Is it mandatory to be a representative payee with SSA for my elderly father?

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Is it mandatory to be a representative payee with SSA for my elderly father?

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Dad moved here from another state to Michigan in December 2019, transferred his social security to here and opened his own checking account. He originally lived with my brother for 8 months and he had to move in with us because his wife didn't want him there. As his COPD and memory have gotten worse I've had to take care of him and he had to have hospice visit twice a week here at home for his COPD. He wasn't diagnosed as incompetent by any court. My wife and I are co-POAs and help him. Also have joint accounts for when his SS check gets deposited. If I call SSA to change his address, will they require one of us be his payee or has anyone ran into this at all?

Elder Law Government Benefits Power of Attorney (POA) Representative Payee

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You will not be able to change his address with a phone call unless he is there. I had to do this with my brother there, and explained going in I was his trustee and his POA and he was fine to speak with them but if their questions became intensive he may need my help. They spoke to us both and it all went really well.

You are not required to become his payee unless you are arranging for his funds to be transferred and YOU are doing it as POA. You might consider getting him on the online sign up because everything goes much easier that way.

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Please note, this post in from Dec 2022. OP posted one time , responded to a reply on Dec 10th and has never been back.

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Interesting, I just pulled out mom's SS statement for 2022, it was mailed c/o my last name to my address. 2021 mailed was to her house. I started doing mom's taxes in 2019 and use my address with the IRS. I did do a change of address with the PO in early 2021, perhaps the address change was made then. I have not contacted SS at all. Mom doesn't live in her home of many years, but in a facility in yet another state. The same checking account of many is being used for direct deposit. All banking is done electronically.

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When I had to sell my mother’s house and she had to move her into a Memory Care facility I changed her address with the post office from where she lived to my address (I am her POA for medical and finances and we both reside in Michigan). As tax time rolled around, I received all of her Income Tax statements except for Social Security). I finally called Social Security and was told they will NOT forward tax documents to another address, other than the registered address the recipient has received their statement in previous years, if the recipient has moved and if their POA is currently filing their tax returns. It was a lot of paperwork, but I did finally become her Representative Payee and was able to receive the document I needed to complete her tax return.

In addition, I had to set up a brand new account with her bank specifically for her Social Security Check and I get a yearly questionnaire from social security asking me specifically what I spend the money for.

Hope this helps.

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When you set up that new bank account, did you need to have your mom sign a POA at the bank?

We just moved MIL to assisted living, she did not want to go. She already signed us up as designated payees with social security a couple years ago, and we have POA, and my husband is joint holder of her account. BUT he does not have a poa signed with the bank itself (and it's bank of america, which doesn't recognize outside POAs). From what I've read, it sounds like to do what we need to do as payee for social security, we'd need to have the poa with the bank. We do have a letter of incapacity from a doctor, but no official declaration of incompetence.

Trying to decide the best course to take, we can easily change her address to ours through social security online, just don't know if we need to enact the payee status we have - or if we can without that POA. MIL is pissed and paranoid with dementia, no way she'd sign a new poa at the bank now. Kicking myself we didn't do that when we did the rest before she got paranoid, but we can't go back in time.

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Anoncaregiver76: Perhaps you can garner the answer to your query by visiting the SSA website.

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(copy and paste)

https://www.ssa.gov/onlineservices/?gclid=CjwKCAiAy_CcBhBeEiwAcoMRHGHIvoznAB0IvTc3IM_e1VUzqO3z8bHW7Z9oBllwi0RREJBV1-6tMBoCDu0QAvD_BwE

See if you can change the address on line. If you call, use his phone.

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No, you should not have to be a designated representative. You can go online to his SSA account and list yourself as a person SSA can discuss things with - which helps if you have to call. Otherwise, you have to put him on the phone to give them permission to talk to you. No big deal either way.

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The Social Security Administration (SSA) as well as State and Local authorities are public agencies and are required to have Laws and Regulations that are to be available to the public. You can access the SSA Regulations by going on line and searching through them for just about any questions you may have about how they operate. I may be mistaken but I believe SSA Regulations are referred to as POMs. Whatever, just go to their website and do a search of their Regulations for the SSA issues that are of concern to you.

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Hello Anoncaregiver76,
I believe being a POA helps already. With a paper Power Of Attorney copy, I sent my mom's change of address to Social Security and they started sending everthing to my address. She lives in a facility eleswhere even. One of the articles in her POA says that copies are legally binding, so scanning them and sending PDFs to places that need them has saved a lot of paper and toner for us. She had this durable POA drawn up years ago.

To do/have her taxes done and sign them legally (I live a distance), I also filed with IRS using Form 2848 (Power of Attorney and Declaration of Representative) to set up a CAF (Centralized Authorization File) Number which I use for other documents also. It's become helpful for me to have this number when also when places ask if I have authority to do something for her, and now that she's become even less able to sign her signature on lines where needed.

Hope this helps! Best of luck!

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Social Security will not honor POAs, period. Your dad will have to be able to give them his social security number and permission to speak with you and allow you to change his mailing address. Every single time you need to speak with them on his behalf or you become representative payee and do the annual filings. No, it is NOT mandatory.

I handled my dads banking and SS without ever becoming Rep payee, everything possible was done online and with bank checks, my dad got 200.00 monthly cash and gave me 200.00 to cover his supplemental insurance premium that was paid with my credit card and his cell phone.

Becoming Rep payee means you have to account to SS for every penny annually. I understand this but, not every situation requires this kind of accountability.

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I have not done this...my mom not only gets SS, she had a job on a military base so she was a government worker, so her retirement income is handled just like SS.

I have medical and financial poa and I am on moms bank account. So far I have been able to handle everything necessary. If I ever have to make a change like where her checks are deposited or anything like that, it would be necessary for me to apply to be her representative payee. I am hoping it won't come to that. It's not that I know of anyone that has had issues, It just scares me to do anything that would jeopardize her money and I know the government has the power to freeze things up if they question what is going on.

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I don't remember honestly if I have any kind of special status with socsec or not - they know I will speak for her - at least give the intro long winded reason my mom is calling, and then I put her on the phone. COPD making it hard for her to get into big chats. We changed her address online I think. Things being doable online has made life so much easier. She just watched me do it all through the PC.

Also seeing that one can set advanced payee and that's good to know, I'll have to make a note to ask my mom about that later.

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We hadn't in the past but when the step-dad died, we had to, new rule.

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My husband was POA for his brother in a nursing home, and another brother was the contingent POA. The brother in the nursing home has not been found to be incompetent, though he hasn't been able to personally handle his financial affairs for some time. After my husband passed away earlier this year, the second brother became the primary POA. When he went to the bank to let them know of the change, someone at the bank said he needed to also become rep payee, which is not technically true but he dutifully went and did that. The same bank never told my husband he needed to be rep payee. It turned out to be kind of a pain, because the social security check could no longer be deposited in the nursing home brother's existing checking account where his pension check was also deposited. Instead, a new account had to be set up in the name of the rep payee brother, for benefit of nursing home brother, so it is set up as "John Smith, FBO Bob Smith." Because NH brother is on Medicaid, most of his income has to go for his cost of care. To avoid having to write 2 checks from 2 different accounts, the bank suggesting setting it up so that there is an automatic transfer each month from the "social security account" into the existing checking account.

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Just curious...If NH brother also had a miller's trust, would changing payee negate the trust, and possibly cause Medicaid to disqualify him?

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I needed to change my dads direct deposit for his SS check so I had to do this. It was an easy process.

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Hi, same question I had for roxy above -- did you have a poa on file with the bank? MIL already signed paperwork long ago to grant us payee status, but we had no idea we needed a poa signed at the bank itself to use it, and it sounds like this might be the case. We have a general poa, but not one done through her bank.

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I am my BIL representative payee for social security. I had a doctor fill out the paperwork to get this and social security sent out a letter to him which he didn't answer so I became his rep payee.

He doesn't have to be diagnosed as incompetent to get this done. When you are his payee you can change anything like addresses or accounts. Also if you call SSA he can tell them that they can talk to you. I have done this too.

If you are his rep payee no one can touch his social security not even a POA of financial. I know this because my BIL's family tried to get POA of finances to get a hold of his social security didn't happen they gave up when social security said they will have to send a letter to me to see if I wanted to give it up. Which I didn't because I knew they would take every dime he has. Right now my BIL is in a nursing home in memory care because of dementia and I am still his rep payee.

Prayers to you and your family.

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You can have his doctor write a letter "To Whom it may concern",
stating that he has found no reason your father cannot handle his own affairs.
Even if he needs assistance for this with hands on help and financial counselors, it may not be necessary to have a rep-payee.

However, your father might need to appear at a Social Security office.

With a Rep-Payee, the person is not allowed to have access to their income.

If the first move did not trigger a need for rep-payee, it may not trigger it this time. Can you change the address online, from his online e-mail account?
Get one.

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Thank you so much! Very helpful and eases my anxiety. I've been his POA for year and half. He can still make decisions on his own for most part. He does have some dementia but he's on hospice for his COPD not dementia.

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I never became Mom's representative payee. I was on my parents' joint checking account, and did nothing, but I also never changed her address when she moved. She still owned her house and that was her legal address, not her nursing home.

Isn't his wife going to want part of that SS payment, though?

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His wife divorced him through the mail after he moved up here.

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Social Security does not recognize POA, so if you anticipate having to communicate with or deal with social security on your father's behalf it might not be a bad idea to set up the rep payee process. One easy way is to help your father sign up for a "my social security" login. Once logged in, there is a place where he can click "Advance Designation of Representative Payee." There, he can designate one or more people (in order of priority); I think all that's needed in the person's name, relationship, and phone number. As I understand it, this is just a precaution in the event the person becomes unable to handle their own affairs. On the same "my social security" site you're able to update contact information, including address, so you or your dad wouldn't even need to call.

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Okay thank you! Has anyone that your aware ran into issues with ssa, was unaware of becoming rep payee and thought POA was enough

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Is it mandatory to be a representative payee with SSA for my elderly father?

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