I tried to get conservership of my mom after I found her in a Medicaid nursing home. My brother and wife kept her away from all family and friends.

hello, it/s pegweg again. i have been working on trying to help mom. she passed on 2/18/12. brother never called me until after her death. i am oldest daughter. my brother and wife kidnapped her and never let anyone talk to her. i have paid for lawyers,written letters,called everyone i could. my question now is why did i pay so much for conservership? my brother did not bring in any papers requested, not even checkbook. n/h director was supenia with her abuse, neglect,and explotation papers. i had proof of all of this. judge never called n/h director to stand. my brother admitted under oath that he and wife spent approx 250k from greene trust, now tenn care says they closed the case because they could not find proof of thief. what about neglect? explotation? she wanted to go home with me and n/h did everything they could to keep her there. i went through an ombudsman, legal aid, clerk abd master of court etc. the will finally ended up in tn. courthouse but of course brother and wife are trustees and refuse to have it opened. there are us two sisters and grand sons and 4 great grandsons. mom wanted to cross off mike and jodi on the poa and trust. lady in n/h office pulled it out of mom's hand and said tomorrow legal aid is coming..she will take care of this, your mom will not sign anything tonight. well,i stayed another night and legal aid call about 12;30pm and said she was sick. also, when mom wanted to cross off names so brother could not spend more of her money, the director called poa and said i wanted to cross his name off and put my name on. that was not the case, i just wanted my mom to have better, loving care.since she could not cross off names, mike and wife went out and bought 2 businesses a house for wife, a house for 2 of his daughters.the doctor that examined her could not wake her up so he made her incompatant.the judge ruled she was destitute and needed to stay in an unrated nursing home. mom and dad paid thousands of dollars, for as long as i can remember, for blue cross and blue shield long term care insurance. i call bc/bs and they said they dropped her for non payment. mike put mom in medicaid n/h and never paid any more payments. every one i came in contact with, only said she did not have bed sores. what about neglect? aide at n/h said mom brought in to home in middle of night, 5 black oozing bed sores and broken ribs. sister in law is cna.the aid said one more day and she would of been dead. my brother is still just going on with his life. seems he got cleared of everything. who can i go to to help me get adult abuse,neglect,and explotation righted. i am afraid of tenn. because they are all sticking together. oh ya, i had no court reporter in court so i cannot prove anything. please pray and help me find a way.

I ache for you. How can people, esp families who we are raised to believe is important, do such a thing? Please promise to keep us posted. You have been given good ideas to perform a search. Maybe I missed it, but do you have any idea why they are doing this?

I am sorry for your LOSS! We have some good laws in our country and it grieves me when I hear stories like this! It's so Sad. Whatever path you take to find your Mother I hope and pray you are successful...

i send u hugs.......and lots of patience--this kind of a thing can really do some damage on YOU!!
i have a similar situation- brother had my name taken off of med poa
he is now poa = of everything-i have yet to see the changed document-
he emptied out her house of 55yrs, never told me till it was alll done and refused to give me any info-finances,will,copy of poa,etc.
it is unbelievable what family will do to eachother-
mom is still alive-but he moved her 4 hours away from home ,put her in a nursing home and i am not authorized toget any info-
so i dont reallyhave any advise- im still search!!!but i have an idea of how u feel,
and just want u to know, u r not alone-
i am here-
hugs-strenght,dont allow the stress to cause u damage(ha,easier said than done, i know),
it is so hard to let go of things that touch our heart,reach down into our bones,hurt and anger us, and we cannot do anything but run in circles-
not to say u may not find a way to resolve this--i hope u do-
in the mean time, i know it is hard, but take some deep breaths,and find something that makes u smile.
although i dont know u, i feel like i do,
so sending love too,
k

It is a terrible tale but your suffering mother has escaped it. If it is worth following up I would combine the effort with all of the excluded family working together. If there is an estate Medicaid fraud may be involved. Get the best lawyer you can.

If you know where she was living when she died, you can get a copy of her death certificate. It should have the name of the funeral home and the place of final disposition. Then, contact the funeral home and/or cemetery and they should be able to give you a lot number. The cemetery office should have a map showing where she's buried.

All I can suggest to start with is figure out the largest town in TX that is at least an hour away or MORE...and find the best elderlawyer in that community. Maybe even talk to elder services at a state level (in IL our attorney general's office handles claims about elder fraud and other issues and seems to take on fights of citizens against bigger issues, so see if TX has something similar). My kneejerk reaction is that you have to get outside the good ol' boy network and find someone who is loaded to come and not put up with that crap. It seems you have a big fish in a little pond syndrome on the surface of your problems and you just might need to transplant a shark to the pond.

I can't get a handle on what is the basis of the problems between you and your brother, but I'm sure there is much more going on....find yourself an advocate that you can trust to represent your interests. and even if the brother spent the money, if your lawyer can prove wrong doing along the way, you might eventually see some of it. Where does the sister fall in all of this? Also excluded? I can't help having the sense that there was some kind of relationship between the brother and the administrator of the nursing home....partners to obtain your mother's $$, perhaps? Stranger things have happened and your *are* in Texas, after all...

Go either on-line or in person to the courthouse and search for the probate hearing for your mom's estate. If she died in Feb, 2012, that is only 4 months so either it (probate) hasn't been opened at all or still is in the early stages of probate.In Texas you have 4 years to even open probate, so if there is no real reason to do it quick then the estate can sit around for years. If probate has been opened, you can pay for a copy of the hearings to date - this is usually very inexpensive to do. If its really recent you kinda have to do this in person as the on-line posting takes often weeks to get done. You can go to probate court at the hearing date(s) and challenge the Letters of Testmentary for the will but you should have an attorney do this.

You - through the attorney- can also present your claim against the estate in probate court. The hearing dates for her probate is required to be published in the local newspaper. Again, you can do on-line to scan the legal notices to see when her probate hearings are going to be done and to whom to send your claim.

Now if after all this you can't find anything, use the information you got from the legal notices to come up with a list of the possible and likely attorneys who are doing her probate. In small towns or smaller counties there usually is just a few attorneys who do probate. The same attorney names come up again and again. Send each of them a short letter of inquiry with your mothers information (DOB, DOD, SS# and her last couple of addresses and your brothers address) as to whether they are the attorney for the estate and that you are a linear heir to the estate and as such expect to be notified of all and any hearings. If you have fax #'s of the offices, then fax the letters too. If this is a bigger city or county with big cities, like Bexar or Harris, there are just too many attorneys to do this. But in a small city or county, you can get this done easily. Good luck.

First off, sending you a HUG and saying a prayer for your situation...it's very sad for you, my condolences. Sounds like you have quite the "dilly" of a sibling situation. You will def. need to find an Elder Law attorney and as far as finding out where she was buried, you can try to find her obituary online. Go to different funeral home websites in the area. They list the deceased persons' obits in their websites. The attorney can give you information regarding the will and how to get the information you are having withheld from you from legal aid. It's a terrible, hurtful feeling to be kept out of the loop on the death of your mother. Good luck and keep us posted.

what a mess and i am so sorry you are having to go through this. I think you need to break up the pieces and attack one issue at a time. there are too many things going on at once; of course call aging and adult services they might be able to help you. Good luck to you

Most attny will give you a consultation for free. I would advise you seek one out. You would need to do this in the state where this took place. Good Luck