My older brother whom I have been very close to since I was a little girl, has been coerced I'm pretty sure by his oldest of 2 sons to sign power of attorney documents appointing the older of the 2 sons as power of attorney over his financial & medical decisions when my brother is unable to make these decisions himself. He is still able to take care of his financial stuff himself, however, his son has been taking over everything & not allowing my brother to spend his money on whatever he wants. He is totally controlling my brothers finances & he recently took $89,000.00 from my brothers bank account & invested it in Silver to benefit himself & he did not talk this over with my brother at all before he did it, & when my brother found out he was very upset about this. His son also has refused to buy my brother a new water heater for his house that he needed as the other water heater was leaking water due to the bottom of the water heater being rusted out. I informed his son that I had no hot or even warm water to do the dishes, & clean throughout my brothers home. His son told me that the water heater probably just needed to be turned up & that he would check it out. I informed his son that the water heater was leaking water at a fast rate & going down the drain, so I was sure that the water heater was rusted out & needed to be replaced. He told me that he wasn't going to have it fixed because his Dad wasn't going to be in his house much longer as he planned on putting him in the local VETERANS Home in the near future, & he didn't want to spend the money on a new water heater. My brother ended up not having warm water at all to shower with, & 2 -4 weeks after I informed him that the water heater was rotted out on the bottom & it was leaking water at a fast pace into the floor drain, the youngest son of my brothers stopped by to check on his dad & the water heater's bottom rusted completely out & it had flooded into the bathroom, & the entire carpet was soaked with water & was basically ruined, & it also flooded out into the living room as well. My brother has a close friend who had a plumbing & heating business & was retired, but my brother's youngest son called this gentleman & asked him to come replace the old water heater with a new one. This wonderful gentleman came over, & put a new one in & my husband helped him remove the old one, & helped install the new one. The youngest son told the guy to send the bill to the oldest son who was Power of Attorney. I was at my brothers today, & he told me that he hasn't had air conditioning all summer because his oldest son refused to buy a new thermostat. My brother ended up calling someone to come over, & install a new thermostat. My brother told me today that his house has been like an oven these past few weeks while we had heat indexes in the triple digits. This is unacceptable & elder abuse in my eyes. Isn't all of these actions considered elder abuse in addition to financial abuse because of his son withdrawing the large amount of money from his bank account & investing it in silver to gain for his own self? This is the state of Iowa & there are laws surrounding these types of things. my brother want's to stop his son from being his power of attorney & he wants to appoint me as his POA. I told him that I would be more than happy to do this for him, but he also needs to add another agent to be his POA in the case that something may happen to me in the future. Is this something he can have reversed & reassign his sister as POA & another person that he trusts? Any information that anyone can provide me will be greatly appreciated. Thank you all in advance!!!
Your brother could choose an attorney, a financial advisor, a friend, or family member to act as POA for him.
If I were you, just as a precaution, I would take your brother to a neurologist for an assessment of his cognitive status, and get a written report. This is in case the greedy son wants to challenge your new POA designation, you want to make sure he can't claim your brother was cognitively impaired when the change was made.
In my State DPOA is automatically immediate unless you state otherwise. Meaning its in affect at the time brother signed it. But that does not mean you take over if the principle can still do for themselves. For me it just meant I could step in when needed. It also meant as my Mom progressed in her Dementa, I did not need a Doctor to say she was not capable of caring for herself to invoke the POA. Your nephew not replacing the hotwater heater and not allowing brother to have ac is elder abuse. You could report him to Adult Protection Services.
Other than recommending to your brother to assign a different PoA you need to stay out of this since you have no other power here anyway. I realize it's hard to be on the sidelines to watch, but if his younger son is the one who has his head on straight, he will work it out with his Dad and older brother. One more person in the mix who may not know all the facts (you) won't be helpful.
Do you have a copy of the POA naming the son? Does it say that the POA is in effect immediately, or does it say that it goes into effect only if one or more doctors declare your father incompetent? If the latter, did your brother have the medical declaration(s)? If not, then the bank that gave your nephew access may have some liability.