Hello,
I am financial POA for my grandmother. Lately she is not seeming like she is in her right mind and I believe people in my awful family are noticing this and taking advantage of it.
One of her grandsons asked her to pay his $800 lot rent and she did. Others ask her for money and she hands it out like candy.
She has her own bills to pay, about $1500 in bills a month. She has a large chunk of money in her account from my grandfathers life insurance money when he passed and she also makes about $4500 a month between SS, widow VA benefits and widow postal service benefits. So realistically, she should have never had to touch the life insurance money.
However with people coming and getting what they please when I am not around, she spends this $4500 that she gets a month plus dips into the life insurance money quite a bit.
I don’t want to seem like I’m trying to control her money and tell her what to do with her money. But she is obviously not in her right mind right now and others are taking advantage of this.
is there anything I can do being her financial power of attorney?
I know I’m better off consulting the lawyer. I just simply wanted to hear all of your experiences and see if anyone has been through anything similar.
You need information. You and your grandmother would be better served seeing a lawyer AND getting an assessment from her doctor whether she's incompetent. The determination from the doc will be very useful for your lawyer's advice. If she is competent and the POA is not in force, there's little you can do except keep her appraised of where her money is going and how much she has left. If the lawyer advises you the POA is in force, then you can stop these people.
I took over Mom's finances after Sister found out her daughter, my niece who was living with Mom as her caregiver, took advantage of Mom's dementia by complaining she had no money. The bank statement showed Niece would take Mom to her bank up to twice a day for withdrawals until Sister saw Mom had no money left! With Mom's new and in-force POA and knowing there'd be no legal action against Niece, from my mouth to Niece's ears, I told her if she took a penny from Mom, I would contact the police since Mom was, by Kansas law, a protected individual. However, if Niece, through me and with Mom's approval, needed money, it was A LOAN and I tracked this loan as part of a monthly "statement" I developed showing every penny of Mom's money. She was to pay it back in cash or payment in kind with work around the house.
I hope you're documenting everything. Gifts from your grandmother to others, conversations, statements, and so on. You may need proof of your actions in working for your grandmother's benefit. I hope you have long talks with your grandmother and showing her her bank statements and all her accounting to show her spending, especially if her balances are declining.
If the POA is determined to be in force, you can tell your family the "Grandmother Bank" is closed.
When my mom was having a "good day" I'd go through her finances with her. She was so proud that her home was paid off and with her growing bank balance.
Only if she is incompetent or incapacitated and cannot manage her own finances.
Being generous to her family when she has money does not make her incompetent. Paying her grandson's rent when he needed it doesn't either.
It's her money and she can spend it any way she likes. If she's still paying her own bills and managing herself, you cannot make your POA active.
I find it very curious that you make absolutely no mention of who has her medical POA. That this doesn't concern you at all. Only who she's giving her money to.
Try having a talk with her first about how much money she's shelling out left and right.
Then bring her to her doctor. She may have dementia. She may not and just wants to help her family. Her doctor can do testing for it. Then your POA can become active with a diagnosis like dementia which would mean that your grandmother is mentally incompetent to look after herself or her money.
Do you have medical POA also? If not, then you should probably bring her back to her lawyer who did the financial POA documents and have him make you the health POA too. I'm surprised this wasn't included in the original POA she made.
I am her medical and financial POA. I’m the only one in her family that has any common sense. Hence why I hold both of these titles. The rest are drug addicts and abusers. Her shelling out money to them IS being incompetent when she’s shelling out more money than she receives a month because she has no idea what’s in her bank account.
No, it is not called elder abuse. You don't know what the mental condition of the OP's grandmother is.
Sometimes when people have more money than they need they actually ENJOY helping out their family where and when they can.
This does not make them mentally incompetent not does it mean they have dementia.
I paid off a loan that was taken on my childhood home beause my mother made bad financial decisions. I do not have dementia, nor am I physically or mentally incapacitated in any way.
So before you or anyone else starts screaming Elder Abuse! try getting all the facts.
The grandmother might just be a generous woman who figures she's old, has enough for herself and wants to help her family.
Nothing wrong with that if such is the case.
Why should elders hoard every cent? So there will be more to hand over to a nursing home or more for family to fight over after they die?
If grandma is managing her own life, doesn't have dementia, and isn't being coerced or intimidated into giving her money over then I say more power to her.
If you've got it, spend it.
I agree that if, in the end, you get a lot of pushback and no cooperation from her you may have to resign as POA. I hope that doesn’t happen.
As for attorney’s who chalk up this kind of behavior to being “stupid”, I would remind them that just as your eyesight deteriorates as you age, so do other faculties- including the aging brain, which often loses the capacity to think and reason clearly. Older folks who fall for scams and other opportunistic financial exploitation by family or strangers are often suffering from normal aging rather than stupidity, that causes impaired judgement. That is where a POA comes in - like a good pair of eyeglasses.
It's not as easy as you're saying to just take control of a person's money and assets because you have a POA document.
It doesn't become active unless a person becomes incapacitated.
The grandmother would either have to willingly let the OP open new accounts and transfer her money into them so no one has access to it, or there has to be an actual diagnosis for why she's incapacitated or mentally incompetent.
A POA can't just do these things at will because they don't think someone is spending their money as they see fit.
It doesn't work like that.
YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
So, bring GMA into her bank with your POA and tell them you want to protect her. They can offer that you can transfer $ to another account with your name on it. So she gets her pay and you transfer it (mine has no checkbook it’s only a savings acct. That way if an auditor looks all is transparent) you transfer $ back into it as needed.
Then you leave her as much/little as she may want to be able to spend. Restrict her access to the other income; give all financial institutions and creditors your email and they will send statements to you. Get all her bills ACH. Teach her to say that she’ll just give you a call right quick to make sure there’s enough available- or something, if someone comes by asking for cash. That’s elder abuse. You are her “secretary”. Lawyer if she doesn’t agree. Elder Law lawyer might be able to talk to her and that would save you thousands. Best of luck. Your Gma is lucky yo have you.
Do understand that as long as your grandmother is not diagnosed incompetent in her decisions, the decisions are her OWN TO MAKE even if they are unwise.
Therefore, speak to her. Try to get her to go to the bank with you and to get a personal spending account and have you take over other accounts as her POA for billpaying and so on. The bank manager can help with this IF SHE IS WILLING TO DO THIS.
If she is not, then you are basically sunk until you can get a diagnosis and likely a conservatorship which is a court action. All of that is costly and trying and in lieu of that many just allow the elder to spend it all up until it is gone.
Consider taking GRANDMOTHER WITH YOU and go ing to an elder law attorney about this where the three of you can discuss together how best to move forward to protect her. Be honest with her. If you can do nothing, then you can do nothing, and in that case I would resign POA and step away. Allow the state to take over as thought there were no family at all.
There is really nothing you can do.
My attorney said (paraphrasing):
”People do stupid stuff all the time that ends in bankruptcy. They are allowed to do so.”
If you think she is being abused you can call Adult Protective Services to come out and do an evaluation or you can take her to get one yourself but unless they find she is incompetent you just have to sit back and watch the train wreck. I found myself in that situation and then accused of stealing when I tried to move money around to safeguard it. As a result I resigned the POA.
I am sorry but it is a difficult situation to be in.
If it’s in effect now, you can take charge and safeguard her money for her.
You have a fiduciary duty to protect her money.
You need a solid diagnosis and the ability to get yourself registered to take on her accounts and bills as her POA or you need to hire someone to do it for you if you are unaware of the meticulous record keeping required.