My sister is having our competent dad (90) sign POA naming her as primary and me secondary. I am burned and very cautious, any advice?

edelane, only your Dad can appoint who he wants as his Power of Attorney, not your sister. It is a good idea to have a primary and secondary. Is this Dad's idea about have your sister as primary POA? Have you spoken to him about it?

I would highly recommend that Dad use an "Elder Law Attorney" instead of a general Attorney. The Elder Law Attorneys specialize only in everything involved regarding Elders. They will even help if for some reason your Dad needs to use Medicaid [different from Medicare] to help pay for his care.

While there at the Law office, have the Attorney do a Medical Directive, this will give you and your sister a guideline on Dad's final health requests. Thus no bickering later about what Dad wants or needs health wise.

Your statement that "your sister is having our competent Dad" is the root issue. I don't want to assume more than I know, but it sounds from your post that your sister sees herself as the person calling the shots, not you.   Legally, this is your dad's decision. If she's engineering things to get him to grant her primary POA and you secondary, your real issue is with your sister. This type of thing is never easy when you're dealing with an elderly parent. I definitely agree with freqflyer that having an Elder Law Attorney draw up the POA documents and the will is a good idea. But even then, the attorney will still ask your dad what he wants to do. So, there needs to be some family discussion before this takes place.

Also, get a copy of his will, that way if he becomes incapacitated or passes and your sister tries to take it all you have a copy of his wishes. Some Poss will have incompetent seniors redo their wills. If she did that and you could prove that he was incompetent, you will have the copy of competent dads wishes.

Personally I don't think anyone deserves all of or any of someone else's money or processions, it is a gift bestowed. So her choice of words would throw a red flag for me.

Have dad seek legal elder advise and talk openly about his wishes, I know it can be very hard but, hey none of us are getting out of here alive.

Good luck with your sister and I hope for all that dad remains competent.