<p>DocT, I agree that she views her middle aged children as “children”, and she doesn’t let us forget that, LOL!</p>
<p>Her brother died years ago. Her parents lived into their 90s, so I assume she thinks that she has a good shot at longevity as well.</p>
<p>Thanks for the suggestions. I am going to see what I can get done with this check list from an estate attorney. I will distance myself to take some of the emotion out of this situation for her, by having my H take it from here. He volunteered after he saw her initial reaction to my suggestion about sitting down to get some financial information just in case an emergency arises. I think that is a good way to try to approach this next.</p>
<p>BTW, my mother also figures out ways of saving every last nickel. Same mind set. She thinks that we live in extravagant fashion. Believe me, we don’t!</p>
<p>My sympathies, northeastmom. I think w/that generation, there is a big emphasis on not sharing (i.e. burdening) children (even adult children) with the ‘worries’ about finances. When you add the emotional changes (loss of filter, quick to anger, fears of loss of control) that often occur at that time in life, it can be very frustrating.</p>
<p>it also could be a possibility that she just isn’t as sharp as you think she is…perhaps she has forgotten the account information details and rather than admit it…responds with anger. my father did this as he aged and came closer to the end of his life…he would get angry when questioned about specifics of financial info…but the reality was that he had congestive heart failure and i think he just couldn’t pull up (in his mind) the detailed information when questioned.</p>
<p>are you in touch with her doctor? that might be of some help.</p>
<p>sorry that you are going through a difficult time with her now. it is tough…to care for an aging parent. </p>
<p>i do think you are on to something in having your h help with the situation. it’s good to have his support to help you. you and your h may have to do the legwork of assembling the list of information as she may not have the ability any longer to pull it all together (and just doesn’t want to acknowledge that she is having difficulties).</p>
<p>The whole business of competency is very tricky. In the months before my father died, he retained intellectual function, but lost what we now know is described as “executive function” – briefly, the ability to function as a socially appropriate, reasonable human being.</p>
<p>It sounds like you have all the major tools available (POA, will), but lack cooperation and your mother’s insight into the problem.</p>
<p>“Of course, that won’t tell you where hidden accounts, etc., are, but it’s a start”</p>
<p>In theory, whoever does her taxes will know where the accounts are.</p>
<p>As frightening it sounds, some individuals of the older generation keep stock investments as certificates and have never put them in street name with a brokerage. Stock or bond certificates could be in a drawer, under a mattress, in a safe deposit box or a plethora of other hiding places deemed safe. If the stocks/bonds are paying dividends, the accountant should know of their existence. Well, unless your mother cashes the dividend checks and doesn’t record the income. Zero coupon bonds don’t pay dividends, so there isn’t a paper trial, so to speak- </p>
<p>The elderly are also known to keep large amounts of cash hidden in all sorts of strange locations. For emergencies, a relative has a substantial amount money buried in his basement. I kid you not. At least he informed us of the stash should something happen to him.</p>
<p>She is still sharp. Hiding all of this info from us were always her wishes. She is very paranoid that we would steal her money. She has a saying that she learned from her parents. I won’t write the exact saying here, but it basically says that you should not give anything away to others while you are still alive. </p>
<p>Money has always been my mother’s central focus in life. She knows exactly where her money is. She is very organized and clean. You couldn’t find anything out of place in her home. I imagine that she banks at 3-4 local banks (I know she shops for the best CD rates so the banks will flutuate). She does not have any individual stock certificates in her home, or a safety deposit box, so I won’t need to hunt that down. She has all of her accounts in one spot in her home. It is under lock and key and well hidden. She designed it so that nobody could have easy access to this information. It is not as though it sits in her desk drawer. </p>
<p>Oh, and about her doctor, I am not allowed to go with her to her doctor either. I do know who her doctor is though. She does not have all of the medical care that she requires. This is because she refuses all invasive medical tests. This is nothing new either. Those have always been her wishes. She believes that doctors run tests and do procedures only to make money (not to help patients). She thinks that medical tests are not to keep people generally healthy, but to make a profit for hospitals, pharmaceutical and medical/surgical companies, and doctors. She would much prefer to take her chances and die of natural causes (ie: a heart attack) than have an angiogram with an angioplasty and take the risks that go with those procedures. Both of her parents did not see doctors much either and they both lived into their 90s.</p>
<p>If you already have the will and PoA, my approach would be to humor her and do things her way for as long as possible. Eventually, you are going to have to do a bunch of things that she may not like. Before that point, you probably want to speak with an attorney to figure out what to do and when to do it to keep everything nice and legal. Yes, having the keys could make things a lot easier in many situations, but a little breaking and entering is small potatoes in an emergency situation.</p>
<p>One thing you could try (if she does not already do so) is to get her to pay recurring monthly bills, and particularly her medical insurance premiums, via direct withdrawal from one of her accounts. You would not need any access to her accounts and could possibly sell it to her on the basis of her own convenience. That would at least keep most of the bills paid if she starts neglecting things.</p>
<p>BassDad, thank you. The bill paying is something that has not even occured to me yet. I do not think that I could get her to pay recurrent monthly bills through automatic withdrawl. I guess I would need to arrange for a copy of the statements to be sent to me to make sure that she has enough money in that account, and that she did not change having payments automatically withdrawn. Right now, I know that all of her bills are paid on time because she is still lucid and she has always paid everything on time throughout her life, but in time that could change. My first step will be to get the banking/financial info that she does not want to share with anyone. After that, I will discuss getting her bills paid should something happen to her down the line.</p>
<p>My mother is still an active person in her mid 70s. She could be 10 years away from needing help with bill paying, but then again something could happen at any time to any one. She has some health problems, but is quite capable of currently living on her own, and she is active enough to be able travel abroad as a part of a group or with a friend.</p>
<p>Maybe, then, she really does think you’re pushing things. At this point, you may want to back off - she’s in no more danger of sudden incapacity than anyone else is. As she continues to age and begins to feel some of her disabilities, she may be more willing to discuss these issues.</p>
<p>Your mother sounds like she knows what she does and doesn’t want. Cannot fault her for that. You are fortunate that at her age she is capable, handles everything, very high functioning and independent. It seems that you will not be able to change her now. You have some tools that will help you (POA,will), but til the time comes, you don’t have much choice. She is competent to make her decisions even if you don’t agree. @ts the reality of the situation.</p>
<p>Chedva, I agree, but I do think that I made an impression upon her. I have held off getting info for years. I am fortunate that she is independant, but I do want to begin getting things in order. I did not push hard, but I did say that we would like to sit down and get some banking info from her. At first she tried to laught it off, but I did tell her not to be vague, so we have the information. This is where she got very angry and I don’t blame her. I will say that her reaction was irrational though. If she were married, I would not be as concerned, but she is alone. At this point I see some more serious side effects of a chronic heart condition that she won’t have treated. I am going to back off, and gently have my H hand a list from an attorney to her. This way, it is not my list, but a professional is guiding her, and she can decide what she would like to do. I want her to read the list, and come to the decision to give us the info that we will need at some point.</p>
<p>My H just went through all types of legal hoops after my FIL’s death. He does not want to go through all of this again. I think that my mother is coming to terms with our request, but we will see.</p>
<p>You might want to make sure that the Power of Attorney is valid and appropriate. My good friend’s mom had a power of attorney, and when she started to slip a bit, my friend took it to the bank, and they said that it wasn’t completely appropriate. Before her mom was really gone, they had a new one drawn up that the bank was happier with. Her mom lived in a small town, and had banked with the same bank for years. Even though they knew my friend well, they weren’t comfortable with the POA as it was written. </p>
<p>Another friend had to help her husband clean out her FIL’s house when he went into a nursing home. It hadn’t been cleaned in at least 8 years. She said that it was horrible. They found money that he had hidden all over the house, including behind the fireplace mantel. Mice were living in the house, so they had chewed some of it. They filled 4 dumpsters with worthless trash from the house. Almost nothing was worth saving.</p>
<p>My neighbor’s kids just went through this. My neighbors were “pack rats”. Every newspaper was saved. The bedrooms were all filled to the top of the ceiling with boxes. When they bought something, they did not buy one, but bought 30 of the same thing. They were also yard sale customers, so they bought other people’s junk and felt that they had a bargain. When my neighbor died (her H died a few years earlier) she had a full freezer full of things like lobster tails and steaks. The problem is that none of it was edible. It was in the freezer for years. They had a huge supply of liquors that were probably saving for a special occasion. There must be over 30 bottles of unopened perfumes. The list goes on. It was an accumulation of 30+ years of living and discarding nothing. There were hiding places in nooks and crannies that would never occur to most people. Every item needed to be pulled apart before discarding for that reason! I feel so sorry for their kids.</p>
<p>I guess I should have a bank officer take a look at the POA to make sure everything is in order, but I won’t dare go to the place where she banks. I don’t want her to think that I am going behind her back to try to do something with her funds that are inappropriate. Jeez, this is so difficult. You would think that her attorney knows what he/she is doing. I never thought about double checking this!</p>
<p>to the OP … my wife and I are both “sandwhich” parents and dealing with similar situations with our parents … for my Mom right now it’s trying to get her to stop driving … my experience so far is there are no great ways through these things just routes that are less bad.</p>
<p>My main suggestion is try to make sure you’re not pursuing what you need and what is minimum needed at the time. Taking this approach will hopefully lead to less combative discussion looking for solutions. For example, instead asking for you to be given a list of banks/brokerages and account numbers discuss the issue with your Mom in an open ended way … planing ahead it would be helpful if someone had a list of your bank/brokerages and accounts; who would you trust with this info … it could the your lawyer, the executor on your will, one of your kids … what do you think Mom? So far in our experience we’ve made much more progress when our parents have defined their solution themselves. To be honest a lot of these solutions have not been great or long term solutions … but they are progress on the right path … and have voided big confrontations for now at least. Good luck working through this!</p>
<p>3togo, I agree with you. Having my mother consider the option of say, her attorney, holding onto the info never occured to me. Still, she would have been just as threatened and lashed out in the same way.</p>
<p>We needed to take my FIL’s car keys away from him a few mos. before he died. He was talking about buying a new car as a last hurrah (which he could not afford, btw), while his doctor was telling us that we can’t allow him to continue driving. Finally, my H just told him that he cannot drive any longer and he had to physically take his keys. IMO, he drove much longer than he should have. My FIL was terminally ill, but was very much in denial, or wanted to put a spin on the situation to make us feel better.</p>
<p>3togo–I really like your open-ended approach re: giving the parents options as to how to handle certain necessary things. A lot of the rage you see in the older folks is (I think) the fury at perceiving others as controlling them (doubly painful when those people are the very ones they controlled through most of their lives [children]). Nice to think of ways to help the elders ‘save face’ as they go through this process…</p>
<p>northeastmom - I work a lot with the elderly and subsequently their adult children. One thing I’ve learned is when people get to be a certain age, there’s not much one can do to change their attitudes and behaviors. They make choices and we have to learn to live with them.</p>
<p>I suspect your mom’s fears of someone gilding her of all her money is unfortunately based on real stories she’s heard of. I’ll never forget the home I was at where one of our patients had just died, and we were waiting for the funeral home to arrive. It was a second marriage situation, the body wasn’t even gone, and siblings of the first marriage were sifting through files, folders, drawers, etc., of the dead parent in front of the grieving widow. I’m not taking sides of either party, but this is the kind of stuff I’ve observed. And I know these stories get around, creating fear and distrust among the elderly, even if they don’t have the complications of second marriages, etc. </p>
<p>What does happen is, it requires more work on the part of the remaining family members who must eventually tie up loose ends once someone dies. For that, I wish it could be different for you. It can be exhausting, and it can create feelings that we’re not comfortable feeling about someone who has recently died. But it is what it is.</p>
<p>I think Erewhon’s comments are spot on. All it will take is copies of tax returns to determine where to begin the detective work.</p>
<p>I am sure that this is exactly right, and I sadly understand it. she denies that this is the reason, but I know this exactly right. I do think that she is thinking about it though.</p>
<p>I have been through this, and feel like I could have written it a few years ago. My mom died 3 years ago. At the end, all of her assets were in a terrible state because she refused to have anyone help her until it was a mess. She had been the book keeper in her marriage, and a widow for over 20 years, but the last 2 years she no longer cared to pay her bills. She had enough money to pay them, but just stopped. She had lost a lot of her will to live and stopped caring about her health as well.</p>
<p>She was not cognitively out of it. Finally, about two months before she died, she let my brother take over her affairs. I kind of knew where she kept everything, but it was still not easy, since she also “hid” things. Some of her jewelry (not really worth that much) never turned up. </p>
<p>The one thing we always had was a key to where she lived. I am not sure why this is such a touchstone for your mom. We have a key to my H’s parents’ place, and they are extremely private about their affairs. I would have never been able to push my mom past her comfort zone, so I have no advice on this other than to try to figure out why it is such a big deal.</p>
<p>All the bills would eventually come around in the mail if she became infirm, as well as bank statements etc. This was how we eventually pieced together all of my mom’s stuff.</p>
<p>It does sound like your mother was much like mine is today and they had some things in common. </p>
<p>My mother had given me a key to her prior home. She somehow developed the fear that I will “lose” her key and someone could break in. Perhaps a friend had break in, or another friend had this fear and it has now become her fear. I really do not know.</p>
<p>My mother is currently maticulous about paying everything on time. I worry that I won’t know if she does stop paying suddenly. Currently I don’t look at any of her mail.</p>