Is it possible to have a Guardianship or Conservatorship hearing on a parent without notifying other siblings?
Okay basically what is happening is my mother is no longer deemed by her medical doctors as being competent to sign a POA. She had been living in another state with her sister and her husband helping to take care of her and my aunt/her sister passed away and her husband wanted to move away leaving my mother with no one there to help take care of her. I have one brother that has totally been out of the picture for almost 6 years (and I have no way of contacting him even if I had to.) My other brother on the other hand has been told of our mother's condition and situation though he has not done much if anything in the way of care or contact with our mother other than to ask for money. I had even asked him for help when the time came to go get her and bring her to live with me. He stated he couldn't because of his job nor was he willing to help with the expense of bringing her to my home. Now that I have done all the work and have taken care of her for over a month with my husband and at our own expense, ( bc in her dementia she refuses to use any of her money to pay for any of her needs because she thinks that everyone is out to steal her money and she will be kicked out and broke an will not give us any money towards any final bills from her old place or any she incurs now) And now that she needs medical/mental cares services... he is demanding I give her to him and that I'm not allowed to "have all the control" even though it has been only me that has kept in constant contact with the sister/ aunt in regards to her care and well being. Our mother has stated many times ( when she has cognitive moments) that she wants me to have the control of her affairs as she knows that I will follow her wishes and she doesn't trust my brother because of his past of having a record of 3 felony grand thefts that resulted in prison time (I have only ever gotten a speeding ticket) and also the fact that him and his gf have 5 boys between them... she has great concern that he would drain her accounts and sell off her belongings then place her in a nursing home. These are my fears as well. Any time I have tried to calmly talk to him about it and our mother's wishes, he starts ranting that he lives in a big city and I live in a rural area and can't possibly give the the level of care he thinks she should have...she's not on her right mind and doesn't know what she is saying (though I had been a C.N.A for 20+ years and am more than capable of caring for her in my home) and threatens me with getting lawyers to "get control" of our mother and her assets . He has the means to out lawyer me... I have even suggested that one of us gets medical guardianship and the other gets financial guardianship so neither one of us has all "the control over our mother's affairs. He said " NO WAY!" I probably should also state that I have seen him "self medicating" by smoking pot more than once.I also have the means in which to give her a stable home with a large room of her own, which he doe not as he is renting a 3 bedroom home... and both of them work full time and would not be home to care for her as is needed now nor in the possible near future... his idea of it is to take her to all these "specialists" that are in his area and let them decide if she needs to go into a nursing facility or if she can be taken care of with minimal supervision. As our mother is now currently in the hospital as she has agreed to voluntarily admit herself to the inpatient behavioral health unit so she can get her condition stabilized and under control, and her sister (who was her then medical proxy until her sudden death from a heart attack 2 days after I got there to bring my mother home.) Me, my husband,and her doctors have been fighting her former GP to get her records and the insurance changed over to my state so they can treat her mental as well as a couple of pressing medical issues. And since she is unable to sign a regular POA...I have to somehow get an emergency Guardianship or Conservatorship hearing so I can get the service that my mother desperately needs at this time started and really cannot get into a long drawn out battle with my brother trying to stop me right now.
An emergency G/C can be done & your attorney will know how to be done.
Your worry about brother taking charge & getting guardianship is unlikely if he or anyone in his household or dependency is a felon. Court routinely does background on applicants & you can mention this in your application (if you do this, attach a copy of his publicly available arrest records - judge will love this tidbit to dress down bro if he shows up to challenge you). Bro won't pass. You need to get a court order appointing you the G/C to shut down bad bro or any other family from ever interfering from this point on. G/C is held in probate court and is all open records so keep that in mind.
G/C are expensive to set in place and there is no way around this if family want to be appointed. If you cannot, then you petition the court as a concerned family member to have a outside court appointed G/C done. Sometimes this is the way to go as they can get things done faster, quicker & their whole job is being a G/C with the legal savvy to know what to do. If there are mental health issues the appointed G/C can get doors opened that you never could. Often when there is family infighting the judge appoints an outside G/C anyways as judge not going to take any truck or time to deal with family dramarama.
There is a great recent thread on this site of a post from Heidi73 on her path of dealing with her mom, G/C and appointed G/C & the court, that is an especially insightful read.
I hope you feel better after your rant! (No judgment, just a bit of a shock) It sounds as if you will need to take some time off and go to the state where mom lives and work with an attorney who specializes in Elder Law and get your mom to yourself. I cannot IMAGINE that any court is going to give the brother any say in the matter, but you do need to do things legally, esp if mom is not with it enough to make decisions.
It also sounds like your brother is going to fight you, but his criminal background should be enough to keep him out of mom's "legal" life. My oldest brother also "assumed" that along with his role as oldest male in the family, he was also "heir" to the throne, so to speak. Dad appointed my younger brother as executor and gave him POA MANY years ago. Dad has passed and older brother did kick up a tiny fuss, thinking he was to inherit some things--duh, it all went to mother. Older brother only came around mother to get a few bucks here and there. He passed 2 years ago--peace reigns. Sounds like you are (rightfully) very upset. Try to be calm and organized and take the time to get your ducks in a row and get your mom. No, all the siblings DON'T have to be notified, I wasn't when all the legal stuff went down with my parents. Neither were my sisters (women don't rank real high in our family, I guess) Arm yourself with the truth and let the courts handle it. I would think this would be pretty simple to see you are a much better choice for a caregiver. Good luck with all of this.
Good work on protecting your mom and being there for her despite all that you and she have been through!
till the situation is clearly established. Good Luck.
Here, the Guardian must be bonded, so it's unlikely a person with a criminal record would be able to. They must also have good credit, so that might be a factor too.
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