The situation: My sister and I are moving my elderly mother to an assisted living facility near my sister. I have POA, but not my sister. My sister needs to buy a lot of stuff for my mom's new place, and we are wondering what the best way to do this is.
Is there an easier solution than constantly re-imbursing my sister? That just doesn't seem like a good long-term solution (too tedious). Can my sister open a CC and just have payment come directly & automatically from my mom's account?
BTW, I have 110% trust in my sister. I just want to make this easy for her.
A tip if you do this -- Find out if the nursing home accepts credit card payments for the monthly bill. The first nursing home my mother was in did accept them, and we got about $250 a month back after paying off the bill each month.
If that's the case for your mom's place, make sure you get a credit card with a cash back feature. I got a Citi Mastercard and I know Discover is a cash back card as well. (Some places still don't take Discover, though, so check in advance.)
We have a credit card in Mom's name linked to the checking account. I purchase things for my mother with the credit card, the POA goes online and approves the credit card payment each month. For big purchase items I take a picture of each receipt with my phone, and send it to the POA, or if it's an online purchase I email him the receipt.
Prayers
Your Sister can send you receipts, also, on a monthly basis, for which you can create your files and write out a month reimbursement check to her, keeping all of this carefully accountable by saving receipts and keeping copies monthly of her presentation of receipts and your check outgoing.
Good luck. Hope you find what works best for you. POA is no easy job; I did it for my brother as well as acting as his trustee. We lived in same state and not the same town and it was complicated, to say the least.
One drawback: if the credit card is lost or stolen, it can be a headache.
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