As I've posted here, my 94 year old dad is currently in skilled nursing but will be moving soon to memory care. He still owns a house and 2 cars and I, as guardian and conservator, am responsible for keeping the house maintained, paying utilities, property taxes, yard maintenance and insurance. He has not lived there for 1-1/2 years. There are rats living in the back shed (I think my husband is on a mission to get rid of them. He has baited 3 times and they keep coming back). I was there this weekend and the back fence between his house and 2 neighbors has blown down so that's another thing to deal with. I have to have approval from the court to sell the house and he will receive a copy of the paperwork. The guardianship attorney has urged me to do this as the house is becoming a money pit. How do I tell him? He is going to come unhinged and he will insist on seeing it again but it is not wheelchair accessible. I'm not really sure how to approach this.
He's not in charge of his finances, if you are the guardian. Plus, if he is in Memory Care, he is not competent to take care of such things. There is a good chance he will forget what you told him, and still believe that he owns a home. Why upset that thought?
Have you changed his address for the post office? Perhaps change it to your home so that he doesn't need to receive court papers and become agitated. You can then deliver only "pleasant" mail.
The house must be sold to pay for his care. Simple as that.
There's no need to tell him. Begin the proceedings to sell. If the property is not sold and it burns down, you've lost the entire value of the home because the insurance won't pay once they find that it's been unoccupied.
I had a perfunctory hearing with the guardianship judge and got permission.
I had already gone through guardianship Conservatorship process, mom and dad had been served legal paperwork during that process but didn’t understand or even ask me. They also got paperwork on the house sale but never brought it up with me. Dad had very little short term memory at this point but mom still functioned fairly well.
If they had confronted me I would have fibbed a bit (Or maybe a lot) as I had to do a lot of fibbing the last few years to take care of them.
I think we sometimes become a slave to our parents dementia, putting of what has to be done because we don’t want the hissy fits. But this is a case of doing what has to be done.
I let her know that I was moving her to Vermont to live with me and that I would take good care of her and that comforted her.
My Mom stopped herself from driving because she kept getting scared of getting lost. So deep down she knew something was wrong and that she needed help.
When her house was sold (I had already moved her to Vermont) I drove to her state to sign the papers at the closing (I have POA) and that was over 5 years ago.
I would take photographs (the type from a real camera) of the house and all the rooms inside as well as outside and make put them on a large cardboard so he can see his house. Staples will take the photographs and design them for you.
Good luck!
Jenna
I had my Mom assign me POA thru a lawyer. I wanted all the Ts crossed and Is dotted. Mom gave me the ability to sell her house. So, I put it up for sale. I never told her I did it. I never took her back to it once she moved out and I definitely didn't show her pictures. It just gives them the impression they could go back. And their minds no longer can reason that they r where they are because its safer.
Most people who suffer from Dementia want to go home. My Aunt would tell a friend she would be home as soon as they let her out of this place. But the "home" she was talking about was where she grew up. You just have to make up little white lies. Its a shame the courts feel they need to keep a person suffering from Dementia informed. I mean, you received guardianship because Dad had a Dementia. Dad may get the letter and have no idea what it means. If he does, just be honest and say that he could no longer afford to keep it up. Yes, he may get upset but then he hopefully will forget. I would make sure I took the letter, once he read it, and not mention the house again. Eventually as the desease progresses, he will forget he had a home and except where he is.
After he sees the house, rats and all he would be more inclined to understand that it needs TLC that you and your husband can not give.
Tell your Dad that ya'll were told the house needed to be sold and the money put in his account to help pay for his Care Facility.
But fir his sake, let him reminise in his home and chose a few items to take with him to Memory Care.
Prayers
If he doesn't need the money, and you don't want the hassle, hire people to keep the house safe, lawn mowed, electricity on but not running, etc. There's enough stuff you have to do without this.
You are dreading this because you anticipate - and I can't put it better myself! - that he is going to come unhinged. He may, briefly. And that will make no difference either to the fact that the house must be sold and you have the legal authority to do it, or to the reality that the process will by then be under way.
It isn't quite the same situation, but I have just come from a family who dread similar things. They thought they couldn't get Dad vaccinated because they'd never get him to his GP. The wife had cancelled two CT scans because she couldn't get him to agree beforehand to the appointments and didn't know how she'd get him there if he refused to get in the car. This morning, she is fearful that her long, long overdue respite break won't happen because she can't explain it to him. Well - he has been vaccinated, he did attend the CT scan, and I am hopeful that by getting her to focus on the next goal - booking and implementing the respite plan - we can stop her from sabotaging this too.
Here is a useful mantra: "nothing is EVER as bad as you think it's going to be." What's key here is that you don't need your father's co-operation to sell the house, and you mustn't let your fear of his being upset about it stop you doing what you need to do in his best interests. Don't anticipate problems that won't make a material difference to anything. Eyes on the prize.
You are dreading this because you anticipate - and I can't put it better myself! - that he is going to come unhinged. He may, briefly. And that will make no difference either to the fact that the house must be sold and you have the legal authority to do it, or to the reality that the process will by then be under way.
It isn't quite the same situation, but I have just come from a family who dread similar things. They thought they couldn't get Dad vaccinated because they'd never get him to his GP. The wife had cancelled two CT scans because she couldn't get him to agree beforehand to the appointments and didn't know how she'd get him there if he refused to get in the car. This morning, she is fearful that her long, long overdue respite break won't happen because she can't explain it to him. Well - he has been vaccinated, he did attend the CT scan, and I am hopeful that by getting her to focus on the next goal - booking and implementing the respite plan - we can stop her from sabotaging this too.
Here is a useful mantra: "nothing is EVER as bad as you think it's going to be." What's key here is that you don't need your father's co-operation to sell the house, and you mustn't let your fear of his being upset about it stop you doing what you need to do in his best interests. Don't anticipate problems that won't make a material difference to anything. Eyes on the prize.
Best wishes in this tough time. I've read others state albeit lying is never morally right, sometimes with holding all the details is a sparing act of compassion.
If he insists on seeing it, I would just as directly insist that he cannot see it.
I retained the attorney who set up my mom’s POA for the home sale (I did the car sale on my own) and highly recommend that anyone going through the same process do the same.
She is always asking about her houses, how many she owns, and get the house ready for her to live in. Not ever happening.
i’m POA and Trustee. I cleared out one house, cleaned it and sold it. Money put into her trust account. The other house took 7 months to clear, repair, replace, paint and so much more! It’s now being rented and monies goes into her trust account.
When she asks, I say she has one house and being rented. She doesn't remember, so she asks repeatedly. One thing to remember, you can only use the Capitol Gain Exemption on the house he lived in the last two of the five years owned. So it is a financial consideration.
Hope this helps.
Cars are the same way. We just barely talked MIL into selling her 1997 Taurus. It literally had only been driven to church, the beauty parlor and to the grocery store. Had a total of >60K miles on it.
MIL thought she would ask about $6K for it. She ended up GETTING $1K and was lucky to have that. Even not being driven and housed in a garage, the tires were rotted, some rust had ruined the heater box--we spent $1000 fixing it up to sell it for $1000. At least it's out of her mind and garage. If a lot more time had passed we would have sold it for scrap.
My mom talks about going back 'home' but she doesn't mean the big house that daddy built: she means the tiny postwar 1600 sf house that they brought 4 babies home to. No way can we take her back there -- she'd be so depressed.
Moving mom and dad from the 'big house' took us 3 years. It was horrible. They had made no plans for retirement, and so it was a mess.
I just hope I don't do this to my kids.
Everything nostalgic to him is here, not that he is interested in any of it. He is when we bring it up, but will forget by the next day.
Anytime, his older home comes up, he is thinking his home he lived in ten years ago so...
I will say it is much easier to do all this now than after they pass. Having lost two parents and an in law, the stress of dealing with assets on top of grieving is very hard.
Please do not use rat poison, where I live eagles and owls are being poisoned by eating dying and dead rats that were poisoned. If possible find a company that uses terriers to kill rats. They are remarkable effective.
But unless the shed is completely sealed up, rats will continue to get in. We have a family story. My Dad was living on the other side of the country, there was a mouse in my grandfather's shed. Grandpa wrote a letter telling Dad he had killed the mouse, the following week another letter arrived, telling Dad the mouse had been killed. Over the course of that summer my grandpa trapped over 100 mice.
When we used to say we were "saving something for a rainy day," my husband would often say, "It is raining!" At a certain age and level of care needed, it is raining.