When is it time to take the check book away?

First, has your mom been assessed for cognitive issues like dementia by her doctor? If not do whatever it takes to go with her to the doc and also have her checked for a UTI.

Depending on what cognitive state she is in, if you have a durable PoA you may not need to have her assessed for compentency. Here in MN you don't need to change anything as your LO slides from right mind to dementia if your powers are durable.

When we discovered that my MIL and StepFIL had over $935 in overdrafts and weren't recording the checks they wrote and had kept ordering boxes and boxes of checks because they couldn't remember where they put them, and they would write a check out of one book, lose that one and then write checks out of a variety of books, we had to take control whether they "liked" it or not. When they weren't looking we scoured their house and found every last checkbook. My husband had DPoA for his mom so he took her and his papers to the bank, had his name added jointly to her checking acct, renegotiated the overdraft fees and put all bill payments online. Without telling them we sent all their mail to a PO box to which they had no access and sorted their mail before they saw it, removing all the scams.

You don't have to tell your mom what you're doing. It will only upset her and cause her to dread your visits. Try to be creative about using strategies that don't upset her. It will help both of you.

Snevetsg57, sounds like it is time to try out "theraputic fibs" to get control of your Mom's checkbook. Try a fib that you think your Mom would believe, then you both head to the bank to have whomever is the Power of Attorney's name placed on the checks.

To keep your Mom from writing large checks, the bank can set up the checks that anything over $100 or whatever would require two signatures. You can tell Mom that is to prevent fraud or in case her check is stolen.

It is very hard for anyone who is getting older to give up so much of their independence. And the checkbook might be her last bit of independence.

My 94 yo mother won't give up Publishers Clearing House, we cannot convince her that she was not winning the "Big Prize" and that the limo was not going to pull up in her yard. Fortunately, that is the only one she sends money to! Who has her POA? This is a difficult one if they don't cooperate. You may have to bite the bullet and take the checkbook away from her and freeze all automatic payments.

You need of course to have power of attorney and your mother must have a diagnosis of dementia. That given, the time to remove the check book was yesterday. There will not be a whole lot of things happening for her that will honestly make her happy, but that is the sad fact about it. Not everything has a happy answer. Not everything can be fixed. Some things are just difficult and make people cry, yell, rant. It is about loss at the end of life, and loss of ability to made sensible decisions is worth crying and yelling over. So sorry for all you are going through. Hopefully the crying and violent acting out will stop quickly. In so far as she can be reasoned with do tell her that when you can no longer handle violent outbursts you will not be able to be around to help her a whole lot and she will be in the hands of people who will not try so hard to make her happy.