Denied being fiduciary for my brother. What can I do?

Shorty...
I am surprised you are so surprised that the VA would not be willing to appoint you as fiduciary given a poor credit report. Although you may indeed be a good steward of your brother's funds the examiner obviously felt it was not in your brother's best interest to appoint you.
Your brother or his POA can appeal (http://www.benefits.va.gov/fiduciary/beneficiary.asp) but it a long process and success is not likely.
If an appeal is made efforts would be better spent getting another relative appointed rather than trying to change the decision already made with respect to your service.

If they are competent, the elder can appoint whoever they want to be their POA. But this is only BEFORE they become incompetent. If they have not selected someone as POA and they become incompetent it's up to the courts to appoint a POA/fiduciary manager for the elder's accounts. The court is careful to appoint someone who has demonstrated sound decisions in their own credit, so yes in this case the court can say that you are not able to be POA. They have to make sure that whoever they appoint will make careful decisions with the elder's money, because down the line if the POA abuses their position and takes money from the elder, the court could be held liable for appointing this person. So in general, a court will not appoint someone with bad credit. I am not saying that you would do anything improper with your brother's money. But the court doesn't know you personally and must make decisions based on the history they can research, such as your bad credit. It doesn't matter WHY you have bad credit, it simply means that you do have bad credit and this is a factor in deciding on POA. It is likely a POA or guardian will be appointed that is not related to your brother (perhaps a lawyer).

For others, this is a very important reason to appoint your own POA before you become incompetent.

Angel

Recently I became fiduciary for Mom's VA widow benefits. They accepted me but I had my middle sister in mind as back-up in case they didn't.

VA takes credit rating as an indication of how well a person manages money.

This is not necessarily fair because a poor credit rating could have other causes such as a deadbeat spouse, unaffordable medical bills, etc. However, since VA is a huge government agency, there probably is an appeal process available to you.

Good luck.

Financial Guardianship is pretty tough. I had to be fingerprinted, background checked and credit checked, driving record check and interviewed before the Judge would approve my appointment. NOW they even check your social media pages and any post they consider inappropriate will count against you. You have to be a total choir boy.

Get an attorney and do a Durable Power of Attorney for his health and financial decisions.

VA always has an appeal process. Go for it!

Jees, I'm sure glad this didn't happen with me. I declared bankruptcy and am my Mom's fiduciary. I am overwhelmed and completely disorganized, but I'm hiring someone to help me get through it. I have chronic migraines, so it's difficult. But my brother is ONLY interested in Mom's money. He has walked away and does nothing to help her-so I want to be sure she is protected there. I'm sorry you are going through this. I hope you are able to resolve it in a way that makes both you and your brother happy. F*^% the VA!

Thank God, the Social Media thing has been outlawed in California for employers (and hopefully something like this). That would make me ballistic because I consider that personally private! Course mine is mostly about dogs and migraines. Being hateful on the Internet is pretty stupid.

I would see if someone else in the family would be able to go through the background check needed to be a fiduciary for your brother & would want to do it. The entire family need to be spotless - so if they are OK but their kid who is their dependent has juvee issues, then they are toast; if they are divorced and the ex has debt issues they need to make sure that their name is not on or associated with anything of his. You have to be current on your bills and mortgages.

Now there should be something on how to do an appeal on the letter. If your credit situation is not accurate, you should file for an appeal. You can go on-line to get your current credit report for free once a year from the big 3. But if you know that there are just valid problems with your credit, then you have to let APS or the court appoint someone. You know these guys are pro's and have training to do this and buy & large they have several clients and report to the court regularly. So they are not going to take advantage of the situation. you want to work with them and often they will allow you to do a lot of the very things you do now but instead of you paying for things, you are given a debit card which they review & control.

Do you have a sibling or any other family member who would be satisfactory to do this ? You may at least get someone you trust . The court probably thinks that someone with a good credit rating is more trust worthy . Of course that isn't necessarily true .