How do I stop my grandmother (88) who is living alone from lending money to her relative?

What relation is this low-life to your grandmother? And have you approached him to ask him to stop taking money from her?

Your grandmother has the right to do as she pleases. But you clearly see this relative as taking advantage of her. There is a delicate balance here. Sometimes it is time for a call to Adult Protective Services. Sometimes it is time to act as agent under a Durable Power of Attorney. Sometimes it can be helpful to talk with the person (here, your grandmother) about limiting cash and checks in favor of a credit card from TrueLink Financial. This can be set up to limit the type and place of purchases and give ongoing reports to a designated person, whether the agent under a Durable Power of Attorney or a family member. If your grandmother walks out of the grocery or polyclinic with a card instead of cash or a checkbook, she might pay for this relative's groceries or his visit to the polyclinic but could not hand him cash or pay for jewelry for a masseuse.

Please do whatever you have to do to stop this relative. I have a brother like this and as long as the money is there, he will be there. When the money stops, he will be gone.

Dont have an answer but what the heck is an HDB mansionette??

wvavet - I was curious as well ...Just looked it up ... it appears that an HDB Maisonette is a foreign term for a high end apartment suite in a condo or apartment building, what I viewed was in Asia and were in Singapore. Likely of French colonial origin.

Thanks Anny!

I am in the same situation with my brother and my Mother. He is hunting the elusive "million dollar job" in sales and is about $10,000 in, owing her. His answer is "once he gets a good job he will pay the money back in no time". In the meantime, he is staying in hotels, etc., totally on her dime. I do have a durable POA but I'm not even sure how to use it to stop this abuse. I have threatened him with the police, but to no avail. Please, does anyone have any advise, legal or otherwise?

You can definitely try to become POA (Power of Attorney) and handle her finances. A lot of people do that now but she has to be a willing participant and give you permission to be POA.

This guy is a dream compared to my brother. My brother, let's call him " preacher man" is a real man of God. My dad had a stroke in 2010 and my brother became POA for my parents. My dad wasn't out of rehab yet when preacher man began stealing his money. He took advantage of my mother in her weak state of mind. Preacher man went as far as writing new wills for my parents and having my folks sign them, they always trusted him, he was the preacher man. In these new wills he removed me his only sibling and put his grandkids as TOD to my folks accounts. The amount he was taking wouldn't have left much to transfer on death. He took over 100k the first year and about that much per year the following years. I would not have found out about any of this had he not died. Two days after his death , preacher mans son in law called my mom and asked her to make him POA and to put my brothers wife as beneficiary on my dads IRA. He told my mom he would protect her money from the Govt. What trash these kind of people are. I live beside my folks and have cared for them for the past 30 years, and a few years ago when mom got scammed , I suggested to my brother that I be POA as I lived close by and he lived on other side of the country. I was told by preacher man that my folks don't trust me. When I started to find out what extent my brother was stewing my folks . I moved their finances from Morgan Stanley to Edward Jones. At this point my brothers wife called APS on me for financial abuse. Can you believe the gall? After investigation from APS, my name was cleared , investigator said it was unsubstantiated . The LOVE of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Even for the preacher man. My Brother stole close to 500k. Over a six year period, this whole experience has left very bad memories of my brother and his family will not talk to me. My folks are in their high 80's and are doing ok in their own home because my wife and I see that their needs are met. My brother and his family see no need to help in anyway. I just pray that preacher man didn't do these evil deeds with a clear conscience. Take care , love your grandmother, God sees everything and He knows who is taking care of grandma.

This is a form of elderly abuse, please contact APS. also you need to get durable power of attorney in order to become payee of her ss check, that way you will be in charge of her money.

... If shes not deemed incompetent by her physician then claiming elderly abuse, or anything else is futile and an abuse of the system for what it was created. ...
I'll tell you why .. If every single person or entity that took advantage of our aging society then every single physician and every single assisted living (or similar) facility would be shut down and their owners jailed. You want to see elderly financial abuse?.. check into assisted living "costs and charges, yet our government allows the theft. People need to remember, just because you "grow up" and then start seeing things as wrong or different regarding your parents or grandparents, is really none of your business unless they are in physical danger.

... why do you (the poster) instead of sitting around letting all of what hes doing with her "money" ... try to minimize the amount. Or perhaps sit down and write a letter (email or whatever) to him, his wife, or to whom-ever ... tell them "Listen guys, if you keep asking for so much money she will have none left when/if she needs to be placed in a facility, and that woudlnt be fair to her, etc. Play upon their emotions (if there are any).. but also it allows a paper trail of "acknowledgement of the actions if there ever comes a time its needed. And about him waiting for her at places, then be with her, and help minimize the cost by suggesting to her, "Grams, so and so told me he really only needs one hundred, rather than two" etc etc etc.

Tired1of4, it is very expensive to run an Independent Living/Assisted Living complex. What is charged is reasonable and is not a theft. Oh I won't doubt there might be a place or two that overcharges for the work they do.

Payroll is extremely costly, with having 2 or 3 shifts of personnel. Plus contracts for the cleaning staff... maintenance staff... chef and kitchen staff, waitstaff in the dining rooms... on-site nurses 24 hours a day... aides... med techs who dispense medicine to the residents.... office staff... Administrator.... contracts for physical therapists.... ground keepers.

Another extremely costly item is liability insurance, that cost alone is through the roof. And maintenance of dozens and dozens of furnaces and air conditioners, lighting, cable maintenance, the maintenance men are busy all day long helping residents with various things that need repair or replaced. Keeping the laundry facility up and running. The elevators in working order. And all those bathrooms where someone is always clogging up the toilet.

Imagine what the electric bill looks like for such a complex. Not to mention the water bill, and gas bill if gas is used for heating and cooking. In winter the cost to hire snow plows to come in to clear the parking lot, or in better weather the cost of lawn mowing and landscaping. Oops, almost forgot the cost of cable service to each and every room, and landline telephone service.

The list goes on and on.

... Freqflyer... I know exactly what costs are, I've owned 3 corporations/businesses in very dif fields,business is business, payroll, expenses, profit, etc etc... in all due respect, elderly care facilities are not in it for the humanity. They generate extreme profits for their owners & investors, extreme. Its one of the most lucrative out there and you dont get that way if you are not over charging for services rendered. My mother was in an assisted living facility before she is now in my care, I know exactly where their money goes.

... ill give you a break down way of thinking about financial abuse regarding elderly care facilities... Think of the building itself as nothing more than a very large structure with many apartments built into it. Those "apartments (rooms or units) are built into the business plan as being self contained, meaning the costs charged to each apartment/room/unit per month are charged so that each room/apartment/unit generates its income for its own existence. Lets say the one bed assisted living apartment is 550 sq ft. The square-footage itself is valued out, then each apartment is charged its maintenance fee (covers all hourly wagea of maintenance man per day ) then its utilities, its "aid and "med aid" and charged full hours to pay for the one "RN" on duty (and many only have one RN in-house for 8 hours per day, but each apartment is charged a full-time daily wage when the RN may actually never visit that one apartment but once per week, if even that on average) the rest the hours are filled with "CNN's (or aids) at minimal hourly wages...That apartment/room/unit is also charged food consumption/ 1 to 3 meals per day (as) provided, but are charged the kitchen staffs wages as well. Same goes for all insurances, water usage,trash, etc, the costs are built into each unit and "paid for" by each unit per month long before the resident ever "uses up the remainder (actual monthly price they are charged per month.) And you mention cable, cable and phone are also paid for within the costs of the unit (unless left up to the resident to pay separately) either way the "cost of said service is already built into each apartment/room/units monthly "price. Same goes for the wages of management & residual staff. The per-month charges paid by each resident then become profit for its owners and investors after all of those wages and costs are fulfilled by each unit per month....then add that the facility gets a few "subsidies(free money, gap fees or lowered costs in general) from the government or IRS or its sate for which it operates ... after all of that is applied per unit, the remainder is "profit. So when you have costs of assisted living apartments/rooms/units averaging 4700 to 7200 per month.. profit per room is in the neighborhood of 2600 to 5800 per person/apartment/room/unit, per month.

I can understand if he has fallen and had a debilitating injury like I did five years ago where left hand and arm were shattered. Right wrist was broken in a fall three years ago. I wonder what this man's excuse is?

By the way, I am a Person of Disability because of my falls

If she is competent, then she can lend money to whomever she wants. Stay out of it.

..back in 2009 the average cost of ALF (assisted living facilities) were 3000 to 4500..the whole thing boils down to can our elders (or ourselves in the future) afford the high costs of assisted living/elderly care... because as of now the costs are not regulated by anything other than demand ... and the answer to a question of can our elders afford it.. the answer is, the majority, cannot .. So then Medicare will need to supplement. When we look at the reality of need vs the costs being charged for safe elderly care is becoming unattainable by the majority. it is indeed, elderly abuse...and the profits made from per-resident, is again, indeed elderly financial abuse.

...back to the posters deal... as ive said far above, if shes not deemed incompetent, there's just nothing you can or should (legally) do about it. Trust me, I get it, you hate to see it, you hate free-loaders, I think we all do, but its her dough man, her life, her family, and until shes no longer competent to handle her affairs, and that has been documented legally and her responsibility is assigned to another, then Im sorry dude, honestly there's honestly nothing you can do about it... unless as Ive said you go after the situation in a different way and try to control the actual dollar amounts of the hand outs.

(didnt mean to call you a dude, but hopefully you get my drift)

there are sooooo many people who steal (borrow...haha) large amounts of money from their elder family members...it's disgusting!!! if they are deemed to be mentally fit...then of course they have the right to give their money to whoever they choose...but...that is a fine line to determine when they are in transition!! the worst part of these stories...sooooo much money is stolen from these elderly people...that many have nothing to live on when they NEEEED it!!! Horrific scumbag family members...stealing from their elder family members!!!

This is elder abuse. Call Adult Protective Services, e.g. APS.

elder abuse since when Llama lover... the woman is 88, this has been going on for how many years... shes considered elderly after 55..

"He has not won the lottery yet?!" Give me a break! Yes, Tired1of4 this granny is being taken advantage of, commonly known as elder abuse whether for a second or 38 years!

Just to remind y'all: Power of attorney (POA) does not give the agent control of or "power over" the grantor of the POA. The POA can act only in accordance with the grantor's wishes and best interest. If you get Gramma to give you her POA, that doesn't stop her from handing money out however she wants.
Call Adult Protective Services, your local Agency on Aging, or law enforcement when someone is being abused like this.

...nope "lama bama"... its called families with free loaders 101 and the grandmother (possibly the free loaders mom, but we dont know do we, nor does it matter) is none-ur-biz what she does or has done in her life with her money, and if shes competent (still has her wits about her) then its still her biz and no one elses ... Everyone running around screaming "Elder abuse" is not the new "sue-em" term and dont make it out to be. 88 years old is elderly but shes not being abused, shes being taken advantage of, and most likely has been her entire life by (again assumptive) more than one member of her family... other-wise more than one member of that family would be trying to end the situation.

When the young man busking in the city yesterday spun me a yarn about needing to make his bus fare home, he was taking advantage of my good nature and my willing suspension of disbelief. I was content to let him, and cross my fingers that he would actually go home and/or get something to eat, and not drink or inject the money instead.

If this elder is competent to know what's what, and is still content to give her relative the money, she is not being abused. She may be being taken advantage of. But they are not the same thing.

Do what is necessary to protect your grandmother. If your grandmother insists on loaning the money to this trifling relative make sure that a promissory note is signed and notarized. This way he can be held accountable for it. I would also look into Adult Protective Services as well since he thinks he is slick. Most importantly, reassure your grandmother that you are only looking out for her best interests and that you love her.

Call Adult Protective Services ASAP. If your grandmother insists on LOANING this trifling relative the money, please ensure a promissory note is signed and notarized. 2. Reassure your grandmother that you are only protecting her and her best interests. 3. Ask her if she will go with you to an Elder Law attorney appointment.