An attorney drew up a P.O.A. (naming me) several years ago for Mom. She is becoming confused, saying and doing unusual, and occasionally somewhat dangerous things. She lives with me. Can I just begin the duties of her POA, or do I have to have her declared incompetent to begin making decisions for her?
To document dementia, I would also recommend that you call her doctor's office and get an appointment with her doctor as a routine check up. Tell them in advance what has been going on, in terms of fraud issues and strange behavior. And also, ask the doctor to perform the clock test, which is a very effective initial test to see if your mom has declining reasoning power, or early dementia. I'd be very surprised if the doctor would decline to address these issues.
But you can do the clock test with her yourself. All you do is tell her you have an interesting game, and ask her to draw a clock face -- a circle -- and then put the numbers in, 1-12. Then, ask her to draw the hands to show a time, like 10:15.
People who do not have dementia think ahead, and likely put the 12 at the top, 6 at the bottom, then 3 and 6 off to the sides -- and then fill in the rest of the numbers. But, people with dementia have trouble with reasoning, and often will start just filling in numbers to the right, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, etc., often ending up with all the numbers except 12 and 1 in the wrong place, then can't put in the hands -- and also can't figure out what they did wrong. It's a good idea for you to do this test before you call the doctor's office, as they all know about this test.
As for using the POA now, I would recommend against it unless you have express written consent from your mom or a diagnosis from a doctor that your Mom is showing signs of inability to manage her own affairs or has dementia of some form.
As for banks honoring the POA, I have had varying situations with my mom myself -- several years back, I had no problem opening an account for her here in Indiana and closing the one in Florida, but I also had my mom's cooperation in doing so, and the banks in both places knew me personally. Now, with all the changes to on-line banking, I've had increasingly difficult times when issues come up, because Mom is now in Memory Care and cannot be there with me to confirm anything.
There is so much fraud out there, and children often steal from their parents.
Each state has it’s own laws, so I can not answer your question, without knowing what state controls the document. I would call the lawyer who drew up the document to be sure.
It is most likely spelled out in your document ( I hope you have a copy), so you could read the contract. But I would call the lawyer who drew up the documents to clarify your question. That would settle it.