I am sole caregiver, sister does nothing but has tried to shove mother into a home and arrange a new lawyer 4 years ago and then tried to make it look like I did it...my mother refers to me as her caretaker but I have no protection to stop them from shoving her into a home and taking everything out from underneath her...how do I talk to her about this..few years back she wanted it taken away from the trust company and did ask me to take control I said no at the time but with increasing health issues I feel I should now please advise
Boom, done!
If no one and your Mom is competent, she can draw one up anytime, and name you first and your sister as second in case you cannot or you die or such. I am not understanding what she wanted taken away from the trust company? We would need to know what kind of trust. My Mom has a living trust. It is basically for privacy of others learning about or laying claim to assets and to reduce taxes in the end. The trust controls nothing....about her POA or day to day living. I am the trustee of the trust and the POA for financial, durable and medical. Means I am the only one who controls the money and makes decisions she cannot make. She is still allowed to make all decisions she CAN make because she has not been declared incompetent with her Alzheimer's. So I give her choices that are all acceptable in the end, to give her some control over her life. If she's in a state where she doesn't want to deal with something, then I make the decision for that time. I know that we can pull cash out of the kind of trust she has, because it's all in the same place....her checking account IS the trust checking account and I pay all bills from that account. I suppose there can be different rules for other types of trusts, but someone has to be acting as the trustee, and that person has control of accessing all aspects of the trust. Does she have an attorney who did the trust, still in the picture? You should be able to call and ask that person questions and perhaps also get that office to help with drawing up POA papers now. You say your sister tried to do these things 4 years ago....but what's happened since then? Is she bringing this stuff up again? Do you and sister and Mom talk together about Mom's care needs? It's always better to be operating as a team, even though you are the primary caregiver. Do you and Mom live together? Is there a history of bad feelings between you and sister, or sister and Mom etc? If so, you may need a third party to come in and get everyone to start talking about a plan that has everyone's agreement and involvement in order to make Mom's life go well.
If you pull the assets out of the Trust, yikes a big mistake!!