Can grandchildren have POA over children?

Okay, I'm getting back on my hobby horse with this.

First of all, though, Txc is quite right about what your grandmother can do: provided she is mentally competent she can annul any existing POA and appoint anyone else she pleases. The burden of proof of her incapacity would be on your aunt: that is to say, to enforce her POA, your aunt would have to get qualified professionals to certify that your grandmother is no longer of sound mind. She's not going to get that to happen if your grandmother is mentally fine except for brief periods when her mind is on other things.

Back to the hobby horse - it's where you say "Her reasoning is she has power of attorney over my grandmother…" etc.

I would like this engraved on the heart of anyone who agrees to act with power of attorney: the power you exercise is NOT over the person who gave it to you, it is on behalf of that person. You act for them. You make decisions for them. You serve them. They have given you the power to act on their behalf, in their best interests. They have not given you power "over" them.

I'm going to say this, too. Neither your sister nor your aunt is acting in your grandmother's best interest by having a childish spat about whose bedroom it was first or who has lived there longer or who loves your grandmother best. This is ridiculous: you've pointed out that either or both of them could easily be accommodated in the home, yes? So knock their heads together and tell them to cut it out - your grandmother can't need this kind of thing going on in her house.

1. Power of Attorney does not grant someone authority to determine where the principle lives or who visits them or other personal matters.
2. Power of Attorney can be changed at any time by someone of sound mind. (Why did Gram ever appoint these witches in the first place?)
3. If the house is sold, all of the money must go to Gram's care. Why would the aunts think they'd get some it? Are they co-owners?
4. Even if Gram wanted Sis out of her house, she'd have to go through an eviction process. She certainly doesn't have to move on Aunt's say-so, POA or not.
5. Get an attorney involved.

Typically the document itself lists the exact powers that the agent will be given. You would need to see that document to know exactly what you are dealing with. However, if Grandmother is of sound mind, she can revoke the POA and reassign it to someone else. POA, as I understand it, cannot force your grandmother to live anywhere and cannot limit who visits her wherever she lives. That it is just to act on her behalf in things like paying bills, buying/selling property, for medical POA, it would be doctors and medicines and such. People throw around "POA" like it's ownership, but it's not. Contact your Area on Aging office for some advice. Every county has one.

Yes. They can do that unless their mom steps up. She probably won't. Tell your sister to get out of that house. She has no right to be there. You have absolutely no right to see her will. Lordy.

I am sorry that you and your sister are having to deal with this.

Your grandmother, if she is "of sound mind", meaning that she knows what she is doing and isn't coerced, can appoint ANYONE power of attorney over her financial and/or medical affairs. She will have to appear, at the very least, depending upon the laws in your state, before a notary, who will ascertain her mental acuity, and there will need to be witnesses who will never benefit from any decisions made by the power of attorney. Friends and neighbors come to mind.

If it can be proven that you or your sister swayed her mind, it can be challenged.

I don't think having POA means your aunt can kick your grandmother out of her bedroom into another one, but think about it for a minute, all emotion aside. Would the other bedroom be a better fit for grandmother? Or, did I misread and you meant kick your sister out of her bedroom? If the aunt moves in, if I was your sister, I'd move out anyway. It wouldn't be an easy situation to live in.

It isn't easy to have someone declared mentally incompetent, so that might just be an empty threat, made in the heat of the argument.

After things cool down, the aunts may do nothing and all will be okay. Fingers crossed.

Txcamper, there are a lot of factors behind my aunts rage. She is being kicked out of her current home and has less than a month to move. So she is trying to use my grandmothers episodes as excuses to move in "rent free"! Not because she has my grandmothers best interest at heart. She wants to kick my sister out of her room just because it's the bigger room and she wants it. She is being nasty just to be nasty and upsetting my grandmother in the process. My aunts are very mean to her and my grandmother has made it very clear she doesn't want my aunt living with her because they treat her like she is incompetent which she clearly isn't . She went to see a neurologist last week and both my aunts took her. They were both furious when they returned because the doctor said my grandmother was perfectly fine. She was just stressed(in my opinion because of my aunts). He said she didn't show any signs of early dimentia or Alzheimer's. They are both just being horrible because they are in financial burden and want my grandmother out so that can sell her house and get their share! With my aunt having POA is that only effective if she is incapable of making her own decisions or can she have her put in a nursing home whenever she wants?

Jennifer, I'm responding only to your very last question; the other issues are still gelling in my mind.

It seems to me that your aunts are creating a form of elder abuse, and I'm wondering if APS would get involved to prevent their contact and harassment?

I'm assuming your grandmother has a copy of her DPOA; ask to read it and see if it does require a determination of incompetency for the aunt to act. Or is she trying to act as proxy under a Living Will, or Health Care Proxy?

Given that the neurologist deemed your grandmother of sound mind, I would suggest that GM immediately consider revoking the DPOA and appointing a different proxy. I would also ask the neurologist for an opinion to that effect jut so you have it on hand in the event the aunt goes off further in her vendetta.

The name of the law firm or attorney who prepared the DPOA should be on the vertical side line of the pleading paper; contact them ASAP.

If your aunt tried to put your GM in a nursing home, there would be the issue of who would pay for it, including prior to any sale of the house. I would raise that issue if you decide to call APS, as essentially that would force someone deemed capable of handling her own affairs into a facility which she apparently doesn't need and compromise her financial stability.

I think you should also raise the aunt issue with the attorney who prepared the DPOA and ask for further advice, as it does seem as though the aunt is on a vendetta. It might be considered that your GM should apply for a PPO to prevent any further harassment.

For some reason I keep visualizing that movie with Bette Midler, smirking through false buck teeth, and 2 (?) other women as 3 witches, maliciously stirring a broth of who knows what while they plot nefarious activities.

GA, you've reminded me of the one time I did ring the OPG with a query - I don't remember the details but I do remember the lady's closing advice which was "you just have to use your common sense, really…" Talk about a hostage to fortune!

I don't think Americans would put up with the OPG's extensive powers, not for a moment. They're not often used - you have to be seriously incompetent or actually criminal - but if you make a real hash of POA (and it comes to their attention, which is a-whole-nother story) they can boot you out and take over. And charge for it. But they're even slower to act than they are to answer the dam' phone (tap tap tap snore...)

GA, you're right, I am in the UK and it can be tricky to translate or transpose the various terms and "bodies", so to speak, who deal with stuff; but I think the aims are pretty much the same all over. Here, because it's a much smaller jurisdiction, we can make do with one central organisation - rather grandly titled the Office of the Public Guardian - that takes responsibility (veeery sloooooowly) for the whole caboodle. But whether it's the county clerk, a court or whoever, the principle is the same: viz that for a POA to be put into operation, you have to *do* something with it - you can't just unilaterally and without notice to anyone suddenly decide that your mother's gone gaga and you're in charge.

The "people to be told" would be, yes, interested parties; but not necessarily interested on their own account - they could be people you trust just to keep an eye on things for you. Here you don't *have* to name any, but it's part of the process that you're prompted to think about whether you want to, and whom you might want to be given a heads-up, and it is recommended. It's a further step in the checks and balances, aimed at avoiding abuse of POA if a person has unfortunately chosen an appointee who turns out to be unworthy of that degree of trust. When my mother's Durable (called Enduring in the olden days over here, now Lasting) POA was registered, my brother and I both got letters from the OPG informing us that an application had been made and giving us six weeks to object, along with a list of reasons that would be considered valid grounds for objection which were pretty tightly defined. For example, you could object to the person being appointed if there were substantiated reasons to believe they were not fit for the task (convicted embezzler), but not just because you didn't personally think much of them ("he couldn't organise an orgy in a brothel..!"); or if you didn't agree that the person giving POA was losing capacity, as would seem to be the point with our OP here.

It was a point of some irritation to me that my mother didn't nominate a proxy, and moreover made my siblings joint POA; so that if God forbid anything had happened to either of them the whole instrument would have failed and we'd all have been right up a gum tree. Her legal advisor is someone I know very well and am fond of; but I wish she'd been a bit less polite and a lot less indulgent of my mother's sentimental impracticality. Not that I can blame her for failing to concentrate my mother's mind on the business in hand - which of us can say we ever managed that when she didn't wish her mind to be concentrated?

I skipped the bit about needing the consent of the person nominated to exercise POA because in this case there's if anything a surplus of volunteers! - but you have made me wonder idly how many people, especially loving children, actually find the gumption to say "not on your life!" when they're asked. I wish my brother had, because he clearly found the whole thing hugely burdensome and was a pain in the nether for my sister, with whom he shared it, to deal with; but I suppose it takes either a hard-nosed or an exceptionally blithe person to turn round and tell their parent they can't be doing with it and she'll have to ask someone else.

We need some sort of health warning leaflet to be required reading for all concerned. So many people seem to drift into either giving or accepting POA without fully grasping what's involved, and I'm never sure whether it's because they were given poor advice, or they weren't paying attention to perfectly good advice, or they didn't like to say no and crossed their fingers they'd never need to worry about it. Mind you, I have latterly discovered that since 2005 in the UK you actually have to put quite some effort into ignoring the warnings: although you can still arrange POA in any way you please, by far the most straightforward is to download the government's forms and fill them in; and if you do that, and follow the instructions, and run round the houses getting signatures witnessed and your GP's endorsement and all the rest of it, I'm at a loss as to how you can then cling to the belief that it's no big deal. Wouldn't each State's social services division also offer a similar service?

Why kick out the sister? Maybe she helps the GM. Your Dad needs to get involved. Your Aunt is way out of line. She needs to be made aware of what a POA entitles her to. Not sure what can be done about her trying to move in when her Mother doesn't want it. Ur sister should not give up her room. Actually, I think she should stay there becauseif Aunts verbably abuse GM it could get worse. But again, Dad has to get involved.