My mother, who is in a nursing home, is accusing me of stealing, and is threatening to revoke my power of attorney. Can she have it revoked?

If this is a new behavior and it started suddenly, please have her checked for a urinary tract infection!

If in a nursing home she can no longer able to care for herself. Leaving her bills unpaid and confused about her finances...is Dementia and the NH can evaluate this. Sounds like this is permanent. I would have this done. Once she is evaluated incompetent she will not be able to revoke the POA.

I agree with others upthread with their responses. Here's a different approach: do you proactively inform her of what's happening with all her finances?

Five years ago when Mom couldn't handle her finances anymore and the "final notices" started to appear, and my then-live-in-caregiver sister couldn't handle the added stress (she works long hard hours as a funeral director), and Mom's granddaughter hounded Gramma for money (and ended up with all of it), I told Sisters that I would handle Mom's money. I live out of state, but with auto-deduction online I could take care of Mom's finances. Eventually they got Mom through her lawyer to sign POA to me for finances and medical (to handle her medical bills) while they took care of Mom's person and her house.

Because Mom's dementia caused her to toss whole bank statements and bills in the trash, I developed a monthly "statement" of anything to do with Mom's money--sanitized so if she threw it in the trash a finder of those papers had no idea of bank, account numbers, identity, etc.

The first page had a list of utilities and when they were paid, amount, and when; her property tax and when it was paid through; her homeowner's insurance and when it was paid through (when I took over Mom fixated on her insurance and property tax so they became permanent items on the statement). The second page was a recreation of her checkbook register; the third page was any loans such as Granddaughter who owed Mom money (no way was Granddaughter not paying back money), Mom's Home Equity Line of Credit (usually balance zero), et al.

I mailed it to Mom by the second of every month. Mom could review it and reassure herself that all was well, and my sisters could review too. Any questionable or odd things were explained on those entries so there were no questions. [Note: those explanations came in handy after Mom passed away a few weeks ago when Sisters basically accused me of elder abuse and theft because they and Mom's lawyer only looked at the printout of Mom's checking account that had no explanations. When Sister 2 asked me specific questions what Lawyer pointed out and I could point out the explanations and show the receipts those accusations vanished.]

Anyway, is it possible that a statement such as this every month (along with a printout of any bank statements to confirm) might help your Mom relax?

If she's competent to revoke a POA, she could do so. But that would require her physically revoking it (or having a new POA drafted that specifically revokes older POAs) and serving it upon you and any creditors that might have it. Are there other people involved that would help her revoke the former POA by bringing in a new POA and a notary for her to execute?

We never had POA with my mother and I was her only family. We always had verbal agreements that each of us promised to honor. I took care of all her paperwork and finances for almost 30 years because after my father passed away, my Italian born mother did not know how to do those things because my father did them for her while he was alive. Then dementia set in and along with it came the paranoia and the mistrustfulness. I never took a penny from her because my family did not need the money. Everything went downhill from there and when I tried to seek guardianship, as suggested by the nursing home, they in turn introduced her to a local slimy lawyer who basically fought us in court and won and stole her money and even her jewelry. My mother died alone and completely isolated from her family years later. We lost over $100k of our own money trying to obtain guardianship and then starting an appeal. Even the judge was corrupt it turns out. I hope you can get this resolved before it spins out of control like it did for us and almost destroyed my own immediate family. Good luck and stay strong !!

chooey, this must be so stressful and I’m sorry. All good advice above. My mother hasn’t given me POA yet, she’s always been generally distrustful because of her childhood trauma. When and if we get there I think she will cry out to revoke it at least weekly... thus I don’t push it. Their feelings of insecurity can get pervasive, hope you’re not taking it too personally. It’s very sad. You’re doing the best you can for her, hang in there. 💐

Mountainmoose- what a great idea....are you able to share your spreadsheet you developed?

Moose, excellent approach (not to mention that I did the same thing!). You're more thorough than I was; I like your methods.

I found that telling Dad every time I paid a bill, keeping him updated on financial issues, etc. allowed him to be comfortable that the issues were being handled. Since his checking account was joint, I actually never acted with proxy authority for that aspect of his care.

I never wanted POA and thankfully, against the wishes of family, my father never wanted to name me (or anyone else) POA.

Nothing would have changed as I was already managing his finances as well as helping with medicines and appointments. He apologized that he didn't want to name anyone as POA and I told him, I never asked him to.

We managed fine for the 7.5 years he survived my mother - in our family it was Mom who managed the finances.

If any of my siblings had pushed to get POA, I would have gladly stepped aside and let them do it all. I guess no one wanted it bad enough to do the dirty work too :)

Like GardenArtist, my name was on all the accounts at the recommendation of the Bank Vice-President. All my dad asked me was, "will you still honor my wishes and divide equally with your sisters after I'm gone?" That was a no-brainer and I said yes. From that day on, my name was included on all accounts.

The reasoning the Bank VP gave him, if push ever came to shove, I wouldn't have to go to court to free his assets to take care of him. So, no POA was ever needed.

Kingsbridge: PM heading your way.

For my statement to Mom, all that information would likely fit on one page, but I wanted lots of white space in order to help her comprehend. The first page could reasonably be deleted as it was on the checkbook register, but who wants to comb through a checkbook register if you want to know when the property tax was paid? Hence, the first page was the down-and-dirties of her bills. The ending balances were carried forward to the beginning balances of the next month so Sisters (and Lawyer) could see no money could be missing.

I also liked that she had something to hold onto, like a "real", professional statement. Additionally, with her dementia, she could check it as often as she wanted to, feel relieved all was well, then set it aside until next time she was anxious.