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tontwinBur28 Asked June 2014

A brother is verbally bullying and scaring my Dad (85) living in a nursing home. Can his status as POA be revoked?

I am one of 7 living children. One brother has lived in the apartment of my father's home, which my parents always rented out. My brother lives there because 25+ years ago he experienced a bad financial fall. Dad said he could stay in the apt. until he got back up on his feet. That time never came because the brother started to manipulate and bully Dad. Dad is quiet, but eventually told me his fears. Once while Dad was in the hospital, I was in his home (the family home), and found a letter from Dad to his attorney about the bullying of my brother. Nothing ever came of it, because the letter wasn't sent. He was too afraid to send it. Now he's in a nursing home, never to go back to his own home; the brother manipulated his place as POA and Dad told me that the brother comes to him and yells at him for all the things he's done wrong. Can this POA status of my brother be revoked? Can he be barred from entering the nursing home? I have a niece who is willing to be Dad's POA, as she knows about this recent information I obtained from Dad just 2 days ago. I guess we just need to know how to stop the bullying. Thank you.

LadyBB19 Jun 2014
It's a shame the way your brother is behaving but it is nothing new in today's world of the elderly. What you and your cousin can do is get together and find some type of legal help that deals with the abuse of the elderly and report your brother, and have the POA revoked. Now, to make sure your brother does not interfere make sure you don't let him know anything until he's served with papers. You and your cousin write a letter and put all of the information that you can about your father and what your brother has done, been doing, and still doing. You also need to get someone to protect the both of you and what you are saying so that your brother does not try to act as if he knows nothing and lies on the both of you and says your not telling the truth. I hope everything will work out! God bless you and your father.

kazzaa Jun 2014
Gosh shame on your brother! and so sorry for you this is hard but as i know POA is taking care of his needs and care not being abusive to him!

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tontwinBur28 Jun 2014
Thank you for your response. It's very helpful and confirmed what I was thinking, but you added a few things I hadn't thought of. Yes, Dad is still competent, just a little hard of hearing.
I will talk to key siblings about contacting admin first and then Dad's attorney. Thanks, again.

GardenArtist Jun 2014
Is your father still mentally capable of making important legal decisions? If so, he can revoke the POA himself. You could arrange for him to call his attorney and advise what changes he wishes to make, the attorney will prepare a new POA which revokes the existing one, bring it to your father for execution.

I wouldn't even think of handling this w/o an attorney because of your brother's bullying and parasitic nature ,
living off your father's good will all these years.

Make sure the attorney sees the letter your father wrote but was afraid to send.

In the meantime, given how fearful your father is, perhaps a discussion with the admins of the nursing home would be appropriate to alert them of your father's fear and discuss, if your father wishes, some type of prohibition on your brother's visits.

I had that problem once when my father was in a long-term care hospital, on a ventilator and fully alert but unable to speak because of the vent. A mentally unstable relative decided to visit, just boldly doing so without asking if it would be appropriate.

I talked to the Admins and warned them; we agreed that if the relative became hostile or aggressive I would simply give them a heads up and they would call security and physically remove her.

I don't know how a nursing home could or would go about banning your brother permanently, as those facilities are usually quite open and sometimes people can come and go without signing in. It might be necessary for the Admins to advise him he's not welcome, and it might also be necessary for the police to become involved in getting a restraining order against your brother.

I would approach them with the query HOW your brother can be barred from the nursing home, rather than CAN it be done. But I would also make sure your father's on board with this, as sometimes the fear can cause someone to back down when it comes to taking really strong action. Your father should be assured by the nursing home that if they take steps to bar your brother, there's no way he can get in.

Sure hope you can find a good solution. It must be tough enough for your father without being afraid of his own son.

vegaslady Jun 2014
If dad is competent he can revoke the POA any time. Just have a new one drawn up that says any prior ones are revoked. Then get the brother barred from visiting. Then find out what he's done financially.

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