Hangingon61 Asked April 2018
Anyone have experience with reverse mortgage and letter of competency?
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Your mother has a dementia diagnosis. That is not at all the same thing as a declaration of incompetence.
Without its having been formally found that your mother is incompetent you do not have the authority to sell her home. You cannot make these decisions without her informed consent.
To be able to deal with the RM company, you can ask your mother to state to them that you have her permission to use your POA to manage her account. You can call them from the NH with her present and hand her the phone. If they need her consent in writing, you can draft and print a basic letter -
I am writing to give my permission for my daughter, [your name], to operate my account number xxxxxxxxx on my behalf,
- for example.
But the question of her competence, and the stage of her dementia, really does matter ethically as well as legally.
Don't talk to the administrator, make an appointment to speak to your mother's doctor either in person or on the phone. You need to get this situation nailed down. Is she competent or isn't she? Your wanting to take the burden off her hands, protect her possessions and keep the RM company at bay does NOT make it okay to go right ahead without being sure of this point.
Your mom has moved into the LTC section of a NH. Her “rehab” phase is over. She is not going back home. Her income will now be under Medicaid LTC rules. If she should actually get $ from the RM once property sells, it all will become a spend down till she is once again “at need” for Medicaid.
RM are used to dealing with homeowners who get beyond being able to live in their homes & that move into a NH permanently. Let the RM call in the loan. Let them take over and deal with the property and sell it and IF there $ to her it’s all going to pay the NH till she’s re-eligible for Medicaid.
If there’s stuff you want from the house put it in your place or into storage. The RM will likely give you a period of time to clear out personal items.
I believe she will have a heart attack or stroke.
She is SO anxiety ridden the past few days from being transferred from rehab section to long term that she set off the fire alarm yesterday.
She keeps asking the nurses to use their phones so she can call me & begs me to get her outta there because they’re are “so many sick people here & I don’t belong here”...
Alternatively, have the social worker sit down with mom and explain that she is really going to need to stay longer than just rehab and that you, her loving daughter, need her assistance in getting her house ready for sale.
She said the only thing they could do was write a letter in terms of being in compliance w/Medicaid’s rules as far as turning over my mom’s social security $ to them every month”.
Now without that letter the RM bank won’t acknowledge me as POA & I’m starting to get the process going of selling my mom’s house.
How the Hell am I going to get it sold if they don’t acknowledge me????
I can’t afford an attorney now because I have no money to pay them.
I’m not letting the RM co know that my mom’s not coming home yet because I need time to get whatever belongings I can out of her house, sell some stuff etc, because I know the second I tell them my mom’s not returning home, they’ll call in her loan.
My question is how else can I deal w/the RM & have them acknowledge me???
The other option they said they’d require (besides the medical letter stating mom not being able to make decisions) is to speak to her directly.
MY MOM DOES NOT KNOW her house is being sold.
She still thinks she’s going to get better, get stronger w/the physical therapy she’s doing & be able to go back home to the way it was before w/just a caregiver coming 4 hours a day for 5 days a week!!
She keeps telling me when I go to visit her “stop bringing so many clothes, it’s not like I’m moving in right”??
“Or maybe you want me too huh”???
“Oh, I can’t finish this muffin, take home & put it in the freezer for me, I’ll eat it when I’m home”..
It has been one of the most stressful things I have done in my life is having to “pretend” everything is alright as far as my mom’s thinking she’s going back home knowing that I’m clearing out a lot of her stuff, talking to rehabbers to try to get an idea of what the house will sell for & if that figure isn’t enough to cover the balance due on the RM, I’m going to have to walk away from it..
I am completely ALONE in all this.
I have no one to help me w/anything & my mom’s house is in such a state of mess that it’s taken me almost 7 hours just to go thru one of her bedroom dressers because my mom never filed anything (important papers, documents” are just thrown in drawers mixed in w/ the rest of her stuff that I have to open every God damn envelope to see what it is, read it, decide to keep or toss, etc..I think I’m close to losing my mind..
I would expect an experienced PCP/GP to have pretty much a template for this kind of situation - "this patient's cognitive capacity was assessed on [date] and it was concluded that she is no longer competent to make informed financial decisions" or something along those lines.
Mind you. I have personally come across a GP whose answers on an insurance claim form were hilariously - well, wrong is the only word for it. I solved that problem by attaching a list of errata to the form and submitting both to the insurance company, who paid up promptly, God bless 'em.
Will you have an opportunity to see the doctor's letter before you submit it to the RM lenders?