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My parents' POA had long discussions with my parents' Attorney, shared emails, and reviewed documents....but it was all initiated by the POA, it was NOT at my parents' request.
Now they've received a bill for just under $2200, and the Attorney expects it paid.
However, they will not say specifically what was discussed, just "the POA" in general. They did itemize a few general things but again, none of it was at my parents' request.
Is this right, wouldn't they have to disclose more about the discussions, if they expect my parents to pay for the bill?

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Yes, if the POA is activated, they can seek professional guidance and pay the bill. And since you are not the POA , the attorneys are restrained from talking to you under confidentiality rules. If you think this was unnecessary, you can petition the court to remove the POA.
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I have POA for my Mom's estate & I paid for attorney fees with the Trust Account money. If they are competent and not happy about this, they should change their will/Trust ASAP. If you petition the Court , it will cost about $40K and they may take Conservatorship, which means bye-bye to all their money. I'm not trying to scare you, but my brother is constantly making trouble & calling Adult Protective Services. I was told to tread lightly or this could happen to my Mom (who has Alzheimer's).
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Your parents will have to pay the attorney.

Your parents - assuming they are competent & cognitive - chose and signed off on whomever they selected as their DPOA. This is a legally binding document on their part. If the POA has been their POA for a period of time, it has established the intent of your parents. The POA met with their attorney regarding them and the bill was $ 2,200.00 which has to be paid from your parents assets.

$ 2,200.00 - although it seems high may not be IF there were a lot of documents done; or research needed on property ownership; or if mom or dad was married previously and has kids or property from marriage # 1; or either of them in the past inherited any real property that didn't go through probate….all this sort of issues really run up the meter on para-legal costs. If they have any assets in other county or another state, this can really run up costs.

Now after all this is done and paid for, your parents can choose to select a new DPOA. But if in any way they seem incompetent or doing this under duress by you, the POA can file for full guardianship. As LEP627 said, it will be very expensive and probably go to the current DPOA's favor.
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Being POA is much more involved and time consuming than anyone can ever imagine. If an attorney was contacted, he/she has to be paid. We had to contact an attorney on behalf of my MIL. An insurance company was refusing to pay out a dividend.
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Could you please help me understand....are your parents saying they should not have to pay the attorney because they did not request his/her services? Are they competent enough to understand what happened? Did your parents know in advance that the attorney was meeting with the POA and what issues were going to be discussed or resolved? Sorry I don't have any answers, just more questions, but this is an interesting situation, so I hope you get many more answers.
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My brother has POA and he is open about what he is doing. I suggest you start by asking your parent's POA to email you a summary of what's up.

You don't say who is POA, family, third party. It is complicated and legal. One mistake can botch up your parents' care options in the future. It is necessary to talk to an expert about these things. I venture that the fee is less costly than a mistake.
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My husband is his mother's POA for finances and health care decisions. As such, he is on her checking account and pays for anything to do with Mom, out of her account. This has included any legal fees for services required on her behalf. He keeps accurate records in case there are any family disputes....
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The poa should only is in effect if your parents aren't competent. Why was the POA doing this behind their backs? I would say if you want money send me copies of for what? Pay it and change POA if competent. Not paying a lawyer is going to cost them more in legal fees. Just pay it. My sis did that too and my mom was so upset. Every phone call to lawyer and my mom got a bill for $75. We had to put in writing no more taking to poa without permission. Arg
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I was asked to take the position of DPOA for my mother, on Finances and Health Care. I never held this position for anyone prior to this although I had taken care of their finances for many years.

Because I want to represent my mother the best I could, I needed answers to many questions. I also needed to know what my position consisted of and what I should or should not do and how best to handle the position.

I quickly found out that this position is no laughing matter and requires an enormous amount of work. I must handle her Finances, Medical, House and Property. That may seem simple but it is not as each area is broken down into many different aspects. Finances include, paying bills, banking, caring for investments and making decisions to change them or leave them alone, balancing check books. etc. I have almost lost my mind with contractors, making repairs to her home, gathering bids, suing them for sub standard work, etc.

I do all of this and I was thrown into being her 24/7 caregiver as well with zero compensation.

So YES, your parents are expected to pay the attorney for their time and work to make sure that everything their POA is doing is on the up and up and legal. The POA is doing this FOR THE BENEFIT OF YOUR PARENTS!

Count your blessing that it is not you in this position...It is much more difficult than you could ever imagine!

Also, the POA is acting as an Agent for your parents, neither they or the attorney have to tell you anything about what they are doing. I was told that my mothers Trust was Private, just as a will would be and not to be discussed prior to their death.
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My parent did NOT know in advance that the POA would be racking up a $2,200 bill with the Attorney.
In further talks with my parent they have said they are very angry at this amount of money being billed to them, I was only asking the question here, because I have literally no experience with lawyers--and IMHO I would not pay a bill that I myself did not initiate!
My parent is of sound mind, they do not need help with anything, they are able to handle their own affairs. This bill was not for anything at all that my parent could have anticitpated. To me it appears totally unethical.
My parent has said they will be "telling off" the sibling with POA, and clearly directing them that they are NOT to be contacting the attorney by themselves.
If it were me, and I have partial POA (medical) I would never DREAM of going to an attorney with some questions, and then sending the bill to my parents!
We are all adults here, I hope.
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We all said "Yes. This expenditure is normal." Your parents might or might not have known. That is why they gave their son or daughter power of attorney (to attend to legal matters.) The POA will then be paying that bill out of the account that he or she is authorized to pay out of, along with your parents other bills.
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Remember, the POA is acting "in place of" your parents. What is discussed with an attorney is billable hours and the estate pays the bill. If your parents are having second thoughts about their choice of their POA, then they need to change that person, however, the previous billed time will still have to be paid.
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When your parents named their POA they were in their right minds correct? Once a Durable Power is signed the Attorney in fact is able to immediately close accounts, transfer funds, hire attorney, do banking, transfer titles, etc. Just as if the person who the are attorney in fact for would do. I am not sure what your parents assets are but it seems to me for that price that a Trust of some kind was done. Possibly your parents are older and may need some type of care such as Assisted Living or Nursing home so they may be trying to get the assets down to the legal limits to file for state aid. If your parents don't want that person as their Attorney in Fact anymore then they would need to seek an attorney who can draft a new Durable Power of Attorney and the other documents needed. If their documents are over 5 years old the attorney may recommend that they just do another set of documents as the laws change so much that after 5 years it may not be in compliance with the laws of the state in which they reside. The attorney cannot speak with you. You will need to call the Attorney in Fact and ask them. I am sure they won't mind telling you what is going on. Talk to your parents and the POA and tell them you want to make sure you are in the loop.
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GraceH: You need to speak to your sibling or parents and ask to read the POA....at signing my Power of Attorney immediately became effective. It did not have to go before a judge with letters stating my mother was incompetent and them give their approval for me to take over. If you have not read the Power of Attorney document then you do not know when it became effective.....it may have been immediate just as mine was.

If your parents thought enough of your sibling to make them their financial POA then they must believe this person is of sound judgement. If they have never held this position, they were probably trying to find out what they needed to do or possibly they were handling a matter that your parents had overlooked.

Now why if they are acting for the benefit of your parents and possibly YOUR future inheritance, should THEY BE RESPONSIBLE FOR PAYING THE BILL? What do you plan on doing should you need to speak to the attorney regarding their medical care or future placement in a facility? If he should be needed by you, will you pay his bill out of your pocket or will you feel that it should be paid out of the estate?

Yes, the $2,200 sounds high but if that is what YOUR parents attorney charges then that is what it costs and YES, IT IS AND SHOULD BE YOUR PARENTS RESPONSIBILITY TO PAY.

You may not like it but YOUR responsibility is their MEDICAL CARE, your siblings responsibility is their FINANCES....you need to work together rather than causing a rift because once that starts it only gets worse.
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HolyCow, so, is there no limit to how many times the POA can contact the family attorney, is there any constraint on what is discussed, and how is anybody else in the family to know if there is really something going on, that is in fact, to the benefit of the Principal (the parents)?
There is no transparency with all these POA and attorneys. That is the problem--there should be information shared, especially if I am medical POA and driving the parents around to look at nursing homes (because the POA lives on the other side of the world). How am I supposed to do my medical POA responsibility in a fair & truthful way, when I don't know what the financial POA is doing?
There are some other mitigating factors (like the POA's spouse hinting around that the POA is going to be day-trading with my parent's money) which make the rest of the siblings extremely anxious.
There is just no checks and balances with having the POA out there, doing their own thing, having multiple phone conferences with the attorney, about who knows what. THAT is what I am getting at.
My parents were always very responsible and frugal, and deserve better than to have expensive bills landing in their mailbox demanding to be paid for stuff they knew nothing about.
I half expected somebody here would say, fire the attorney.
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And anyhow there is NO connection between an attorney and a POA document after the document is signed, there is no ongoing obligation between the attorney, unless the Principal(s) desire it to be so. You don't even NEED an attorney to draw up a POA document, it only needs to be notarized.
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GraceH, I think we all assume that the consultations with the attorney were not to set up the POA. That was done prior to these consultations.

Transparency is not required of the POA. It would be, in my opinion, an extremely good idea, especially since the two of you should be working together on your parents' behalf. But not telling you about what he is doing is not illegal.

There is a very simple solution to this issue (or so it seems to me). If your parents are not satisfied with your brothers actions and regret appointing him POA, they can change that. Would you like to be the POA? Is there someone else who would be willing and your parents trust?

Who should be POA is your parents' decision.
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A good POA, however, would tell their parents everything that happened with the attorney and not keep it to himself/herself. That shows good faith. I discussed everything with my mom as her acting POA so she would understand (to the best of her ability at that time) that I had only her best interests at heart.
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A good POA would indeed discuss activities with the parent. But if the parent has some memory loss or other cognitive problems they may not always remember that by the time the bill comes. Sigh. Being a good POA is not always as straight-forward as it sounds like it should be.
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I was so pissed when my crazy mother appointed my brother poa medical and financial, put him on her banking accounts, made him executor of her will and who knows what else. I was so hurt that they excluded me. Just like when I was a child. He was the golden boy, could do no wrong. Now, I am so happy, especially when I read all of this.

She did me a d*** favor.
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GraceH, if your parents are of sound mind I have two questions #1 what was the conversations about and #2 why dont you take them to a lawyer and change the DPOA immediately? Trying to not pay a lawyer will just cost more, even if they call or send a letter its correspondence/phone call fees, insane I know but true. Good luck, keep in touch.
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palmtrees1, some see POA and Medical proxy as honors, and perhaps in some sense they are. But they are also a heavy responsibility and can be a helluva lot of work.
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I cannot find out what the conversations are about, because I am not the POA, and the attorney will not talk to me. When my parents asked what the bills was for, the attorney (hearing this thru my parents) said it was just some needed conversations and would not elaborate on the topics, which is very suspicious to me.
I am trying to be as pro-active as I can, to help my parents, but they are totally "stuck" on the idea that the oldest child "gets" to be the POA and Executor.
I do not want to force my ideas on my parents, I feel that would be wrong, so I am not going to go take them to another attorney and get the POA changed.
But I think it is time for me to hire my own attorney, so I can discuss what I can do to protect myself, and what reasonable actions I should do, to protect my parents from a possibly-nefarious POA.
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If your parents are still of sound mind, they have every right to know what they are paying for and is the responsibility of he POA to provide that information to them and to ensure the cost of this consultation is in their best interest. GraceH, I applaud you for wanting to be proactive, but a lawyer is legally bound by the confidentiality to their client and a POA is not duty bound to provide information to a thrid party only to the principle. I have DPOA for my mother who is of sound mind. I would never call her attorney for needed information without consulting her. I have only utlized my POA once so far and that was with my mothers full understanding and permission. If you feel the POA has gone beyond what is in the best interest of your parents, taking them to a new attorney to discuss their best options is an excellent idea. I understand you wanting to protect your parents. What I do not understand is what protection do you need when it comes to the current POA? Are these not your parents assets that need to be protected?
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My parents have no cognitive dysfunction. They wanted the eldest to be POA only because it was traditional....but they have always had me help and advise them with buying cars, their current senior living home, medical questions, everything, but made the eldest the POA only and simply because they are old-fashioned and wanted the oldest to be both POA and Executor.
It's really difficult now, too, since the POA's spouse has recently been diagnosed with terminal cancer, and (see my other question here on agingcare) they have told me (successor POA) to step into their shoes for the during cancer treatment and after she dies until he is all done taking care of that.
So now, I guess I have an "opportunity" to find out a little more about what all has been going on, in secret, and hopefully open my parent's eyes to what has been done, and double-check if that is really what my parents want.
Perhaps it is a godsend, that I can take a peek into what I dearly wanted to find out. I hope all is well with their finances and any other decisions or changes the POA may have enacted.
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