I have a rather unique situation that I could use some good input on. First off, I am my Fathers Durable POA as well as the POA for his Last Will and Testament. When we went to the Attorney's office to have him draft up all the documents, my Father's wishes were me first, then my sister and lastly my brother who is also on a separate document, the Caregiver for my Father.
I diligently watch all of my fathers accounts to assure that all of his bills are being paid, and nothing suspicious is happening with any of his 4 active accounts. Recently, my sister and I had a rather bad feeling that my brother who as I mentioned is my Dad's caregiver was possibly doing something wrong. He has a past history of gambling and running up debts in my mother and father's name. That was a few years back when my mother was alive, but for now, my sister and I know exactly what his financial situation is because of everything that was disclosed at the Attorney's office prior to making him the Caregiver. So let me jump to the actual situation at hand. My brother has the same name as my father, he's a Jr. Recently my sister and I ran a credit report on my Dad and found out that 5 new credit cards had been opened up in his name. Well after approaching my brother on this, since we knew it wasn't our 83 yr. old father who did this, our brother fessed up and said he did it. He racked up $40K in debt on the 5 cards. Now, we brought this to my father's attention and since his health issues have to do with memory conditions, he said "it's just money, we will resolve it" well as you can imagine that made my sister and I livid beyond words. My father and his brother who is several years younger 68, went to the Attorney and the Attorney who drafted up the original documents told my Father and Uncle to immediately remove me as the POA as well as my sisters name as 2nd in line.!!!! and obviously remove my brother from everything. The reasoning which I am having a hard time believing is that the Attorney indicated to my father and uncle that I could be held responsible for my brothers actions???? Although I guess I failed in some ways, I feel as though my responsibility was to watch my father's active accounts which I did and nothing was taken from those and everything was fine in that arena. Am I responsible for running occasional credit reports on my Dad to assure this his eldest son wasn't in fact doing what he was doing?? Anyway I sure could use some input on this as to what my liability is as it pertains to my brother's wrongful acts.
thank you
I can understand why you would take it personally but I don't think it was personal. If the attorney took those actions just to alleviate any family involvement in the future it might not have been such a bad idea. Again, you did nothing wrong and you are not responsible for your brother's actions, this could just be to simplify things and a proactive decision on the attorney's part to stave off any potential family problems in the future.
Let me see if I can simply two stories. The first one my parents had friends that they had known for 45 years. I discovered by a pure fluke that my mom was giving them big chunks of money and that their "friends" were using them for the money. Oh man was I ticked off. I wrote my parents' friends letters and the responses I got back just confirmed more and more how they were abusing my parents. So I go another attorney that handled elder abuse cases (did the free consult). Brought the proof before the attorney, and he discussed with me the course of actions available. We took them. Fortunately, I didn't have to follow through with the attorney any longer because shortly thereafter they were moved out of state for their daughter to care for them and then they passed. It was a blessing in disguise, but I was not going to allow these people to abuse their friendship. It was a headache to deal with no doubt, but I had all the proof of the financial elder abuse they had done and had an attorney willing to go the distance.
My mom had one surviving sister and three surviving brothers. Realize my mom was narcissistic which also doesn't help the situation with family throughout this whole process. Then I had mom's brother, Uncle Idiot! Oh man. Now there's a story. Basic gist was my mother was to receive her sister's total inheritance due to a long story and history behind that. My husband had witnessed the verbal agreement and heard all the discussions between my mother and her sister upon her death. My mother was supposed to receive it all. It was a fairly large inheritance.
Well over the years when I found out mom's sister was having a hard time in Florida where they lived and we are in Michigan, I called my Uncle Idiot's wife at the time to see if she wanted to go down there with me and help out. She would always say no, and politely give excuses. Well come to find out after the fact years later, she and her son would go down to Florida quite frequently to help. They also got themselves on the will for half of everything.
Well skipping a lot of the lies and stories, jumping to where my mother's sister and her husband hand now passed, now we had the Florida estate to deal with. A Florida attorney who was handed the case, was a crook!!! He was trying to got Uncle Idiot to have mom sign off on her part of the estate so "he" could take care of everything. Now I was mom's POA and I had a right to go down to Florida to help handle things, etc, but with all the screwing around that this attorney in Florida did, Uncle Idiot sold things out from under mom, etc. It got so bad with the attorney trying to teach my uncle how to isolate mom to get her to sign off on the estate paperwork, that I had to unplug mom's phone and turn off the ringer so that her "sweet baby brother" would not con her into signing off anything. Finally I got mom to sign the estate papers that would start where they would equally divide everything in half. I was ticked because I couldn't protect her previously, but I was certainly going to protect her now.
Uncle Idiot was a pain in the total butt! I showed him the POA papers I had and highlighted my responsibilities and accountability issues. He would pass it on to the Florida attorney and that moron would try to intimidate me with legalese. Oh I was not going to let these two take advantage of my mother. So I hired an attorney in FL that was a pit bull to keep an eye on this moron attorney. Thank God for that! But the intimidation by my idiot uncle and the original estate attorney was a nightmare. Then at one point something happened where some money was found in the home in FL and according to the moron estate attorney he said that a reward of ten grand should be given to the cleaning company who found it. Oh that was a whole other issue, but in the end, I won protecting mom from just pure stupidity.
As a POA, make sure you read what you are signing. For me, I could have been held liable if I was negligent in my duties over their finances and their health, but I had proof and documentation and plenty of witnesses along the way that watched me in action.
I would not recommend this job to anyone, however, if you are going to take it on, make sure you have the tenacity to do what is needed. Sometimes it is against those like my parent's friends for 45 years. Sometimes its protecting them against their own family members, but never apologize for taking care of your own. They put you in charge to handle things because they believe you can do it.
The other thing if they do not have memory issues, you cannot change the fact they are allowed to make up their mind. Find an outlet to get angry, but remember you have to know in your heart you did everything you could to the best of your ability and now its out of your hands. Those that are taking advantage are the slime. Your parents are the victim. If you can help them, help at all costs, if you cannot, then just pray to God that He will provide a covering and watch from afar.
God bless each of you that are POAs. It's a bear of a job, but it does end eventually. I'm there! Now comes the recovery for me. :)
Few thoughts -- I am NOT giving legal advice, and am NOT a lawyer -- just brain-storming for ideas for you to talk over with a lawyer (ideas are hopefully worth at least the price of them!)
First -- IMHO you DID do due diligence -- you caught the fraud! Maybe credit card companies can be notified not to issue credit cards to your fathers SS# . If your Dad has not yet been declared "incompetant" I don't think there is anything you could have done to prevent this except maybe notify credit card companies not to issue credit cards to his SS# due to past fraud/identity theft. While your brother has the same name, he does NOT have the same SS# , so his actions in applying for cards (and forging your Dad's name - even though it is also his name, it was on a document with someone else's SS#---same as if it were a complete stranger with the same name).
Just one thought though -- As bad as your brother's behavior is, everything is "still in the family" at this point, and no fraud has been reported, It is possible that your Dad's instinct to keep everything quiet isn't a bad idea. If there is enough $ to care for your Dad for his expected life-time your Dad has not been "harmed", he's just spending money unwisely, and what has been spent is just your potential inheritance. Until the government (APS, medicare or Public Guardian) is involved it's still a family affair. If your Dad has enough money to live on I don't know who will kick up a fuss or ask any questions other than you guys, so it may be better to ignore/prevent future problems than go through with a process of removing yourselves from DPOA (again -- I'm not a lawyer). DO consult with someone about how to prevent elder fraud (anonymously maybe?). I know there are things like identity theft alert services that could prevent future problems & there might be credit-card blocking avail.
Second thought - Consult and get a 2nd legal opinion from an estate/elder law attorney or legal aide for seniors (maybe worth paying someone who will NOT "get the client"). Not all attorneys are equal, and even if this first guy is excellent there may be a bit of butt-covering on his part since he wrote up original paperwork that did NOT protect your Dad.
Third thought - KEEP EVERYTHING IN THE FAMILY--at all costs! Uncle as DPOA, you guys again listed as 2nd & 3rd maybe? Can't see why you need to be removed from estate/will. Maybe the three of you could work together, you keep checking bills etc. & everything go on as before, but with extra protection from fraud (DPOA is NOT required to do the bill-paying, or keep an eye on the money -- a book-keeper could be hired to do the same thing). Also, just because one person is listed as DPOA doesn't mean they have to do all the work -- they just have to sign off on the papers.
PLEASE do not replace family with a professional conservator if you can possibly avoid it -- it may get offered as an "easy way out", but it is anything but "easy" and can ABSOLUTELY be as bad as all of the horror stories you read. It will cost more than the $ your brother has stolen (and yes, "stolen" IS the right word. Your brother is an addict and a thief).
OK, possible solution - I have seen creative things done in similar situation-
example; Grandson got $ out of grandpa for a new car, and conservator "deducted from his future inheritance" rather than try to get it back (money was gone). Might that be an option in this case? The $40k could be written as a loan to your brother, to be paid back from bro's inheritance (I presume the three of you are getting equal inheritance?). Make the loan terms clear that you DO expect him to repay so that the IRS can't consider it a "gift" (if there isn't $40k for him at the end then your brother will owe other heirs some $).
Maybe the "loan" could be paid back gradually from whatever your brother is earning a caregiver for your Dad? You don't say that there are any problems with his care of your Dad, & that is a HUGE deal. Even though your brother is an addict, thief, jerk, etc., the cost of hired caregivers is extremely high, and finding appropriate people is HARD.
Good luck to you.
Being accused of elder abuse is scary. I’ve read enough on this site to see how APS came down hard on people just from simple accusations and/or bruises. I would not want to have their attention to turn to me at all. I agree with LEP. Protect yourselves because you all know that bro is Not going to stop. He has an addiction to spending and he will find a way.
I was about to mention the credit block that ellantz mentioned. I saw that on HLN News. Since father is still competent, I would ask him to agree to this. If you believe your uncle is trustworthy, then put his name on file. You can’t use your father’s name because your brother almost shares the same name. A person can call up the house and bro will pretend to be father. While visiting, ask your uncle why you have been moved to 3 name and why sis was kicked out. And why the distant cousin? Does uncle/father know the reputation of this distant cousin? Is he dependable? I’d also do my homework on cousin.
Can you please update us on the news as it happens? I’m so curious on all these whys…
Secondly, you can report to the new credit cards that they were opened by your brother and not your dad. If the signatures do not match your dad's he committed forgery and credit card fraud. You can report them and the credit card companies will do the research.
But I strongly suggest you can an attorney to assist you out and protect yourself. I am having to do that right now. I am getting a lot of crap from siblings yet I put out the most money for my mom and am the caregiver.
So seek legal advice for yourself.
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