We just sold my parent's house to fund her AL residence. She has dementia, and is assessed as being high-functioning. I am POA, and want my parent to pick what items from the home to give to my siblings. My sibling, the executor of her estate, is saying she cannot do that. I am trying to honor her wishes, but want to avoid an ugly sibling battle.
Any thoughts?
We does your sibling the think should happen to your mother's
belongings before her passing?
Does your mother want everyone to have her belongings now? If she does, have her tell your sibling that is what she desires to do.
Maybe your sister will keep quiet about it if she hears your mother’s wishes directly from her.
Sister has nothing to say about anything legally. She is executor of a will. She can do nothing until the writer of the will has died.
I do think I would pass this past an elder law attorney just to see if you should keep records on items, in case you are worried about 5 year lookback by Medicaid in the next five years.
What is sister thinking? That you will KEEP these items? Because paying storage would be silly. You can sell the items at estate sale and put those funds into your Mom's accounts as the POA.
You just need meticulous records, and as I said, if there is even the slightest chance that ALF or MC will require your Mom apply for Medicaid within five years you need to be certain none of these items are costly enough to be considered gifting. If so, place them with the recipients named as LOANS of Mom's treasures. Until her death.
The POA is responsible for handing the principal’s affairs before that. If the will lists a recipient for specific items, that would be a good indicator of the principal’s wishes, or maybe they can still express an opinion on a good day.
So you as POA, acting for her best interests and expressed preferences, would be responsible for disposing of or storing what she can’t keep with her.
I don’t know your family dynamics, but if it works for you, you could also arrange for potential heirs to “store” their potential item(s) at their convenience and pass the issue back to the executor to handle by giving them a list of what is stored where.
Note that I am assuming that none of the items in question are valuable enough to be an issue with Medicaid gifting during the lookback period. Anything with a title or that is valuable enough to require an insurance rider would be an identifiable issue.
If you need a reality check, you could look into getting an estimate for the lot from an estate sale specialist.
Exited to add: I see that Alva has covered most of this, but I’ll leave mine here too.
Frankly, if there are items she knows you want, your sibling(s) wants, other close family and friends want, gift them now while she's still able to talk to those people while gifting them something that was special to her.
Maybe I'm missing something but your sibling doesn't seem to understand the concept of an estate. Honor your mother's wishes. Document her wishes e.g. help your mother write notes gifting an item to someone. They remain your mother's things.
My FIL has dementia and yet we helped him gift something to one of his nieces and both my husband and I were present when she arrived to get it. No one can ever say she coerced him etc.
Your mom, if she has some cognitive ability can still dictate. If you can bring her, you might want to video your mom pointing what goes to who. Now think how your sibling would react to seeing items being given away. He won't be able to make his own rules
Ive spent enough time dealing with their issues in large part due to their lack of foresight and I am angry.
It will be cathartic to just toss it all. Hope that day will come soon.
Please do not let those emotions lead you to do something you may regret.
Don't just toss stuff. You never know what you will find in a tucked away box, between the pages of a book or in a forgotten drawer.
It may take time but don't rush clearing out "old and worn" stuff.
I would remove any items of value, set aside let siblings decide if they want anything, you may be surprised, my friends have tried that when downsizing or going into a facility and none of the children wanted any of their treasures.
I for one inherited all of my aunt's, & stepmother's fine China, I have 5 inherited sets which I never use and no one else in the family wants, and then there is mine.
I was PR for 5 family members waded through years of old junk, tossed and tossed some more, my fathers house took 3 30 yard dumpsters and 65 lawn bags to clean out 50 years of treasures and old furniture, actually some of the items belonged to his parents going back 100 years.
When my MIL transitioned into AL she had a lot of not-very-valuable stuff so we held a "you-name-the-price" garage sale. We had a sign that explained all the sales proceeds would go into her Resident's Trust at her facility. People were very generous and we didn't have to price or clean or prep anything. It was awesome!
My mother gave stuff away to family when we put her in AL ( after about 6 months ) . Then we dealt with what was left. What wasn’t thrown out was bought and picked up by an auction company . The money went into my mother’s bank account for her care .
If your PoA is active due to her dementia then YOU get to decide if this is in her best interests. I think your Mom should enjoy personally gifting those items directly to her children and receiving their gratitude now rather than after she passes -- if you think she can manage this emotionally.
A friend of mine told me how her Grandmother had all her children and grandchildren go through her home and put their names in a jar next to items they wanted (assuming that more than one person wanted the same item). Then they drew names for that item and somehow worked it out so that everyone wound up with the same number of items each. I thought it seemed like a creative solution.
Have your siblings come in and pick out what they want. Then maybe other close relatives. The rest put in piles...trash and give away. I had a nice thrift store I donated to. A friend who baked and cooked alot for groups she belonged to, I gave my Moms bakingware. There were 4 siblings. I had a box for each of us. I took Moms albums apart and gave each child pictures pertinent to them. Any of their school stuff Mom kept.
Me, I took very little from Moms house. There can be no sentimentality when doing this. You just go in and do it. Trash first and then sort. Do a room at a time. I say no sentimentality because it took my cousin, an only child, 5 years to clean out her Moms house because she could not bear to part with things. The Aunt had 40 pairs of shoes and almost that many purses. Me, I would have just gone in and cleaned out.