My grandmother has me as her medical POA as well as the executor of her estate. I am in need of being her power of attorney as we are selling her home I am on the deed however I do not have a full power of attorney. She had a stroke and is incapacitated and has been since June 21st.
I have noticed here on the forum that many grandparents or parents will place a grown child on the Deed, thus thinking it will be an easy transfer once the parent has passes. This can create a tax issue for the grown child as when the house is sold, the bases used to calculate capital gains taxes goes all the way back to when the parent or grandparent had bought the house. If values have gone up big time in the past decades, there could be a hefty capital gains tax. It is much better to receive said house in a Will, then the bases used for capital gains taxes upon selling is the date the grown children had inherited the house.
Getting older can become sooo complicated.
If so, you REALLY need to know ASAP what the status is on there being a valid DPOA held by another family member in existence to be used to make the sale happen for your mom's share of ownership. I'd suggest you try to find out this week. If there isn't a financial DPOA for mom, you need to let Realtor know ASAP or if your doing this FSBO you need to let any prospective buyers who have seen the house know there are ownership issues.
And you really should not accept any earnest $ (from it going under contract). If you already took earnest $, please post a follow up as I have a suggestion as to how to handle this.
I recommend that you visit with an Elder Law Attorney to see how to figure this out. You may have to obtain Guardianship of your Grandmother to sell her half of the house.
All this is so complicated, makes you wonder how elders can sort through this when the time comes and they don't have the usual legal documents to help make life logistically easier for the family.