My brother and I were co-EPO agent, as well as successor trustee. In August of last year, he sent a letter to my mom‘s attorney, formally resigning for from the DPOA as well as the trust and any care of her irrevocably, and never again. Now that she is in skilled nursing, he has decided that he’s going to insert himself again, acting as if he is still - co trustee and is now saying he is ok in life now and wants to be back on as DPOA and as a co-successor trustee.
my mom is not mentally fit to make such a decision currently, it may be in the future, once she’s off pain meds
he didn’t like this answer and is just the type to force his way in one way or another. He sues everyone for anything and I’m concerned he’s going to turn that rage on me. Mom being in SNF now is now incapacitated, the trust is now irrevocable, until such time she gets her mental clarity back. she has advised to sell her home, and proceeds are to go into her bank account solely for her care and comfort . She earns too much in retirement income to qualify for Medicaid.
my concern is if she does not recover enough for assisted living, doesnt qualify for Medicaid, we’ll need to sell the house to finance long term skilled nursing . but if we do, she’ll pay much higher taxes.. that’s what I’m being told. what if she mentally recovers and gets mad because I sold the house to pay for her ongoing care? She has agreed to to assisted living, but I mean, she could change her mind 20 minutes from now.
As far as your bro is concerned, he resigned his POA. Sorry bro, go ahead and threaten me with lawyers all you'd like, but YOU resigned the duty. I'm the POA now.
Best of luck to you.
POA: Your brother resigned as POA (I assume EPO is a typo/autocorrect?). Your mom is currently not fit to assign him co-POA so that's the end of that. If she recovers mentally and is fit to change her legal docs she still might not want to, since he already resigned once AND having two people trying to do the same job at the same time is a mess, but for now the answer is NO. It's your job now to do what you think is in her best interest, and it's not your job to convince your brother to agree with you OR to tell him all her personal business.
The house: You probably want to discuss the financial aspects with an attorney. There may be a trust she can put the disqualifying amount of income into to qualify for Medicaid, but let's put the brakes on for a second. Is she a resident of a SNF, or is she currently in rehab at an SNF? These are two different things. If she's still in rehab with the expectation of discharge to home then you don't do anything with the house yet. If she's now a resident of a SNF there must have been some medical determination that she can no longer live at home and that she will require ongoing medical care.
If she somehow improves enough at the skilled nursing facility and could move to assisted living and can't pay the AL rent then you have to sell the home. Capital gains taxes be danged, and if it's been her primary residence she will get a set amount of the proceeds tax free, you kind of just have to deal with it. Medicaid does not pay for AL, only medically necessary SNF, and frankly you get what you can pay for.