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FIL passed away last year and the children decided it’s unsafe for her to continue to live alone in the rural area and moved her to an independent living place, close to one of her daughters. We were rushed to move her, the idea is that we’ll deal with the house later.


MIL wants to go back to the house this summer, to remodel it by herself so she can sell it by herself because she’s a big fan of those house flipping shows on HGTV. Of course it’s all nonsense. She does not have the mental capacity, she can barely operate a microwave and thinks bank statements are bills she owes.


We agree she should sell the house, it’s been unoccupied and deteriorating in the last 6 months. She’ll need the money to pay for more care as the disease progresses. She says she wants to sell but refuses to give any of the children POA for real estate to handle selling the house.


Any suggestions? None of the children wants to be her guardian btw. She does not have good relationships with her children, the children feel somewhat obligated to help her but have all set boundaries. If she grants the POA, the children will help getting the house ready, and sell it. But they don’t want to become her guardian.

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My father with vascular dementia also had lifelong paranoid personality disorder so he could not give control over to anyone with a POA. He also wanted to remain in his home even after he needed 24/7 supervision and care following a heart attack. We had division among the family (my mother and 3 children) over placing Dad in MC or keeping him at home to "preserve an inheritance" and/or to "respect his wishes". I ended up being named his guardian and selling his house over his objections but with my mother's blessing. In pre-CV days, it took just over 2 months to gain permanent guardianship but I had been considering the move for several years and had everything ready paperwork wise before I even filed. The judge granted an emergency temporary guardianship so I could remove my father's working firearms from his residence and prevent my brother from providing replacements.

If your mother has progressed to a particular phase of her dementia, there may be no reasoning with her and you or one of your siblings may be forced to petition for guardianship in order to sale the house.

When you get to the point of selling the house, I suggest you restrict yourself to "lipstick" repairs. Empty and clean the house, apply a neutral coat of paint throughout, perhaps refinish wood floors and replace bath and kitchen fixtures; some realtors in our area will oversee such "prepare for sale" repairs for an additional fee. Make repairs as needed so the house is livable at the time of sale, but leave major remodel projects to the new owners unless its some feature that would make the sale difficult. For example, my parents house had the laundry room in the basement and limited pantry space in the kitchen or closet space in the kitchen entry so I added a mud room just off the kitchen (with pantry and coat closet space) and moved the laundry to the main level. This was a relatively cheap addition and definitely added to the sale-ability of the house and well as its value.

Insurance and vandalism risks may be points your mother is still likely to consider as reasons for a sale. Unoccupied houses are nearly impossible to insure, houses under remodel are more likely to burn or suffer major damages, and empty or houses under remodel are more likely to be vandalized. Wouldn't it be better to store the keepsakes and sale the house now than lose the keepsakes and the home value if it was set on fire?

Good luck dealing with your mother.
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Frances73 Jun 2020
That is what we did, cleaned everything out of the house but the curtains. Scrubbed the floors and appliances, had the basement walls and floor painted. The house sold in 24 hours.
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Many of our elderly loved loves have not so good days and good days.  We got my mom to sign POA on a good day.  Other caveat, is all the siblings are together on process, no one will sue the other.  If you are not on the same page, risk is that one will contest the POA
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"...MIL wants to go back to the house this summer..." All of her children must agree that no one is going to enable her to get to the house or help remodel the house.

Whichever of her children she respects most must take the lead in speaking for everyone that the longer she waits the more that house will decay and the lower will be her proceeds from a sale. "Mom, it's prudent to give one of us POA specifically for the sale of the house otherwise we cannot help you with the sale."

Consider getting MIL to hire and pay for a home inspector. It is worth the $300 or so to give you all a solid picture of what, if anything, is actually wrong with the house. And you can lower the price accordingly. This is another good reason for her to give one of you POA for the house sale.

Too many people make the mistake of making cosmetic repairs. If the house has good bones, pricing it as an as-is-fixer upper will help it to sell quickly. "Mom, the house should have been on the market already. Families are more inclined to move before the fall or first cold snap."

Explain to MIL: "Mom, houses are selling quickly because of the pandemic, and your house is where people are looking to move."

Explain to MIL: "The only thing that needs to be done is mowing the lawn. Do you want to mow the lawn every single week until the house sells?" She probably will not want to do that. Let her know that good realtors will have such services at their fingertips for extra charge of course, but it is worth not having that headache.

Explain to MIL: "Mom, let's focus on getting your house sold and getting you some plants and flowers for you to have now."

And everyone has to tell the sibling who says “oh I’m so worried” to stop it because it's unhelpful and right now everyone has to pull in the same direction and if that sibling cannot pull, that sibling needs to find some other way to help.

These are hard conversations. Everyone must agree. Everyone must be willing to be a broken record. It's tough.
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Ludmila Jun 2020
Thank you! “Everyone must be willing to be a broken record” is what the family needs to be.
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She has to be mentally competent to assign a POA. And even if she did assign a POA, you can’t just take control and do what you want. It doesn’t sound like she’s mentally competent so someone will have the pursue guardianship.
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Let her sign the paperwork for the sale. As long as she is able to understand in the moment what she is signing it is fine.

If all her children are with the decision can't you all help get it ready? Let her be involved with the process and she will probably burn out quickly and let the professionals handle it.

She lost everything when her husband died, she is trying to take back some control of her life. Guide the control instead of removing it.
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Ludmila Jun 2020
We want to help getting it ready, we tried. we took her back to the house a few times and realized she’s lost her executive function but still wanted to be in charge, wanted to remodel, do the landscape herself, would not allow us to hire people to do it quickly. All children have their own lives elsewhere, no one can go live with her to “remodel” for years ( which has been ongoing like Winchester mystery house ).

it is definitely a control issue. She may have lost her wisdom or intelligence but her controlling personality and delusion or grandeur is still intact. She does not believe she’s impaired especially when it comes to the house. Sigh.
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I’m going to approach this from a different angle.... there’s 3? 4 kids?
So is there 1 mom/mil would accept information & decisions from?
is it your spouse? or is it the daughter closest to the AL?

imho there must be 1 that is “shepherding” mom & enforcing decisions, AND others need to -without interference- let that person lead.
Can your in-laws family & their spouses actually do this?? like keep in their lanes for the next several Months or years??
You married into this, will they do this?
To me, that’s the first thing to determine. Cause it will do absolutely no good to have Big Sissy spend time, emotion & $, if there’s going to be backbiting & mendacity from an errant son-in-law or greedy grandkid. Mil soundS very “my word is law” type & so far nobody has been able to stand up to her & have it stick. Accurate??

If answer is “No”, unless you & your spouse want beyond frustration, I’d step back and either let MIL become a “ward of the state” or find a CELA level of elder law attorney firm that does guardianships where it’s an atty of the firm who becomes the guardian & family gets to provide input if it’s this route. That house can be used for collateral for this.

if its “yes”, I’d get a memo of understanding as to who’s dPOA that the kids sign. That sibling speaks with 3- 4 Realtors to see what legally the paperwork must be to take house to an Act of Sale and get it sold. My experience is that what’s your states Real Estate laws are is going to be determined what’s needed. If its DPOA with “all financials” ability is fine what’s needed, that going to be lots easier to get that house sold than a state that needs MIL to actually in person sign with notary present. If MIL will balk at signing & refuse, it will kill the deal. If this happens, it dominos to other issues.....

also please please realize that any $ spent on the house - if paid for by the kids - cannot easily be reinbursement should MIL need to apply for Medicaid. Medicaid will look at this as “gifting”. And once Medicaid applied for then basically all income mil has must become her copay to NH. Medicaid rules & copay requirements seem to come as beyond a total surprise to family.

If there’s looking like lots of outlay needed to sell property, it may end up to be simpler to go to a property management company that can bill mil & place a workmans lien on the property so that when it goes to the Act of Sale that workmen’s lien must be paid from the proceeds in order for sale to go thru. The management co will take care of getting the house “market ready”, doing whatever repairs needed, maybe even paying utilities. They can file a lien as House is securitized collateral. There’s been a couple on AC who have taken this route.

Imho selling “As Is” is a theory, should hubs family say this.... there’s always costs... like taxes$ & in$urance paid, yard cut, Utilitie$. So who’s going to pay all this, & be ok IF not reimbursed, should Medicaid get filed in mil future?

Also Medicaid will fully expect it to be sold at FMV which tends to be tax assessor value. If value is whack, may need to legally show why less. Not Realtor comps. I’m with NYDiL to get an inspection done. For my moms place I had inspection done 1st and that given to appraiser to use. Value Significantly less and legal as they both place a seal on documents.

so what’s the family like?
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Ludmila Jun 2020
I think all the siblings want the same thing, i.e., to sell the house before it goes into despair so MIL will have more $ for her care.

everyone has been telling MIL “no you can’t do this.. ...”. And that hasn’t worked. We will all have to communicate better I guess. we are new to this and are still learning how to speak AD.

Hopefully we can find a realtor/broker that can get the house ready and the work done will be paid from the sale of the house ( a lien ). Finding someone trustworthy so we won’t get ripped off is another challenge for us.
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You first have to determine that she is mentally incompetent before obtaining guardianship. In addition, the process of obtaining guardianship for an elder can be very costly. Has she been evaluated by a neurologist to determine her cognitive status? It looks like your family was very successful in convincing her to move from her home. Many times that is very difficult to accomplish with an elderly person whose lived at a home for many years but, you did accomplish that task. Your family members might have a discussion about the different ways to persuade her to proceed with the property sale. Even if that means allowing her to think she's contributing to the remodeling. I do believe that it sometimes takes a village to deal with the really headstrong elders in the family. I'm not opposed to enlisting the help of grandchildren if needed. Best wishes!
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If your husband is the financial POA, that should cover selling the house. Reread the POA and see if it exempts really estate, or double check with the attorney who drew it up. Mine covered real estate and we sold the house with out their signatures. I just had to provide the original POA and not a copy and sign the documents as Attorney In Fact.
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An option to consider: explain to MIL all the problems of the empty house, suggest that she moves back in but must have it ready for sale by the end of summer – say end of August or mid-September. She must organise it all. You move her back, probably with some home care to keep her safe, but make the carer do as little as possible. The idea is to let MIL see as quickly as you can that she simply cannot do what she has wanted to do. Making day-to-day living difficult is part of that.

Come DDay, she goes back to IL and signs the POA, which you have ready. Of course with luck she may give up earlier than the original DDay, which would be even better. Then if she won’t sign immediately (while she is still feeling overwhelmed with how difficult things are), the family no longer provides support and you say that one of you will seek guardianship to force the sale. Yes, you are quite nasty if that’s what it takes. Her failure to cope during her stay at home plus her failure to go through with the POA as the alternative, are important issues for the guardianship application.

To make all this work, the basis has to be agreement with all the family. I strongly suggest that you have a meeting to agree it, document the agreement and get it signed by everyone involved. You also all put in some money stated in the written agreement (‘consideration’ in legal language), as kitty to help get things started eg re home care. This makes it a binding contract between you all. However, Ludmila, if you are only DIL/ SIL I would try to get one of the actual children to be the front runner if it’s at all possible. It just sits better with a lot of people, probably including the Guardianship court.

It’s really hard. Good luck. When you have a plan, it may be worthwhile to get legal advice eg to write up the agreement and the POA document. That will also be useful if you do have to proceed to guardianship. Best wishes, Margaret
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Imho, certainly one of mom's adult children has to take on the POA role. No one loves it in this case, but perhaps there is no other choice. I cannot see "mom going to back to the house this summer to remodel it by herself." Wow. That simply is a confabulation.
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