In my area people refer to the Medicaid 5-year ‘look back’ but ‘claw back’ might be the more appropriate phrase.
Good luck GTalum. Similar situation here, but for the most part my sister just lets me pay all the bills, do all the appointments, make all the health care decisions and most recently place our mother in a nursing home. I do dread her questions once it’s time to settle the estate - but maybe there won’t be much too settle at that point. That money is still for Mom, not for my nephews to buy houses, not to pay my own D’s college bills. Nice as that would be.
Thanks everyone, very sound advice and helped me refocus on what my role is with my parents and how I need to approach and word my dealings with “the other side” of the family.
Travelnut: This is excellent “others are right that your role, assigned by your parents, is to look out for them and use what you know about their finances and preferences to assist them.” I didn’t agree with them about finances as dad was not very generous and often miserly, but I do know what he would have done.
GT, you aren’t managing the inheritance. You’re trying to manage their finances (and care) while they are living. It’s not nice of her to grub about the inheritance, when they are still alive.
Your parents aren’t at risk of being wards of the state. They are far from indigent, right? And the niece could or would be the likely future guardian, not some city agent.
Exactly. Your job is to act in your parents’ best interest, take care of them and follow their wishes, whether they were expressed in writing or orally in the past. There could also be potential tax implications if you were to move or pull monies out for certain reasons or above a certain dollar amount. And it is interesting that it isnt your niece expressing any desire for money or questioning your fiscal management. Its your SIL. And she has no right, and no say. If your parents want to take it all with them, that is their perogative.
H is an only child. He is the POA. I have a brother (no kids but a wife) and we are both POAs. Should the need arise I would expect our adult kids to step up to the plate and go to court.
I feel comfortable with my niece being a secondary POA, both durable and medical. Out of the 4 grandchildren (including mine), she is the best equipped and therefore would need information about parent’s finances. DH might be better as he is continually involved and here. But, I’m afraid that would widen our apparent rift. I think SIL feels her side of the family is being left out. But, to be fair, SIL is frequently on the east coast and hasn’t come to visit. My niece helped me move them while SIL (who is not working) and my brother (who had job obligations) stayed on the other coast. My brother was making a point to visit every so often. Now, nobody has asked to visit besides my niece. I trust her. I just worry about her mom having undue influence over her with somewhat wild financial ideas that would be appropriate for much wealthier individuals besides my parents.
GTalum, again, I recommend you speak to your estate lawyer. I believe your parents would have to appoint the secondary POA, and if there is any question of their competency to do so, this may be an issue. I’m not sure you can appoint or designate a person to succeed you in these matters without involving the court, unless of course there is some provision to do so in the papers that they signed originally.
This sounds like a reasonable concern, from your description. If you were able to identify your niece as secondary POA or healthcare proxy, she wouldn’t need any information about their financial status until that time. You could invite your SIL and niece to come visit and see your parents. If SIL doesn’t make the effort to come, then she isn’t being left out, she is leaving herself out.
Oh yes, they are invited. My niece is planning a visit this summer. My SIL has not accepted any of my offers. Thanks again runnersmom. I have an appointment with the estate attorney tomorrow.
Good luck with the meeting with the attorney. That’s the right route to take. It may be worth pursuing guardianship so that you can make all these decisions. I didnt have to have either of my parents declared incompetent, but my dad gave me authority to make all decisions. We did, as I said, have my husband as backup should anything happen to me. My brother was nothing but trouble, sadly, and my parents knew it.
There are often a lot of armchair quarterbacks in these situations, and sadly your SIL sounds like one.
My frustration now are my in-laws. To make a very long story short, there are 5 siblings, 4 live locally.My in-laws are 81 and 86. In reality, my MIL is in far worse health than my FIL, but you;d never know it to listen to him. He had a very minor prostate procedure yesterday and his doctor (a friend of ours) kept him overnight, as a precaution and out of sympathy for my MIL. Although my SIL was visiting from California, they had my H pick them up at 6am and he spent the day (until 8pm) at the hospital with them. Neither hears well, but do not admit it, and for as many times as they have been in/around hospitals, they act like it’s the first time they’ve ever been told, “No, you can’t take your own meds - only what the admitting doctor orders.” My FIL spent 3 hours trying to get my H to go home and get him his pain/sleeping meds, to which, in my uneducated opinion, he is addicted. The kicker to this whole story is that my husband runs their business…by himself. They are in the process of cleaning out and moving offices and the last thing he has time to do is spend an entire day doing nothing when there are 3 daughters and a DIL within 20 miles with the youngest grandchild in high school. Mind you, this was not an emergent situation and he was out of surgery by 10am. In these situations, actually, I am the one who is expected to run…not the poor Ds. Geez, I have my own business, too, and for the entirety of the past 5 years I have been dealing with my parents who live 400 miles away. Since my dad died in December, I have to admit, I have no patience for my in-laws. They do absolutely nothing to help themselves, ignore their doctors, have more money than they know what to do with, and make our lives a living hell on a daily basis. Given the dysfunction of this family, I can’t convince my H to just say to his siblings, “someone else take over, I’ve had it.” I guess this wasn’t so short, thanks for the opportunity to vent.
I suspect you could get court approval or some arrangement to add the niece. You can’t appoint her yourself, but could make the case. Show she’s both supportive already and competent.
@runnersmom , vent away. I know my DH and I had to go for counseling help when he thought I was doing too much for my mom. I was grateful that we didn’t get worse between us, but it was rocky for a while. I also appreciated that he tried to save me from myself, so maybe your DH needs a little of that. Habits ingrained in childhood are terribly tough to change that is for sure.
@runnersmom I know my H would probably be like yours is acting. Have you read the book “Boundaries” by Dr Henry Cloud? I just loaned my copy to my neighbor who is going through a boundaries situation between her mom and her sister, and neighbor is at the sidelines 100 miles away. The business situation puts the siblings perhaps allowing or expecting your H to carry more of the load (unless they are also involved with the business). Did H buy out siblings/parents?
There was an ownership and operations discussion on Dave Ramsey recently with the family farm, and I liked what he said (widow owns higher percent and siblings have equal ownership shares in the farm, but only a few were involved with operations - if operations siblings were paid fairly for their work just like someone else, and the ‘profits’ are to the owners - as it is deemed, and all have the clear financial information). This one brother helps some on the farm but has a FT job. Also their situation was much higher stakes with homes built on the family farm property. Ugh. A good suggestion was offering others to ‘buy out’ his share at a discount. That situation was one where operations siblings would possibly increase farm debt to where they could end up losing it all.
If a senior chooses at home to ‘over-medicate’, and if they otherwise have good judgment - that is something not often addressed unless the person is of danger to self or another. It might also be that FIL likes to run the show, do what he wants when he wants and didn’t like the hospital ‘restrictions’.
I agree with you, once the surgery was done, H could have been able to leave. It would have been good to discuss with siblings ahead of time and had them each plan to put in some time at the hospital or help with giving MIL/FIL some attention.
Don’t let this negatively affect your marriage, and hopefully not your relationship with other family members. You can’t help it if they have unrealistic expectations, but just do what is in everyone’s best interest (including H and yourself). Sometimes individual or marital counseling can help when stressful and outside demands take a toll.
Sometimes people are emotionally spent. My sister who has always been very close rarely communicates now. I think she is just emotionally spent, and also has some intense psych history (bipolar). At times she has been angry at other sis and me because she thinks we have a better life. She has to decide her own happiness.
Thanks all…no, my H owns the same percentage of the business as each of his siblings, with his parents majority shareholders. Problem is, he’s the only one who works for the company and is not compensated fairly (in my opinion and in real world dollars) for that burden. It’s been a long time coming, but my FIL can’t let go, and he needs to. This is not a solvable problem, there are too many issues involved, but perhaps counseling would be a good idea. My H was wonderful when I would leave for days at a time to help out my parents (dad had a severe stroke 5 years ago and just died in December), but living with it day in and day out, to the detriment of my sanity is really difficult. This is not a recent problem, my fuse is just getting shorter. I truly hate the person I’ve become with respect to his parents. It’s just not like me to walk away when I think I can be helpful but I can’t do it anymore.
@runnersmom H should be paid for what they would have to pay someone to do the job he is doing - and his siblings should back him up 100% on this. I know there was another book mentioned at one time on Dave Ramsey radio show with family business/ownership but I don’t recall the title. If you type Family Business on Amazon books, some books come up.
After parents take whatever monthly amount out of business earnings (and H’s pay) is the rest kept as retained earnings?
Is H getting as frazzled as you?
I would get individual help for having stress build up/short fuse. Perhaps yoga, using deep breathing and other stress relieving techniques, learning meditation, doing something for you that can get your mind off of things for some moments of joy. Perhaps a counselor can help you. Maybe journaling. You need an outlet for your frustrations.
You are emotionally drained. The good thing is you recognize it.
SOS, yes they should, but they don’t. Thus lots of bad feelings. My H knows what he needs to do is just leave, but that’s not happening anytime soon. Anyway, we get through each day and hope nothing catastrophic happens, medically or in the business.
Runnersmom, This sentence struck me. I suspect the D’s have shown their dad that they aren’t willing to run. If there is someway that you can say “no” as well, it would be helpful to your sanity and give you some sense of control over the situation. There is honestly no reason as well that you husband needed to sit with your dad all day. It seems to me that both of you need to draw boundaries without involving the other children. Or, how about sitting with the other children and asking for advice on how they draw boundaries and are not getting sucked into the drama. It sounds like the family dysfunction is pretty great, so maybe there is another sibling or in-law that you can talk to.
I understand that for many things you can’t say no. But, for such a one as you described, FIL clearly did not “need” anyone and you and your H needs to figure out how to respond to the real things and just leave when you are not truly needed.
