An incompetent person cannot confer POA on anyone. They must be competent to do so. This now becomes a conservatorship or guardianship. Be certain you wish to take this on. The record keeping is onerous and burdensome and must be meticulous.
Unfortunately step moms refusal to take care of business when she was competent is now coming back to bite her in the behind. I know trying to get guardianship is very expensive.
Is it worth it for you to spend a lot of money to do this? Personally I wouldn't especially since step mom made things so difficult for so long on you with getting her placed into a facility.
Does step mom have the money to pay for a facility that she specifically wants to go to or are you going to be paying for that too?
Grandma1954 July 30, 2023 5:00 pm You could be her Guardian. There are many cases where a "non family" member has been made a Guardian. You can not be her POA as she is not competent to sign POA papers making you her POA Talk to an Elder Care Attorney.
Updating: APS is involved and is going for guardianship but I now have a lawyer in order to fight that and get my own in order to manage her care. That's all I want, is for her to be safe. She wants a nursing home now, where she was defiant tooth and nail for all the years I've been caring for her. It took us taking a fall together in order to get her TO a hospital for any type of care. (And, APS followed, unfort) I was going to let them know we were FINALLY getting some care and support, where all other local elder care organizations failed, after I'd gotten her safe and settled. Which is what she told me to do or she would have ME put in jail! They are the ones saying I can't be her guardian as I am a stepchild.....she has been my 'mother' for 50+ years! So I hope my lawyer as well as family, friends, and neighbors, for all the same number of years can help tell the story also. :-/ Im very scared of APS just taking her away. I'm feeling hopeless....
Generally speaking these agencies rather have a family deal with this then hand it over to an third party. You have to have some serious issues for the state to deny you.
POA has to be assigned before a person is found incompetent. Only SM can assign you POA. Guardianship is expensive but I thi k the cost can be taken out of SMs money if you win. As said, you need a lawyer for that.
As suggested. Maybe SM is now a Ward of the State. So the State determines what SNF she goes to.
Signing POA is too late if she’s incompetent. If you want guardianship, go to court. Only a court can say “no” to you getting guardianship. See a lawyer. It costs a lot of money to go to court to seek guardianship.
This sounds like either APS or another agency started a guardianship process after an issue.
Speak with an elder care attorney, work arounds can be done, it will require some creative use of different state addresses but yes you can override the states guardianship if they have one without having to deal with the whole court BS.
The issue was that she lived alone and shouldnt have but she would not live with me and I couldn't with her. Refusal of medical care, and frankly most care I tried to give. No one who came over to "help" were allowed to force her into the hospital for care or to her DR... so I couldn't force her either. But we are into our guardianship process and I have hope.
They may have something like a temp emergency yet we have not seen a court order at all. She was independent living at home (alone, which she shouldnt have been) but I was there every day after or during work for any care she would allow me to do. But my guardianship is in progress :-)
I did a brief internet search and nothing about non-family members being banned from PoA can be found. I think whoever told you this doesn't know what they're talkinga about. And you can certainly be a guardian but you have to go through the courts to prove she needs one. It's and expensive process.
Executorship doesn't have any power until your stepmom dies, then the PoA or guardianship ends immediately and the executor takes over and follows the directives in the Will.
Is it worth it for you to spend a lot of money to do this? Personally I wouldn't especially since step mom made things so difficult for so long on you with getting her placed into a facility.
Does step mom have the money to pay for a facility that she specifically wants to go to or are you going to be paying for that too?
You could be her Guardian. There are many cases where a "non family" member has been made a Guardian.
You can not be her POA as she is not competent to sign POA papers making you her POA
Talk to an Elder Care Attorney.
Im very scared of APS just taking her away. I'm feeling hopeless....
As suggested. Maybe SM is now a Ward of the State. So the State determines what SNF she goes to.
Speak with an elder care attorney, work arounds can be done, it will require some creative use of different state addresses but yes you can override the states guardianship if they have one without having to deal with the whole court BS.
Executorship doesn't have any power until your stepmom dies, then the PoA or guardianship ends immediately and the executor takes over and follows the directives in the Will.
From Riverdale
In my state non-family members can be POAs.