My brother sold my Mother's house and took the money. Any advice?

How much was the house worth? It sounds like total elder exploitation to me. Your brother needs to take out a loan to pay back the money for the house. If he can't, your mother needs to go back to stay with them. I feel so bad for her. There's nothing you can do, really, since the ball is in his court to come up with a solution.

Medicaid will not accept applicants who have given large sums of money away. But I believe that having large sums of money stolen is a different kettle of fish. Perhaps the best approach is to file charges against the son (if he doesn't come up with the pay-back).

I was going to say the same thing, Jeanne, but I realize most mothers won't file charges on their sons no matter how much they deserve it. You are right, though. If the money was lost due to criminal behavior, Medicaid will not hold it against the mother.

Was mom capable of making complex decisions at that time? Sounds like you need to speak with an attorney, you can also contact adult protective services about the abuse. It would seem the POA would be void if he were exploiting her finances. Someone needs to make decisions that are in the best interest of your mom, that included financial. There are some in home programs that may help, contact your local area agency on aging and ask about their in home and caregiver programs. You can also contact the long term care ombudsman for nursing home issues, the ombudsman is an advocate for those residing in nursing facilities. Good luck.

"Borderline elder abuse"?? If it's that close to being abuse, it needs to be investigated, along with the ongoing financial exploitation. If APS won't get involved, contact the local police about the financial situation. It may be that your mother authorized him to divert some of her funds, but it sounds as if he may have gone well beyond that.

And given the fact that he has power of attorney, he may have used it as a license to steal; that's elder abuse as well as criminal behavior.

Medicaid is probably saying there will be a penalty period calculated where they will not pay for that time period. Your family will need to come up with private pay funds to cover that until the penalty period is over.

A lot of people do a lot of sketchy things with parent's money because neither side understand the consequences. It can turn out to be sad, but the rules and laws are there to protect the vulnerable person.

You are going to need an attorney to help out ASAP.

Just remembered - there used to be a felony charge called "larceny by conversion." The conversion of proceeds from the sale of your mother's house might fall into this category. That could be a basis for involving law enforcement, but you likely would have to explain or provide supporting evidence how that violated the DPOA terms or your mother's intent so law enforcement could investigate the possible felony.

The only reason to sell mom's house is to pay for her living expenses, and food, and toiletries, and travel expneses to and from doctor appointments and dental appointments, social activity to get her outside. If he sold the house for his own selfishness, then he is a bleep bleep bleep, what a shame. He should be taking care of all her expenses through the sale of that house. He could move her to a private board and care. Small one story home with 6 residents and 2 caretakers... It like renting a half a room and everything is taken care of, food, laundery cleaning & bathing... etc....

I would keep an eye on your mom and visit often. If your mom gets abused again, call authorities, Maybe you will need to sign her over to the state, and your brother too (jail). Sorry you are going through this. It's hard enough to see the role reversals and then seeing this happen to Mom.....