My grandparents had 3 children. Billie, my father, Susan his sister and Jerry his brother. There were 4 burial plots bought and paid for before my grandparents passed away. Susan was born with MS and is disabled and is unable to sign her name. Grandmother, grandfather, and uncle Jerry have all passed away. Grandparents are in 2 of the 4 plots bought. Jerry is at Arlington National cemetary and Susan is still living but is disabled. My father wants me to have Jerrys plot leaving only Susan's left for her. the all 4 plots will be filled. My father has relinquished Susan over to the facility (the state) she is living in. He can no longer take care of her. The funeral home is wanting to know who the POA is and wants her (Susan) to sign off n the extra plot. She cannot do that because she has no idea what she is even signing. Who is the POA? Is it my Dad or the facility in which she lives and who can sign off for the funeral home? The state says it's my Dad and my dad says its the state but the funeral home needs to know. Any help you can give me would be greatly appreciated. All of Jerry's children have all signed off stating that they have no interest in their dads plot and that I am welcome to it. Ive got to transfer ownership to my name. Can you PLEASE help me as NO ONE seems to be able to answer who the POA is.
If she was very disabled from birth I'm thinking her parents had legal guardianship of her, but after her parents passed...? Is she just physically incapacitated or mentally also? How long did your dad care for Susan? How did he care for someone without having legal authority to manage her affairs, like her SSDI? Can you clarify what "relinquishing her to the state" means? Do you mean he moved her into a Medicaid facility or did he relinquish his PoA or guardianship? He needs to ask the admin at the nursing home. Sorry for all the questions...
It sounds like Aunt Susan is a ward of the State. Is this correct?
& she’s on LTC Medicaid, isn’t she? (It’s not decades of private pay)
I’ll bet that there's reticent due to old paperwork glitch’s and Medicaid concerns. If she has been disabled since birth or institutionalized for a long time, there likely has been a guardianship or some type of sign off for oversight done for Susan by your grandparents decades ago so the state could cover her care costs, and then it fell to your dad to do after his folks died. And things have just plodded along for years as there's been nothing needed to change for how the facility gets paid or how her medical choices are decided on.
look at whatever documents or paperwork you can find. If their old, I bet this is what’s happened. Paperwork is old & static.
To me the issue will be that doing anything new & definite to aunt Susan’s “assets” will cause an issue for Medicaid. That plot has a value, which sounds like your grands put in your dads and Jerry & Susan name as owners. Aunt Susan can have funeral &/or burial preneed policy (within a set by your state $ limit) and be ok for Medicaid. But she cannot give the plot to another (like you) as it’s her asset and if she did this it’s considered “gifting” of an asset. Which Medicaid does not allow. You could buy it from her, but that too poses the issue that the $ is income to her the month you buy the plot, which affects her Medicaid eligibility. Trying to change ownership of anything once Medicaid involved opens a can of worms for eligibility. If this could be what might happen, I’d suggest that y’all just leave everything as it is. You don’t want to do anything to jeapordize Medicaid for her. Unless you & dad want to move Aunt Susan into your homes and care for her or private pay for her facility.
If you did get her plot, what’s the plan for Aunties funeral & burial?
or are you just planning on not dealing with it at all?
I understand what Igloo is saying about transfer of the plots. It cost money to do this. So much so, its not worth selling them. My cousin just went thru this with his Dads estate. My Aunt and Uncle chose somewhere else to be buried. Now he wants to sell the plots but trasfer fees are really high.
Whose name is on the deed? With my parents, they owned all 4 lots. Now this has been 20 and 25 years ago and cemeteries are getting strict. One they gave the deed to my Aunt, not sure if they had to pay for transfer. The other my sister was buried in. Both my parents were alive when my sister and Aunt passed. If the deeds are in your grandfathers name, he owned them. Meaning, unless one was not specified for your Aunt by her name being on the deed, she doesn't own it anyway. I would think both are part of Grandpa/ma's estates.
Hopefully someone has gone thru this and can give advice.