Posted: 12/9/2024 10:30:42 PM EDT
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Okay, my sister in-law is in her mid 50’s. About 10 years ago she married a complete moron, just to have someone in her life. Fast forward to this year. They were living with my mother in-law, neither of them work. He has applied for SSDI but he is clearly not ill enough, he was diagnosed with acute pancreatitis. Mother in-law passed in February, the sisters had the home sold and the estate is being near wrapped up and it being split. So, when this happened they had to move, they are with one of his dysfunctional friends home rent free. Everyone is chipping in and only paying essentials mainly health insurance and her prescriptions. In October we get word she is very sick and was rushed to the Hospital with what ended up being initially a UTI then sepsis and encephalitis. Her hair was a tangled up matted mess, she was/is not very coherent. She has lost function of her arms and legs, she can’t control them. She was on a feeding tube, just now getting her to be able to swallow. What is very obvious is she became very sick in the care of her husband, he neglected the hell out of her until she was on deaths bed and then calls 911. I had to basically threaten to beat the brakes off him to get him up there to visit her and do even just some of his obligations as a husband. Now she is in an assisted living, trying to get therapy. My wife is working with the facility to get her Medicaid going, we are not really concerned with her SSI right now. To wrap this story up, we need to have my wife as her Power of Attorney. We also need to keep her portion of the estate out of his hands. What do we have to do on our end to even attempt the POA? I am assuming he will fight it, just for money sake. The facility has noted that he does not return their phone calls nor is working with them for a plan of care. We are contacting a lawyer, but I warned my wife if her husband fights this, which he will, I am not so sure we have any recourse? Any body run into anything similar? Any Family Law guys out there have any input? Thanks, Billy |
| Document everything. Get signed statements from the care facility that they called and no response. |
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Originally Posted By onthebreeze: No advice, just wanted to say I feel for you. Hope everything works out. Thank you for the kind words. It’s really shame that she is at this point and it was 100% preventable. Their marriage was always just odd. Like never sleeping in the same room from day one. Sounds like it was just two people that couldn’t find a mate and settled for one another. All it did was create one gigantic cluster. But even so, one would think just being a human, he would do the right thing and get her care a lot sooner than what took place. If he would have waited even another day (per the Doctor) she may have passed. This is just insane. None of us knew any of this was taking place until she was in the I.C.U. |
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Originally Posted By d16man: Document everything. Get signed statements from the care facility that they called and no response. 10-4, already have the wife doing that. She is the youngest of 3 sisters but she is the one having to be her advocate. We have no children by plan and are very solitary people. If she has to end up moving in our home this will jack up our life plans something huge. That’s being selfish, I know. But I am also a little frustrated all the way around, we are having to deal with her piss poor choices in life. |
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If she is able to make decisions for herself, she can sign a power of attorney. Make sure it is a durable POA so that if she loses the ability to make decisions, the POA doesn’t lapse. Re Mom’s estate, talk to your probate estate lawyer. I don’t know AL law and am not your lawyer, but in many states, an inheritance is separate property of the person receiving it and stays that way if it is not commingled with community assets. Confirm with your lawyer on what the timing of the disbursement needs to be as it might be able to be slowed down a bit and it could be paid into a separate account that the husband doesn’t have access to or ownership in. Good luck and God bless you guys for trying to help her in spite of a deadbeat husband and perhaps her own decision making. |
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Originally Posted By SideCarGT: If she is able to make decisions for herself, she can sign a power of attorney. Make sure it is a durable POA so that if she loses the ability to make decisions, the POA doesn’t lapse. Re Mom’s estate, talk to your probate estate lawyer. I don’t know AL law and am not your lawyer, but in many states, an inheritance is separate property of the person receiving it and stays that way if it is not commingled with community assets. Confirm with your lawyer on what the timing of the disbursement needs to be as it might be able to be slowed down a bit and it could be paid into a separate account that the husband doesn’t have access to or ownership in. Good luck and God bless you guys for trying to help her in spite of a deadbeat husband and perhaps her own decision making. Thanks for your post. Ok, the executor of the estate is my oldest SIL. From what the wife has told me there is some kind of hearing tomorrow and that will be that? I am not really in the loop since they have enough drama without me sticking my nose in it. Executor SIL is suppose to talk the estate lawyer about this whole situation but she tends to not relay information either direction effectively, at all. They should have never made her executor. My wife is the only business minded person with a professional career out of the bunch. I guess they voted oldest SIL Executor because she is the oldest, hell if I know . My wife says right now there is only one shared bank account. The sick SIL has moments of clarity, so my thought is to have her open an online checking and savings to deposit her portion in? But I doubt she even knows her ss# and we would have to get the dead beat to bring her license and info up there which would start questions from him. I have a feeling he knows that money is imminent, so he will be holding on for dear life. If I make it through this without knocking his teeth out it will be a miracle. Already warned wife to have me a book to read in jail and bail money ready, lol (joking, kinda, sorta). |
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Originally Posted By NotIssued: If the patient is "in and out of it," the court will have to find her incompetent before you can try working on getting POA. Again, husband is the default so you have an uphill battle. Good luck. Biggest thing right now is figuring out how to keep her up coming estate payment out of his hands, estate lawyer will guide my other SIL through it I hope.The rehab/assisted living facility sees that her husband is a piece of shit, so they are working with my wife closely now for future health goals and plans. Really, I don’t see how the amount of negligence on his part is not criminal. I am not saying that she was not initially responsible for this mess, but once she started becoming immobile and incoherent it’s all on him. Just a heads up guys and gals, sounds like this all stemmed from a UTI, so always take something that sounds as simple as a Urinary Tract Infection serious, as it can and will kill. |
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A POA might not be appropriate if she isn't certifiably competent enough to sign it. If she is, it's not that complicated and I would execute it immediately. What is probably more appropriate is an emergency guardianship. Your jurisdiction may vary but most places have a mechanism via probate court that allows for proving a person unable to manage their affairs. A guardianship is not always a permanent thing and if she regains adequate competence the court can restore her. A guardianship is the strongest option as it provides you the opportunity to show the husband unfit to provide her care and circumvents any challenges he might make against a POA. |
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The executor sister likely has the SS# for the sick sister from the probate process so that you can get the individual bank account opened. If not, she can tell dead beat that they need SS# for processing of probate and get it from him that way. Good luck protecting her. |
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How is your SIL doing? If your SIL is on Medicaid and receives the inheritance, will she still be eligible for Medicaid? |
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Originally Posted By Bubbles: How is your SIL doing? If your SIL is on Medicaid and receives the inheritance, will she still be eligible for Medicaid? She can eat whole foods now but she can’t feed herself. Still no control of limbs and only very rare occasions of being lucid. Other SIL is working with estate lawyer to work through her portion of estate. |
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The asshole BIL is letting my wife handle all Medicare paperwork and other essentials. I think the lawyer has it settled where we can have her potion of her estate in a separate account but it’s not a long term solution. She is a medical oddity. She has no use of her legs or arms. They are not even working on that. They have a speech pathologist working with her right now. Evidently whatever insurance company is paying for all only allows one therapy at a time. I am afraid they are going to mess around and this woman is never going to be able to function even some what normal again. My other SIL is going to take her in after she has been in this facility for a year or so doing rehab. This is going to be a disaster. This all stemmed from a damned UTI. I am angry with the both of them. Her for ignoring it at the beginning and him for not doing anything once sepsis kicked in along with other infections. I knew these two were completely worthless but this is infuriating. I am also not sure how this estate money is going to enter the picture as far as Medicare and SSI go. I think they can go after that money after the fact. My wife was even considering letting her have her portion of her Estate. I had to put my foot down and say absolutely not. I am not being a stingy old asshole. I feel like that would be basically throwing money down the pisser, it’s a pretty significant sum and I just don’t see how it would help in this situation. I feel like the healthcare system would just suck it up to never be seen again. |