Can I sue my siblings and my mothers living estate for caregiver compensation?

hopeless, is your mother still competent? If so, she can leave the house to you in her will or at least set up a life estate.

As sad as it seems, your siblings are not responsible legally for paying you to care for your parents. If they were decent people, they would relinquish the house to you for your kindness, but it sounds like they are not willing to do this. Many parents have wills set up that real property will be sold and the money distributed among the children. If this is the way the will is written, then there is little you can do except to buy out the interests of your siblings.

Even if the house is gone, there are many good places to live. Many senior communities are subsidized by the federal and state governments, so rent is low. The nice thing about these communities is there are no maintenance expenses or property taxes. The amount of rent paid is based on your income. All is not hopeless.

I hope that questions like this will help people who are just getting into caregiving to see the importance and appropriateness of getting compensated for their caregiving all along, rather than expecting to be taken care of after the loved one dies.

Igloo's suggestions seem sound. But is your mother competent to get into legal decisions at this point? And would she understand the concept and reasoning of you keeping the house as long as you want, or is she going to say, "But I love all of my children equally. I want to give the house to all of them"?

I wish you well.

hopeless1945 I just looked at your profile and you are living in NJ. I never heard of your town but I also live in NJ. What county are you and Mom in? There are steps I think you can do to protect your self. I kind of know the feeling about siblings or family waiting for inheritance after you do all the care for a parent. You should research "caregiver agreement". I saw info about that on here at some point. This is something I think you need to get Mom to sign and have notarized, your siblings don't need to know about this. Your not being sneaky your just protecting yourself. Remember ....You don't need to open any can of worms, if your family wants to use you to be the bait so they can catch the big fish and without the bait there left with an empty line. In other words don't let anyone use you. Save any info on bills in your name proof of you living there caring for her etc. Make logs of daily needs and care trips to dr's etc.
Your Mom has dementia I also read in your profile . How is she doing in the home situation? This is not always a situation that can be a one caregiver role in later stages, or in early stages either. This is quite costly for in home or long term care. Is there a long term plan. Does anyone have Power of Attorney?

If there is no will, you should ask mom to do one asap with you named as the executor and she can name you to inheirit the house. But if there will be lots of fallout from your siblings on this approach, she can put in her will that the sale of the house is to be divided equally BUT you have a usufruct on the house for your lifetime. She can even state in the will that whatever $ she has it to go towards the costs of the home. This will enable you to stay there and have some funds from her estate to pay on the house plus whatever you get from your SS. These terms are good until YOU decide to move and not when your sib's want you to. A good attorney will know how to set this up in a will or as a codicil (addition) to the old will.

You know the whole usufruct or whatever they may call this legally in your state, is used all the time for guys with 2nd or 3rd wives who want to technically leave their property to their kids from the first marriage but still take care of the newer wife and not require her to change her standard of living if he dies before her. Good luck and you have to remember to look out for yourself!

Back to your original statement, "Can I sue my sisters and mothers living estate...." yes, you can always bring a lawsuit, but it will take either you going to the local law library and reading up on it, or, a lawyer who would take the case.
In my experience lawyers won't touch anything that they cannot make tens of thousands of dollars, so if your mom's estate is not worth very much (like most of us) the lawyer would want to be on a retainer (you pay up front).
It's so sad, but true, that those of us who re-arrange our lives to be caregivers, are not only not paid, but cannot recoup anything from the estate.
And those siblings who avoid doing anything, oh don't get me started.....

Under California’s DWBR, the employee would be paid $1,164.00 ($8.00/hour x 45 regular hours + $12.00/hour x 67 overtime hours). Under the revised DOL regulations, the employee must be paid $1,184.00 ($8.00/hour x 40 regular hours + $12.00/hour x 72 hours). By my calculations, that about a 30% to 32% increase in wages for the employee, if the family can afford the increase. If the family cannot afford the increase, the family will have a couple of options.

Option number one will be to hire more workers to avoid paying overtime. In California, because we have a daily and a weekly maximum on regular hours, there is no way to avoid some overtime liability because the employer can only deduct for sleep time if the employee works a 24-hour shift. Under the DWBR, the minimum an employer could pay an employee for a 24-hour shift would be $156.00 per day ($8.00/hour x 9 regular hours + $12.00/hour x 7 overtime hours, with no compensation for 8 hours of sleep time). The family would have to hire at least two workers to avoid the 45-hour weekly overtime cap. The workers would also have to have a separate place to reside and pay for their own meals on their non-working days.

That means instead of one worker earning $896.00 per week, and receiving room and board to boot, one employee will receive $780.00 per week and another employee will receive $312.00 per week. The employer will pay $1,092.00 per week. That’s about a 20% increase for the family, and a 15% decrease for the worker, excluding the loss of room and board.

The only way to eliminate any overtime liability at all under the DWBR for 24-7 care would be to hire 6 different workers, each working no more than 9 hours a day or 45 hours a week.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

3 yrs 8 months - 2 months hospitalized = 3yrs 6 mo.
188 weeks @ $1,764 per week = $331.642 @ 12 hr days
188 weeks @ $2,212 per week = $415,856 @ 24 hr days -8


M T W T F S S Total
Total 12 12 12 12 12 12 12 84 hrs X $8 = $672
Reg Hrs 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 63 hrs X $12 = $756
OT Hrs 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 21 hrs X $16 = $336
-----
$1,764
$448
-------------------------------------------------------
$2,212

$2,212 x 52 weeks = $115,024

$115,024 x 3.6yrs = $414,086



24hr - 8 hr deduction = + 4 hr OT per 12 hr day above.
4 x 7 = 28 hrs..........28hrs x $16 = $448



$8 x 16hrs =$128 day,$896 week,$46,592 year

Simple answer. You can sue. One can ALWAYS sue. You will not win. You cannot impute a contract where none existed. And "what's fair" has nothing to do with it.

This is the reason posters on this board tend to mightily discourage anyone from quitting their jobs to be caretakers. And why there's tons of advice on putting a contract in place if one expects to be paid.

In addition to Maggie's caution that you won't win, you could be countersued for filing of a frivolous complaint, especially if you don't have the documentation and facts to support your claim, and also especially if the individual(s) you're suing get mad, hires an attorney and decide to retaliate.

JeanetteB, Losimons posted on this issue in this thread:

Letter of promise vs. a living Will under contract, which one will be on top? ,
https://www.agingcare.com/questions/which-one-letter-of-promise-vs-a-living-will-184673.htm

Losi's situation involves a lot of complex issues involving law and possible misrepresentation.

Yes, it is, deb. If there is no prospect of your mother possibly returning to the home, you can consider selling it, breetobias. I would make sure you were on sound legal ground before proceeding, though. If there is a life estate on the property, then there could be a problem with transferring the deed to another person.

Are you living in the US or another country?