My sister stole my dad's money. What can I do about it?

This is exactly why I recommend AGAINST joint accounts between parent and child. The fact is that once the joint account is created, unless both parties can demonstrate they contributed equally to the account, half of the account well be deemed by Medicaid as an uncompensated gift to the joint holder. Period.

Medicaid does not care about what happened to your father's money. The only thing that is important to them is that the money was there and now it is not and it is now considered a gift.

Medicaid does not "go after money" until the recipient is dead. At death, the state will initiate an estate recovery process and if there are probatable assets they will attempt to recoup the cost of care. If fraud is perpetrated against Medicaid a referral could be made to the states attorney's general office for prosecution but nothing of the sort has occurred here.

It is ludicrous to think that a state agency is going to go running around looking for applicant's money either before or during claim...they just deny benefits if there is any question.

What may happen is that a penalty period of ineligibility will be imposed. I have no idea what the amount in question is, but if it is around $35k as your account was your father could be looking at a penalty of up to 3 or 4 months. (One half the account value divided by your state's medicaid rate = number of months of penalty).

What to do? Forget the lawyer!!! He has no authority and in the end, really no interest. You will pay ridiculous amounts of money and get no result...I promise you!

Instead, call whatever the equivalent is for Adult Protective Services in your state (the Long-Term Care Ombudsman typically only deals with matters between a facility and a resident, not matters between family members and residents so they would be the wrong agency to contact). They LOVE cases like this.

The reason you want to do this is: 1. It will scare the bejeesus out of your sister, 2. It will be a lot easier to have a third party involved instead of he said/she said and you don't have evidence to call in the police. 3. When you apply for Medicaid you are going to ask for a "hardship exception" to the imposition of penalty so you want your story documented. Having it documented as elder financial abuse will help you in your dad's cause.

If, other than this issue your father's assets are spent down, forget about the lawyer when applying for medicaid as well. Let the facility do it. If you need an attorney to handle the hardship issue (which you shouldn't) find one who will bill you hourly without a retainer.

What do you mean that Medicade goes after the money and not the person. If your sister has spent the money, and refuses to give it back, what recourse does the state have if they go after the money and not the person? Very interesting question...would love to hear the answer.

Your atty is right and I hope he will win. Then, he should go over sister and the judge who should be disbared from practicing law or at least found guilty of breaking the law an given a fine for more than what he and your sister stole from you dad.

We need new laws on the books that will empower adult children of aging parents to take people who do these kind of things to court without the parent being the one who files a complaint?

RS Robbins -

I am not "virulently" opposed to anything. I stated a fact. Unfortunately the marketing provides the mechanisim for the unscrupulous. I stated that the money is there for the fathers care and should be used that way. You have no idea what I think, you just wrote something because you didn't like what I said and you wanted to promote yourself & your service.

I notice too that you misspoke. A previous poster said medical follows the money - you jumped on that and then backtracked to qualify it as following the money once the person is deceased. You characterized that person's comment as 'ludicrous'. These are fairly strong words - made all the worse by the fact that you are a professional whose business is telling people how to manage their estates. I do not have a chip on my shoulder - I am simply a caregiver who is giving my opinion to Olive who started this thread. We are supposed to be safe and allowed to speak freely without recriminations. Do you have a reason to be on this board - I do not see an Agingcare Expert symbol next to your name.

I am curious though, why as a professional are you contributing to this board? I am not a big fan of being singled out because someone disagrees with me. I am less than impressed when someone stomps on me because they can. I notice that you then segue into a dialog about how YOU could have helped this family. I think you have crossed the line, and the insults are not ok. Please think about the people who participate before you start throwing around judgemental remarks that are hurtful.

Hi this is Olive. I spoke to the attorney and he said that what would happen is a penalty would be imposed on the missing 28K which would be about two months worth of medicaid benefits. However, Dad would have to state that he gave that money away as a gift which I don't see happening. Dad is still lucid so that won't be pretty when he hears about it.

On whom will the penalty be imposed? Seems the one possessing the money should pay...even if they don't still possess it. Wouldn't that be considered stealing? Especially if your Dad didn't authorize it. Can he file a civil suit for his money?

Medicaid will deny my father roughly two months of benefits. My dad will find out about the missing funds. Hopefully she will be shamed into returning the money. My dad is in the hospital and I don't think he can take that kind of stress. I will keep you all informed.

Bless you for looking out for your Dad's best interests. I surrendered several policies for my Dad, too. (Even though they were insurance policies in my and my sister's name.) I figured the money belonged to my Dad, and he needed it to pay off his just debts to creditors. Hope your Dad is doing better soon, and that you are taking care of yourself, as well.

olive im probably the last person to speak on this i was accused of taking my dads money but i had access to it..the only thing i can tell you like the others said is to contact a lawyer and the obsudman they will tell you what to do,of course my situation is different cause my family has greed in their mind and they still didn't get nothing so far they don't derserve, espcially how they did my father at the of his days i lived with him for five yrs i move my family in to take care fo him, while my family went on with their lives and mines was put on hold to take care of my father..oh believe me i don't regret taking care of my father but i do regret moving in when i could had sstayed in my own home and took care of him like that my oldest sister was living with him but when his alz kick in she didn't want to be bother with him except for the money they all was like that and i got blame for everything..they accused me of stealing his money but the thing of it is i couldn't work i couldn't even pay my own bill before my dads azl kick in real good he gave me the power and told me to use his money as long as i stayed with him he didn't want the others to help me so i abide my his wishes and did that and now my family is mad cause there wasn't any money left (wasn't that much in the first place) you think my dad was donald trump the way my family acted in was pitiful..of course money is the rude of all people espeically when it come to siblings

Tell me about it!!