Well, I did it. The clincher was the banker listening to my story, looking at the transactions, and saying “Yep. If it was my mom, that’s exactly what I’d do.” Then I told Mom, and the conversation was surprisingly anodyne. We thus enter a new era.
That’s scary.
Well done. You have her best interests at heart.
Glad it worked out as well as could be hoped.
Good luck as you figure out what may work best in the upcoming month/years - for both your mother and yourself.
I’m glad this seems to have worked out. Going forward, I would recommend you keep very, very good records of transactions coming in and out. You want to be able to account for every dollar so as to avoid even the whiff of impropriety on your part.
An excellent start!
Be prepared for her to call in a lather tomorrow having utterly forgotten whatever was said yesterday. Or more likely, remembering little dribs and drabs, but contorting the rest into a completely different, and largely opposite, narrative.
Good luck. Seriously, not snarkily.
Glad to hear it went relatively well. One thing to keep in mind is that there could be tax consequences of this financial arrangement. Essentially, it looks like you are gifting her money each month. It may be worth speaking with an accountant to make sure there aren’t any issues.
Is the grifter now out of the picture?
Another thing is that if she becomes destitute and needs Medicaid, they have a 5 year look back for her finances. They’ll see the transfer of the money to you. Be sure to have all the records showing how all the money ended up back with her over time. Otherwise, they’ll think she was hiding money.
If she has any large assets, like the house or property, you might want to keep an eye on those as well. She may decide to put the grifter as a joint owner on the house or something. In case you’re not aware, most counties have online portals where you can look up property records. Some counties have ways to setup notifications for any changes to a property. If so, that would allow you to get a notification if there are any deed related changes to her properties.
Yep. There won’t be any transactions at all, except transfers back into the joint checking account it came from.
Yeah, she’s just not tracking day-to-day anymore, especially where finances are concerned. The insistence that she’d never had a savings account, for example. She’s gone around some sort of bend, and I’m already getting used to explaining things for the 20th time as if it’s the first conversation.
The thing is, it’s always been “my” money (joint checking account), and it still is “my” money regardless of where it lives. Future transfers aren’t gifts to her, any more than yesterday’s transaction was theft from her.
Oh no. We actually need her, and she’d actually be super-cheap if she were paid her hourly rate, instead of what Lady Bountiful thinks she deserves on any given day. I might open up another thread to talk about how to handle that specifically, as I’ve now opened myself up to the responsibility for it, being the holder of the main purse strings now. More unpleasantness to come, I’m afraid.
Absolutely. The records will be clear, and would be disclosed on the Medicaid application; even though while in the savings account they’re now legally “my” assets only, they’re “really” hers too and will be listed as such. We’ll bend over backwards to avoid the appearance of hiding anything.
Yikes. That hadn’t occurred to me, thank you. I’ll keep an eye on it.
Also (this is something that happened to me) it’s possible the helper/grifter will get her to sign a Power of Attorney that will supersede yours. I don’t know how to protect against that.
Thanks from me as well on this. I’m dealing with related issues - my father’s memory issues means he can’t be trusted with money or big decisions. In our case, after my mother died, we transferred the condo to a trust. He’s a grantor, but not a trustee. My sister and I are the only living trustees - my Mom was one prior to her death.
Your comment reminded me that there was no notification when the deed was filed. My county, at least, has an online system to sign up for those notifications, so I just applied for that. It’s a little messy because of the differences between our various names and the trust, and the fact that I don’t live at the address being monitored. But I do have an insurance policy (effectively) in my name for that address, so I’m hoping their manual review process will approve it.
Happened to my wife’s family. Grandpa died, Grandma married Arthur - comingled everything and lived happily for several years, then Grandma died. Arthur hooked up with a golddigger and gave her all of Grandma’s jewelry, bought her cars, etc.
FIL essentially (illegally) strongarmed Arthur to sign Grandma’s old house over to him before he was able to give it to the woman. Other woman disappeared after she bled him dry.
That is why I suggested taking control legally. (If you care.)
Just to follow up, this was approved, so I’ll now be notified via e-mail if anything happens to the condo title.
Glad that worked out. Many counties have implemented a notification system to prevent fraud. It’s shockingly easy for a crook to re-deed property and sell it out from under the owner. There are also paid title lock services which will monitor the title and notify you if anything changes. That’s an option if your county doesn’t offer the service.