What all will APS do if they take over guardianship for my mom?

There are several different types of guardianship on Ok. What type guardianship do you have?

‘What are the Kinds of Guardianships?
There are three kinds of guardianships in Oklahoma:
General Guardianship: A general guardianship allows a guardian to have control over the person in care and/or all of their property.
Limited Guardianship: A limited guardian is a guardian who only has limited powers over the elder and/or the elder’s property.
Special Guardianship: A special guardian is a guardian who is appointed for an emergency purpose, and usually lasts for up to a month.

Very tired, I think perhaps you need a different lawyer, because what you say the lawyer told you is quite different from Night Heron (and also my own understanding).

You say ‘I am her POA and guardian, but she had the limitation put in that I cannot move her from her home without court approval’. If the limitation is in the POA, it is now no longer effective. Guardianship trumps it. If it’s in the guardianship order, it’s very unusual and you should definitely get better advice to check that it’s there. The ‘patient’ doesn’t normally have any power over what is in a Guardianship order. It’s simply that – a Guardianship order, then the guardian makes the decisions. My guess is that the clause is actually in the POA, for which the ‘patient’ can choose the details, and which has now lapsed.

You say your lawyer said ‘if she still refuses since they will not physically force her, then I should have APS take over guardianship’. This is not correct. APS doesn’t ‘take over guardianship’, full stop. What the court would do would probably be give the needed ‘court approval’, and/or remove that provision from the original guardianship order (if it’s there, which I doubt).

Either you don’t understand your lawyer, your lawyer is inexperienced in this situation, the lawyer is not communicating well with you, or the lawyer has an agenda of their own. You need a lawyer who knows and can ensure that you understand the true situation. What you certainly don’t need is a lawyer who is angling to get appointed the guardian themselves. This situation is a bit dodgy, and I wouldn’t trust anything about it. You need a second opinion. I’d start by asking APS, who almost certainly deal with a lawyer experienced in this field.

Please come back if this doesn’t make sense to you. Yours, Margaret

APS will not be the entity that will have conservatorship/guardianship over your mother. The court will appoint someone for this. The person is usually a lawyer, and the state will require a lawyer to represent your mother (this of course gets paid for by her). Sometimes it will be a court-appointed social worker.
What will happen is your mother will get put into a nursing home or the dementia unit (i.e. "memory care") unit of a nursing home. She will not get placed in an assisted living facility.
The answer to your question about finances, is yes whoever is appointed her conservator/guardian will be responsible for getting her bills paid. They will also have to sell her house and everything else. A court-appointed one also charges a ridiculous amount for the slightest thing they do. If they so much as make a phone call, they charge for it. They also will not be obligated to keep you in the loop about anything including any health care decisions being made for your mother.
So, do think twice before you allow the state to take over. You as next-of-kin can petition the court yourself for conservatorship/guardianship over your mother and it will likely be awarded to you. If you're worried that she won't go willingly to a care facility, then you tell whatever care facility you plan to put her in that she will be a hostile transfer. They will handle it.

I'm a guardian, too. First, you're not a POA anymore, you're a court-appointed guardian. Once you become guardian, guardianship trumps POA (just like if you were on a junior varsity team and you graduate to the varsity team, you're no longer JV). Guardianship gives you all the powers that you had as POA, plus a lot more (and more responsibility, and more oversight by the courts). A lot of people don't understand this, so they'll say "I know you said you're her guardian, but are you her POA?" They don't get that guardianship IS everything POA is, and a whole lot more. It's being completely responsible for another human being, much like if you had a child in your care.

Once you're guardian, APS doesn't just take over the reins—you would need to petition the court to be removed from guardianship, and then the court will appoint an outside guardian. This is usually a lawyer, sometimes not. Whoever it is, they will oversee her finances from now on, and they will almost certainly have her placed in a facility. She will not have the choice of staying home. Once a doctor determines that she is unfit to live alone, and that has been recognized by the court, the state has an obligation to make sure she has that 24/7 supervision. She'll never pay her own bills again—somebody, whether you or an outside guardian, has to be in charge of that from now on. Would the professional guardian try to keep her home, with 24/7 care? I highly doubt they'd take on the logistical nightmare of keeping her house staffed. It's one thing if the overnight nurse doesn't show up and the daughter/guardian can fill in. It's another thing if the guardian is a lawyer who has a dozen wards under her watch. The only alternative becomes placing her in a facility.

As guardian, you should actually be able to force your mother into a facility (yes, you need court permission, I had to go through the same thing, but I've never heard of a judge not granting it). There are many stories here of guardians doing just that, difficulties and all. Is it the judge who is telling you she cannot be forced? That is very unusual, because, as I said above, if this goes to an outside guardian, she will be rehomed in a facility. It may be that the facility you dealt with refuses to take her if she isn't coming in willingly. I assume you've looked into other facilities.

Honestly, from one reluctant guardian to another—your mom will be fine if you hand it off to another guardian. It's a never-ending headache. Dealing with government agencies during a pandemic is a nightmare. Dealing with having a parent kicked out of multiple facilities is a nightmare. Then there's doing things the court requires you to do (selling property, liquidating investments), but needing to get court permission to do everything they are requiring you to do. I've been through two additional court hearings for simple requests that my lawyers thought would be granted without a hearing. Once the hearings started, the judge granted permission for everything we were trying to do, all routine things. After each one, I thought "Why on earth did I have to wait two months for a hearing for her to say 'this all sounds fine'?" It takes over your life. Friends of your mother's will treat you like you're after whatever property she owns, which stings—speaking for myself, I'm out thousands of dollars of my own money because getting reimbursed for anything is very complicated. I don't blame or judge you at all for wanting to get out. These professionals know how to get it done, and your mom will be taken care of.

If you haven't ever watched a training video with the state of OK on duties of a guardian, now is the time to do that, because you'll come away from it with a lot firmer understanding of what guardians, including hired outside guardians, can and will do. And don't be afraid to ask your lawyer these questions.

Get guardianship from the court. Tell the court if you cannot get guardianship you will be resigning as POA and the state will have to take responsibility for Mom, her bills, her money and her care, that you cannot continue.
APS doesn't do guardianship. Adult Protective opens cases in which an elder may be at risk for any number of reasons. They REFER the case to the state and to social workers who will take the case to a court. The court will provide a licensed Fiduciary. At that point you have really NO INPUT into Mom's life, and no control over anything at all.
If Mom is at all capable of understanding that, do tell her, she is either under your control with you checking, helping and paying her bills, or she is under the State, in which case she may be placed MILES from you, with your not having any say whatsoever to protect her, and perhaps not even the ability to get to see her very often.
Then that's that.
So if Mom gets herself released from her care, where you placed her, and returns to her home on her own, then do NOT go there. Call APS at once describing her as an adult at risk emergency. Let them step in. You stay out of it and keep paying her bills (I assume they are coming to you for payment as POA and being signed with her name, yours as POA and I assume you know how to keep close records you can show to any authority.)
Good luck. Keep us updated.

With my stepFIL (in MN) he had Lutheran Social Services as his guardian. There was more of a team, so more than one person, in a hierarchy (the hands-on guardian and then that guardian's superior, so there was oversight and accountability). He had Parkinsons and no assets and was initially placed in a LTC 1 hour away from his wife and us, but I called to appeal this and they moved him closer but to an inferior facility.

Once the guardian takes over you will be blocked from any further insights or authority for your mom's medical and financial decisions. They will make new logins for his accounts, you be removed from her accounts, etc. You will still be able to visit her and carry on your mother/daughter relationship but nothing else. I'm not sure how they pay for AL, but my SFIL needed Medicaid. He had a shared room because of this. The guardian would call to ask about his preferences in food, music, entertainment, etc. We didn't get any types of "reports" since his affairs were kept private (but we were free to visit). After he passed away the guardians submitted an itemized accounting of how his assets were spent. They wanted to know what to do with his remains and shipped them to his son, and everything was somehow paid out of his SS income, which was all he had. There were no assets leftover (no surprise) so I'm not sure what happens if there are any left after the care she receives has been paid for. It may happen differently since you're in a different state. I'm not sure what happens to your PoA authority but I'm thinking it ends as the guardians gets control.

I believe it is the state of Oklahoma that will take over as Guardian/Conservator.

If she has funds, a conservator generally gets appointed to manage money. They are of course paid to do this. A Guardian gets appointed to decide where she lives. They are also paid out of her funds.

Does you mother understand the very unfortunate situation that she will be facing, and that "staying at home" isn't one of the things on offer?

One of the unfortunate possibilities is that she will be placed far from home and loved ones, that her monies will be spent on the guardian/Conservator and run out sooner. Wouldn't she rather have a loving daughter driving the bus?

That's quite a thing to add to her POA! 24/7 care is very hard to arrange at home. Did you take her to an AL facility and that's where the scene happened or just at home? My mom made a scene at home when I brought it up! Yet she's lonely and bored. Hmmmm.

Sorry I don't know what APS will do. Could you call them and ask? Others here will know. It's unfortunate that some people are just so stubborn and it really gets in the way of them staying well cared for and safe.