I am not a lawyer and don’t even play one on TV. I don’t offer legal advice and none of what I say should be interpreted as such. Simply, I’ve been through some things, and I’ve seen some things. I thought it might be helpful to anyone grappling with assets and legal questions to share two scenarios from opposite ends of the financial spectrum.
First Anecdote: A friend of my mother’s was ailing from diabetes and in time would develop dementia. Her oldest son, who was on disability and lived with her, was caring for her. In this situation, siblings did not get along, and some of them were abusing drugs and alcohol. My mother, aware of certain implications for this son, urged him to get his mother to add his name to the title of the house before she became too ill to do it. The family had no money. The mother had been a homemaker, as it was called. The son’s father had been a laborer, and his parents were living on his father's social security benefits before his untimely death some few years after he retired. The only asset the family had was the house. Making sure the son's name was on the title was the only way his siblings could not force the sale of the house after the mother died. It worked. In this case, having his mother add his name to the title before she was mentally incapacitated saved the son from greater hardship. He cared for his mother until she died in her home, as she wished, and he still has a place to live. If the house is sold due to his choice, or his death, then the money for it will be split between surviving siblings.
Second Anecdote: A dear friend of mine, upper class, prominent in one of the country’s best University systems, is currently caring for their mother who was a professor at an Ivy League University. They have been able to afford the best legal dotting of I’s and crossing of T’s when it came to document preparation. My friend is the estate trustee, has power of attorney, and is their mother’s health care agent. When it came time to write checks on their mother’s behalf in order to pay bills, in spite of all the legal security in place, the bank would not let them add their name to their mother’s checking account or change it in any way. The trust didn’t matter because their mother was still alive. When they brought their mother to the bank, the bank contended the mother was not cognizant enough to clearly state she wanted to create a joint account, or even understood what this meant. For my friend, it required additional legal action in spite of the fact they are well-prepared and secure in their documents.
A Little Note about Statutes: There are State Statutes governing Power of Attorney (POA) forms. These statutes are not spelled out on the forms but should be listed therein. It is worth looking them up and reading these statutes to understand their complexity and implications. Financial institutions may or may not have different or specific regulations regarding statutes. If I were potentially in the position to be handling a loved one’s financial affairs, I would approach each institution with what concerned me the most and ask them ahead of time what I would need to do to secure whatever was in question for me (check writing, transfer of funds, etc.).
It is difficult enough to navigate the dementia journey with a loved one. It is best to be as well-prepared as legally possible to ward off any complications that could occur once a loved one becomes incompetent.