My sister (74) was diagnosed with AD 3 years ago, and gave me DPOA shortly afterwards based upon the recommendation of her Trust Attorney. She lived on her own for one more year after that (with a LOT of help from me), but then agreed after much discussion to sell her home of 38 years and move to our hometown in another state where we have 4 other siblings to help with matters. She now wants to open a checking account at a bank nearby and have me arrange for her 3 sources of income to be sent there. Before she was diagnosed with AD she was swindled out of 10's of thousands of dollars by a former penniless live-in boyfriend (that relationship ended shortly after the AD diagnosis and she gave me DPOA), and I don’t want anything like this to ever happen again!! I'm afraid that with access to any significant amounts of money my sister may then start wanting to give large amounts of money to her 2 underemployed sons and to one of our sisters who barely makes ends meet! As her DPOA I think I should somehow persuade her to keep things 'as they are' and remind her why. Or should I appease her and have only her SS check deposited into a nearby bank? This account would quickly grow to 1000's of dollars, too! Any ideas on how others have handled a similar situation would be greatly appreciated. Thanks! DM
First question, do you have DPOA you have not invoked yet, or are you actually the POA, that is to say handling all financial, and all payments?
The first thing you need to know is that you should NOT mess with the automatic social security unless you and Mom went before her dementia, or you are willing to go now without it but with a whole mess of paperwork to become representative payee. If you are not currently her Representative Payee it could be difficult to transfer the automatic payment of her Social Security, so don't mess with that until you know you have all you need to do so.
Secondly, your mother is diagnosed with AD. That is that. You now handle the mother. If it is working for YOU where it is and everything is smooth my advice would be NOT to put a monkey wrench into it. Try also, if you do move anything, to stay with the same bank system. Branches in your city, if you move anything.
Why not try this. Mom has AD. How would she be with an "allowance account" in her area. I still recommend you help her when she wants to write a check and etc.
Otherwise, this is a thing to postpone until she lets go of the obsession with this, in my opinion.
What I am saying basically is that your Mother should not now be in charge of her accounts. You should be her POA to protect her funds. And if you move things around be VERY VERY careful, especially with Social Security. My brother made me his POA and without his fully being mentally capable it would have been a serious problem for me to even be able to communicate with them at all. I have been told that you can move their checks if it goes from their "trust account " to another of their "trust accounts". But otherwise you are in for it trying to get made her representative payee.
Hope others have good advice for you. You should not be allowing her or any other family member control over her money now. I seriously hope with her diagnosis you are now in control.