My brother has Power of Attorney over my uncle due to a stroke. He relinquished some control back to my uncle after he got some clarity back and his caretaker/old friend seemly took over a lot of day to day things.
My uncle passed away recently and she claims her name is on his bank account and he signed over his title to his car (car is still in his name.).
We don't know if this true or not but it is claimed at this point.
that’s the person who needs to take the lead on this.
There are things that can be done before probate officially is opened. Like the future executor can go to uncles bank with a copy of the will and ask for the accounts to be frozen. A bank can easily put a hold or freeze on the account. Usually banks do this routinely upon either seeing an obit or getting the notification from SSA. If you find it’s been zeroed out the bank can open a fraud investigation on the account(s).
on the car, I’ve found trying to find out if title has transferred for cars is kinda difficult. It’s not necessarily recorded at the courthouse like home & land are and easily found via online. There's going to be a division of state government that does auto stuff, That’s who you send a registered letter to (as Executor) inquiring on status of an asset of the Estate. Like for my state, it’s Louisiana Dept of Public Safety, Motor Vehicle Divison & I’d need the VIN #, make, model& year for DMV to do their search.
Also look up your states requirements for title transfer. Like mine requires the “assignment must be executed by the seller in the presence of a Notary Public or two witnesses with 1 of the witness signatures done before a notary.” I’m on this all freshy fresh as our kid went thru title hell on a motorcycle he was Mr. smarty pants on buying.
if you find there are issues, like title didn’t happen correctly & there’s $ missing from bank accounts, you can make their life very uncomfortable if you truly want to, have a good atty and your ok on going all pit-bullie on the caregiver.
No bank will allow a "caretaker" to put their name on an account. This would have to be done with and at the direction of the account holder.
Now that the brother has passed it is a matter of the will and who is executor. If there is no will it is a matter of the next of kin applying to be executor of what estate remains.
It sounds as though the next of kin need now to have a Lawyer to work out the details of all this.