Is voluntary repossession of the vehicle of a dementia patient possible?

Can you ask the bank to stop allowing the withdrawl? Brother had to OK it. Then, I bet you will here from the bank.

Normally the biggest con in a repossession is the bank usually auctions the vehicle at a below wholesale price and then bills or sues for the balance of the loan amount. From your profile, your brother still has some private funds, so those could be taken to cover the loan balance. If he was already on Medicaid, the recovery amount probably wouldn't be as much of a problem, but if the truck sold for more than the loan amount and raised your brother's balance over $2000, then you have a Medicaid qualification problem.

What does "The truck is in NC with no way to get it back to Louisiana." mean? Your estranged SIL will not return it? No one wants to take a bus to NC to recover the truck? Or you're unwilling to engage a recovery/repo professional if SIL will not surrender her free transportation?

Who is your brother's POA?

The first step is probably getting a copy of the title from LA. In my home state you can get a title copy for $15 in any county clerk's office. The title should identify the lien holder, who POA can contact, determine the pay off amount on the truck and how open the lien holder is to having the truck surrendered for the outstanding balance or balance minus some fee. Make _sure_ the POA gets any agreement in writing before any surrender. It's possible the POA could arrange for the surrender in NC if the lien holder does business there too.

Second step is the POA sending a demand letter (or have an attorney send it) requiring SIL to return the truck to a detailing shop in either NC or LA within 10 days and informing her any recovery costs required by her non-compliance will be her responsibility. If needed the POA can engage a recovery specialist to pickup the truck, document it's state and deliver it to a detailing shop clean it up for resale or surrender. Ask the detailing shop to document the truck's condition after cleanup too. Knowing how much surrendering the truck to the lien holder will cost, the POA may decide to see if the detailing shop or the recovery specialist would be willing to act as an agent to sell it for a fee (maybe $500) or just surrender it to the lien holder.

Do you have financial PoA for your brother? Is he capable of making sound decisions in his best interest? Not sure you can do much if you don't have any authority. Like WorriedinCali posted, if your brother can close the account where the payments are being withdrawn...?

Had a similar situation with my FILs truck and it’s $600 a month payment. He went in to a nursing home and continued to make his payments. The bank was notified when he died and we closed his bank account so they couldn’t auto-draft his account. Instead of voluntarily repossessing, they simply waited until he was 3 months behind on the payments and then they repossessed it. They knew where the truck was and that no one was going to make the payment. My BIL did try to sell it but he was unsuccessful because the truck was registered in another state and he wanted the highest blue book value which it wasn’t worth that much.
if you can’t contact the bank, there’s little you can do.

the only problem with selling it is, if he needs Medicaid to pay for his long term care within the next few years. If the car is sold, you will have to sell it at market value and document how the money was spent on him.