets if she has same.
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LAnn123 Mar 2021
Thank you. My grandmother declined to put a secondary agent down for POA so there isn’t one.
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For now because your father is still lucid, you can help him with managing grandma's money. Keep the records, write the checks for him (and he can sign). That's what you can do in the short term now.
Next, look at his POA paperwork for your grandmother. There will be an official stamp of the law firm that drew it up. This is who you and your father deal with.
Forget about hiring an elder attorney. Stop trying to call the office for aging or any other government agency because they are a complete waste of time and you will get nowhere. POA only kicks in if a person is incapacitated and incapable of making their own decisions. If grandma is still "sharp" as you say, then the responsibility for her is still on her.
She needs to go and see the lawyer who did the original POA for her and have your father removed from it and someone else put on it. You state further down in the posts that this lawyer is 'afraid' of the lawyer your uncle has. That's a crock sh*t and there's something that you're either leaving out or are dramatizing about. One lawyer is not afraid of another one. As for your father. He should not be handling grandma's affairs in his condition. He shouldn't have been anyway if she's still competent. The lawyer can transfer her POA over to you.
If you don't want to take it on (and God knows I would not encourage you to because I know how that is), then your uncle can have it. If he isn't interested then the probate court in town will appoint a conservator over her which is usually a lawyer or social worker. If she goes into a nursing home, it will be the nursing home.
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LAnn123 Mar 2021
She’s already in Assisted Living facility. She pays for her care from her own funds but hasn’t actively written a check in years.
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I can't blame your uncle for being unwilling to take on this responsibility without being very clear on all the detail. But never mind him, if he doesn't want to do it he doesn't want to do it.

You have your hands full and your Dad, very sadly, is out of the picture; so yes, you have it about right - this will be for your competent grandmother to sort out with support from the appropriately qualified people at her ALF. That's okay. They should make sure that everything is explained to her properly and carried out with her agreement, so in a way maybe it's for the best that your uncle has counted himself out - it avoids painful disputes now or later. There are always ways and means, it's just a bit more expensive to pay a professional rather than appoint a family member.
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You say your grandma is still "sharp" so all you can do is communicate to her that her PoA is now incapacitated and she must assign a new one or else her bills will go unpaid. That's all you can do, you have no other ability to impact her situation. Maybe she is less competent than you think if she is hedging on assigning a new one, or she is just at a loss as to whom to trust. She can hire a professional PoA. Guardianship pursued through the courts by family is time-consuming and can be expensive, and can only happen if she is truly incompetent. I'm sorry for your distress....you are wonderful for going the extra mile for her to this point.
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LAnn123 Mar 2021
thank you. This is what I think, too. I'm sure the social worker at her ALF can help her if she needs to make calls. She can call me, too. Or her other son, the one who doens't want to do anything. Let him tell her himself that he gives up.
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There's another issue that might be remote, and it's whether or not your father as proxy for your GM has the power to pass along his responsibilities.    Some documents create authority for designating assistance (my father's did), and if so, and assuming an attorney could affirm that option, your father could in the presence of an estate planning attorney, and you, pass the authority along to you.
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LAnn123 Mar 2021
I've checked and that is not part of the POA he has, unfortunately. I wish, it would make things easier.
Thank you.
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I swear that I saw this post earlier, yesterday or before, as I remember thinking what a dilemma you face.    Notwithstanding, since your grandmother is capable of making her own decisions, I would follow the same basic route you've taken, but simplify it for her in terms not of "what to do" but of "this or that"?    

I.e., apparently she has a copy of the existing doc appointing your father as proxy, and wants to compare it to any proposed new document.    Help her make a decision, and stop spending 6 - 8 hours daily calling attorneys (this I don't understand; that's a LOT of time to spend on phone calls.)

Contact the attorney who prepared the existing document and ask if he/she or others in the firm would be willing to handle preparation of a new document, including going to where your grandmother is staying for the document execution.   Raise the issue of "sameness" so the attorney will be prepared to summarize the appointment issues and anything else of which your GM wants to be assured.

I worked for 2 firms in which the attorneys did this.  One was when my sister had been intubated, pulled out the tube and was coherent, but too weak to move.   An attorney for whom I had worked came to the hospital, briefly went over the issues, prepared the documents and then returned later for execution.

Another firm was similarly cooperative:   the female attorney (again, for whom I worked), visited a dying woman, came back; we worked quickly to get everything done, then the attorney returned the following day and the dox were executed.  The woman died later that day.

If you're not getting cooperation from attorneys you're calling, you're probably getting the "elder law" attorneys who got on the bandwagon years ago, as opposed to established probate, estate and trust planning law firms.

I wouldn't walk away, and I wouldn't get involved with the uncle, but I would try to minimize the decisions GM has to make, and find an attorney who can come to her.

If you need help selecting attorneys, post back and I can offer some guidelines.
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LAnn123 Mar 2021
Thank you. The attorney who drew up the POA for my grandma and father is afraid of the attorney my uncle has! She's aggressive and notoriously difficult. she's bossed around the social worker at the nursing home. My uncle is looking for any reason to claim that I've forced my grandmother into anything (like making me POA). I'm going to make sure my grandmother has all of the information in writing, has everyone's phone numbers, including the attorney. She can make calls and the nursing home staff can help her, too.
My uncle now has decided that this situation is my father's to deal with. He's a real peach.
The 6-8 hrs of me on the phone, well, maybe I'm exaggerating. Its more like 6-8 hrs of dealing with nursing homes and legal stuff. I spend hours doing internet research, call Office for the aging numbers, get referred to other people. Call an elder law attorney, they say they can't help, call this other number, I call. Leave voicemails, wait for replies. Call my dad and talk to him. Make calls to his hospital for updates on his condition since they don't call me. Try to locate his phone that is at his LTC facility that he only spent 3 days in before going back to the hospital. I've also had multiple emails to the social workers at grandma's ALF to discuss the situation and the latest angry email from my uncle. Try to locate grandma's paperwork that my uncle and his attorney demanded they have , then he sent to grandma's nursing home when he decided to not do a damn thing.
I'm now looking at driving 6 hrs to go pick up a box of her paperwork/docs that he sent to her (which upset her) so I can physically bring bills and checks to my dad's hospital room so he can sign and get stuff paid.
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