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I was attempting to manage her bank accounts to make sure her bills are paid on time and to make sure she’s not overdrawn. It is a durable power of attorney. After I transferred her latest CD to her checking account to pay her rent, they called her at assisted living and got her very upset. Is this a normal course of events for banks? Are they going to do this every time I make sure her bill paying account has sufficient funds?
She has moderate dementia and high anxiety. She had the paperwork drawn up previously because she was forgetting things like paying her bills and remembering appointments. I take her to her medical appointments and make sure she is properly taken care of. I do not charge her for this nor do I take money from her accounts.

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As POA you take in all of your papers,. Do you understand that position fully? How to keep records, that you are legally liable as your friend's POA to keep meticulous records, how to sign her checks, your duty to provide her with financials, and etc. A bank will not ignore a legally done airtight POA; in fact it is unlawful for them to do so, so I cannot help but think something is wrong. Are you on the account as her POA. Do you make out her checks?
Something missing, or this would work well. I was POA and Trustee of Trust for my brother. There were never any problems with the correct paperwork. So this is very abnormal.
What reason did they give you for refusing the POA? Perhaps you should take your friend personally to the bank and work all of this out with them.
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Stilltired Feb 2022
I was just recently added to her accounts as her POA. They gave me a very hard time about that and about transferring money from one of her accounts to another to make sure it was sufficiently funded. There is nothing wrong with the paperwork, only their attitudes.
Her assisted living payments are drawn on one specific account directly. She has several accounts and the CD accounts will all have to be transferred to that account when they mature rather than roll them over. She is in the process of spending down to qualify for long term care Medicaid. At over $5,0000 a month for assisted living this won’t take many months. She has had trouble doing this for herself for awhile and it’s only getting worse.
I first started helping her three years ago when she weighed under 80 pounds. She was incapable of properly feeding herself and I took her meals seven days a week. She gained weight. I also started helping her get to her doctor appointments, helped her move out of a dilapidated house decaying around her into a subsidized apartment. I continued bringing her meals, taking her to the doctor and visiting her. Her health steadily improved. By this time, I became her healthcare POA and had a “springing” financial POA. As long as she was able to pay her bills, that worked well but gradually she started losing the ability to keep track of her bills and that’s when a new durable POA was drawn up at her insistence. I sat with her and helped her pay her bills. She wouldn’t eat properly when she was alone, she stopped taking her medicines, she lost the ability to use her stove and microwave for cooking, she couldn’t do housework, etc.. I had someone come in three times a week to do light housekeeping and laundry for her on the days that I wasn’t there. We also had a neighbor coming every evening to heat her supper for her but she still wouldn’t eat well. Her weight started to decline again. She collapsed two different times, almost dying each time and was hospitalized. The doctors did not feel comfortable the last time unless she was going into assisted living. They helped me arrange it for her. She does so much better in assisted living than living in an apartment. She now weighs 111 pounds. A nice healthy weight. They make her meals, assist her with showering and other personal hygiene, do her laundry & room housekeeping and offer activities. She needs to be there. Her memory is not so great anymore, her dementia is slowly progressing and I pay her bills for her now and still manage her healthcare. In order to pay her bills properly I was added to her accounts. My question is simply this, is it normal for a bank to call someone in assisted living when the POA is managing accounts in order for bills to be paid on time?
I have never taken money for helping her, she is my friend.
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If its a Springing POA, you may need a letter from one or two doctors saying she can no longer make informed decisions and that her POA is now in effect. Take the POA and the letters to the bank and have them put in their records. With a note on her acct that she is not to be called because of Dementia.
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AlvaDeer Feb 2022
Good point, JoAnn. She honestly needs to speak with branch manager and ask what they need. Otherwise it is buying an hour of Elder Law Attorney to make certain papers are all in order to work on a financial capacity, which DOES require good paperwork and proper vetting. Otherwise anyone could march into a bank and say they are taking over an account.
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Yes..it is normal for a bank to make sure a DPOA is above board. I would hope you could appreciate that. You want her taken care of. So do they. Just thank them for checking out your paperwork to make sure all is in order.
‘If she was upset, perhaps you could tell her before you transfer a CD and why it is needed. Or better yet, ask them to call her while you are there. Some banks will not accept a DPOA at all unless prepared by their own attorney. Maybe they have an unknown reason for not trusting you but more likely they have a procedure they are required to follow. It’s better for her to be upset than for someone to be scamming her.
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Stilltired Feb 2022
I can appreciate a bank being careful. I cannot appreciate them not telling me everything about that I need to know about their procedures. Three trips to this bank and weeks in, it finally got settled. I do tell my friend what is happening and when I do it and why but when the bank calls about the very same thing as soon as I leave the bank, she thinks something went wrong. You assume much in your answer.
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Some banks are helpful and others are horrible. My father's credit union couldn't have been more accomodating to me. Bank of America on the other hand went out of its way to be difficult. The week before he moved to AL I brought him to the bank so we could change his address to mine since I would be handling his finances. I did not want this mail going to AL as he would lose it. They refused because we did not have a utility bill with his name on it at my house. (and why would he???) I made several attempts over the next year to get this done and hit roadblocks every time. I finally had to take a full day off of work and found a helpful branch manager that sat with me for hours getting this taken care of. And it wasn't his normal branch.
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Banks are always concerned about security. Particularly, when the POA is not a relative.
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I am POA for my oldest sister who is in a nursing facility. She has memory issues and is not able to manage her finances. I have a durable POA. I live in a different state, but her bank is well-known across the country. I went to my local branch with the original POA and other paperwork and they would not even give me the time of day. I went back to make an appointment with the manager and that was not allowed because the POA was from an attorney in a different state. I finally went to a different branch in the next town over. What a difference! It was night and day. They did everything that they could to accommodate me. They realized that I could easily close the accounts she has and put the money somewhere else. It is all in who you talk to. Go to a different branch if at all possible, maybe one with a business center. Those folks are well trained in situations like this.

Regarding bills going to her, I changed the address on all of my sister's accounts to my address. (Be sure to notify the post office as they will see her name in your mail and send it back.) When I stopped getting some of the bills, I found out that she called and had the address changed to the facility where she lives. She just tosses mail in a drawer and does nothing with them. When I found this out, some bills were ready for collection! I talked to the owner of the facility about it. She now separates her mail, gives her items that look like greeting cards or magazines and once a week sends me a manila envelope with the rest of the mail. I give the owner some extra money for postage and envelopes. The post office does not always forward the mail as they did before. Keep on top of it with the facility because as employees come and go, some of these "unwritten" rules are not shared with new employees. Three weeks ago the owner found a bill in her drawer that was six months old. A new employee was not aware of the issue.

God bless you as this is difficult and many times a thankless job.
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More and more, financial institutions are refusing to accept POAs. Very often, they require people to use the institution's own POA forms. You can also ask that their attorney to put in writing why they won't accept the POA. As commenters have said here, if you have a springing POA, it is only effective when something happens, usually when a person is deemed incompetent by a physician. A durable POA allows you to "stand in your friend's shoes" and act even when she is still competent, although she remains the decision maker. In my state, there is a statute that requires financial institutions such as banks or brokerages to honor the terms of a valid POA. If that's the case in your friend's state, hire an attorney to write a letter to any entity giving you trouble. As an aside, having a POA witnessed and notarized is probably a good idea but may still not resolve all issues.
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