The Complaint Department

Family Dynamics

A few entries back, Miz S left a comment about maybe providing some background to The Great Commotion in the way of family history.  I've know Miz S for quite a while, and these days she is facing some of the same problems I did when Dad became ill and Mom began acting all wackadoo!

I guess the question is this:  What might make a family member turn on his own parents and sibling for the purposes of self-enrichment?

A few days ago, I traveled up the road to Wal-Mart to buy a breadmaker (but that's another post).  During my journey, I tuned into NPR (the reception was in and out, causing me to become irritated, once again, at living so far outside of the Beltway) and listened to snippets of a story about how siblings could have completely different experiences growing up in the same family.  The reporter talked about things like divorce, favoritism/affinity and birth order.

The story was about family strains and Thanksgiving.

My own family is a classic example.

My parents had four children together, but only two of us survive.

First came Stevie, born in 1954.  During her pregnancy, my mother contracted toxoplasmosis.  Though she was asymptomatic, Stevie suffered brain damage as a result, causing him to be legally blind at birth and to suffer from hydrocephalus.  As an infant and toddler, Stevie had numerous surgeries to try to relieve the hydrocephalus by placing shunts in his brain to drain off fluid.  Even though blind, Stevie was highly intelligent, and my parents enrolled him in a series of special schools for the blind from a very young age.  As a young child, Stevie would spend weekdays at these boarding schools and come home on weekends.

At age 30, when Stevie was born, my dad was just four years into his career with the CIA, after serving in WWII and earning a masters degree afterward.  So, even while these were very lean years for them, my parents spared nothing in getting Stevie the best treatment and schooling possible.

Stevie would succumb to his brain injuries in 1965, at age 11.  (Nowadays, those shunts would be replaced as a matter of course.)  I still retain vivid memories of the last moments I saw my brother and the tremendous pain he suffered in his last hours.  I was a few months shy of 10 at the time.

I was born in 1955.  Just 18 months apart, Stevie and I were close as siblings, and his death created a profound sense of sadness and despair for my parents, and for me, too,  for many years afterward.

In 1957, my parents had another son, Eric, who was born with Down Syndrome.  At my father's insistence, Eric was institutionalized at birth, breaking my mother's heart.  When I was growing up, my parents mysteriously would disappear every so often, with a toy.  Eric died in 1967 from pneumonia.  I was not yet two when Eric was born.  I did not learn of his existence until sometime after he died.  I never saw him.

Just about six years later, in 1963, P. was born.  He was a healthy, adorable, baby son.  I can only imagine the relief my parents felt, after the health problems which afflicted Stevie and Eric.

P. was just 2.5 years old when Stevie died and has no memory of him at all.  P. grew up in a family with just two siblings--him . . . and a much-older sister.  By the  time P. could form memories, the trauma of those earlier years had subsided.

At the loss of their other two sons, and reeling from sadness and heartache, I think my parents, and especially, to a much greater degree, my mother, pinned their hopes and dreams on P.

He became the "golden" child, as the only surviving son.  Expectations were lowered and coddling and doting increased.

As a daughter, and a child born between two children with exceptional needs, I sort of got lost in all the upheavals.

This sense of the "value" of sons vs. daughters is a thing, I think, of my parents', and earlier, generations (here in the U.S., anyway).  Though my parents would never own to it, I'm sure, it is something that is immediately recognized by a child who experiences it.

I'm okay with it, though.  People are products of their environment.

In my father's family, he was provided with a college education, while his sister had to put herself through school, which caused some family disharmony.  So, there's that history.

And, Mom has always had a thing about male figures of authority.  Priests, doctors, whatever.  She trained as a nurse during a time when doctors--always male--were idolized, and nurses--always female--had to stand at attention whenever a doctor entered the area.

Don't get me started on the priests, for God's sake.  I can recall Mom falling all over herself whenever a priest happened to be at our house.  I guess I can be thankful that P. is not a priest, as well.  Or a doctor.

But, like I said, we are all of our own time.

Finally, while I do believe that most parents love their children equally, I also think that parents often feel more affinity toward some children than others.  It's really just a matter of similar personality and interests, I think.  And probably unavoidable.

In our family, my father and I shared similar interests and personalities, while P. and my mother were more alike--sociable, outgoing, fun-loving and charming.  Dad and I shared a sort of social phobia, being uncomfortable in new or strange social environments (not debilitating, but anxiety-producing); we were more pessimistic (I like to believe "realistic"); enjoyed similar interests, like history and current events and old movies; shared an interest in art/drawing/painting; our minds were detailed and organized in the same way; and, we resembled each other physically.

I don't mean to come across as some kind of cry-baby about all this stuff, but I DO think these kinds of factors--family dynamics, birth order, parent/child affinity, generational proclivities, etc.--can play into the question I posed at the beginning of this entry, especially when dementia enters the picture.

What do you think?

(As always, the history of The Great Commotion can be found in the category section of the side-bar, and I'm trying to answer any comments in the entry's comment box.) 

A Problem With The Trust

I've read a lot of horror stories about guardians and guardianships--you know, people being cleaned out by unscrupulous agents--but Mom really lucked out, because, as it turned out, the lawyer who was assigned by the court to represent Mom during the guardianship hearings was appointed as the permanent guardian of her property.

Mom's guardian works for a major law firm in the area and specializes in elder law, trusts and estates, family law, and other related issues.  She has a stellar professional reputation and is well-respected in the field.  Plus, Mom really likes her!

So, after all the legal maneuverings, and the appointment of the guardian, things settled down for a while.  I was so intensely relieved that everything was safe and secure and that Mom's affairs were being well looked after.

Soon, my sense of relief evaporated and was replaced by the old, familiar stomach-churning, jaw-clenching, teeth-gnashing existence of the last 18 months or so.

I don't remember when I learned that the appointment of Mom's guardian was only half the battle in my struggle to seek protection for Mom's assets.  As it turned out, the guardianship secured Mom's personal assets, like IRA's and annuities that were in her own name, but provided no protection for the assets of the trust.

I remember raising this issue with my own attorney during the guardianship proceedings, and I was told that a guardianship would cover everything.  I didn't press.  Turns out that wasn't the case, as the trust is a distinct legal entity, funded by different assets.  In my parents' case, their home and some larger investments were renamed as assets of the trust, and, thus, no longer personal property, which would have been protected by a guardianship.

I was notified in early 2009 that Mom's guardian was seeking to assume jurisdiction over the trust assets.

Of course, this was more than okey-dokey by me.  In fact, I was horrified that the matter hadn't been addressed earlier, given the situation that might have unfolded had anything happened to Mom.

There was also the fact, the very important fact, that Mom wanted to sell her house and, so, the issue of who actually had authority over that asset had to be determined.  The house could not be sold until the issue of trusteeship was settled.  Mom's house was placed on the market in early April 2009, and a contract was written within a week!

Then followed a period of frantic activity, both for Mom's guardian, and for me, as the entire responsibility for cleaning, emptying, real estate agent communication, last-minute repairs, etc., was on my shoulders.  I had to fit it all into my full-time work schedule.  Not to mention finding time to spend with Mom.

I don't know from where, or how, the energy was summoned.

Meanwhile, Mom's guardian had phone conversations with both P. and me, and we were sent documents to sign, agreeing to step down as co-trustees and to appoint Mom's guardian as her trustee, as well.

I signed the necessary forms and returned them, as requested.

P. didn't.

Since P. didn't respond to the request sent via certified mail, Mom's guardian then had to petition the court for permission to serve the documents via an alternative service--that is, to have them hand-delivered.  A service was engaged, and several attempts were made to serve the documents in person.

When the server went to P.'s house on several occasions:

A teenager answered the door and told the server that P. was sleeping and he wouldn't wake him;

No one answered the door, even though P.'s vehicle was parked in the driveway; and,

A vehicle matching the description of P.'s vehicle started to pull into the driveway, but, upon seeing the server's car already parked there, drove away and then drove by, again.

As P. dug his heels in, opposing the guardian's petition to assume jurisdiction, special provisions had to be written into the sales contract on Mom's house, because it was starting to look like the settlement would have to be pushed back.  We had to promise to pay rent for the buyers' current rental home, if the settlement date were postponed.  The buyers' had already kindly agreed to be patient while the trusteeship issue was settled.  A lot buyers would have seen that whole business as a bad sign and moved on to other prospects.

Another petition to the court and, again, the documents were sent via certified mail to P., who then retained an attorney.  An answer was filed, apparently opposing the assume jurisdiction petition.  Big surprise.

In June, a trial date was set for September 30. 2009.

How it came about, I don't know.  But a short time later, P. came to his senses and agreed to step down and appoint Mom's guardian to serve as trustee, as I had done a few months earlier.  I'm guessing that, as more facts became known to his attorney, in preparation for the trial, P. received some sound legal advice.  Perhaps P.'s attorney believed that it was not a winnable case for his client.

I won't ever know for certain, but I'm glad it worked out the way it did.

Mom's guardian, and now trustee, was able to complete the sale of Mom's house, which had stood vacant for 18 months.

(Previous entried related to this topic can be found under the category entitled The Great Commotion, in the sidebar on the right.)

 

 

 

 

In Which An Elderly Woman Finds Herself in Court

How does a loving, concerned (and, at times, anxious and overwrought) daughter wind up taking her own mother to court to seek a guardianship of her assets?

To find out, you can read the entries in The Great Commotion category in the sidebar on the right.

My story picks up in this entry, when I made the decision to put the matter before the courts.

Even before I was informed by my parents' trust attorney that P. was now the sole trustee of my parents' estate (really, Mom's estate, since Dad was dead), I had retained an attorney, with the intention of seeking protection for my mother.

Very early on, I was informed that a court would likely not decide between feuding siblings and, instead, probably appoint a third party, if the need for a guardian was determined.  I suppose I could have lobbied to have myself appointed as Mom's guardian; I had a lot of evidence, after all, that P. was acting out of self-enrichment in the actions he had taken.  But a very ugly battle, involving putting Mom "on the stand," and hurtful testimony from me, would have been necessary, and I just did not have it in me to put Mom through it.  None of this was really her fault, given her dementia.

So, I was fine, oh, so fine, with the third-party solution.  I wanted nothing more, really, than to have authority over Mom's financial affairs stripped from P. and myself and placed in the hands of someone who had no ulterior motive (other than to be paid for their work).  It would be costly, but it would put an end to any uncertainty and to potential future legal battles.

I wanted desperately to be certain that Mom would have adequate assets to meet her needs for the rest of her life.

I wanted to make certain that the wishes set down by my parents' in their will in 2000 were respected.

I wanted P. to repay the HELOC against Mom's home, as promised.

So, on March 13, 2008, my attorney filed my petition seeking a guardianship of property for Mom.

Not having an attorney to represent her, Mom was appointed one by the court.

Basically, I was the plaintiff and Mom was the ward--really, the defendant.

Mom would have to prove that she was capable of handling her own affairs, but I had letters from two doctors stating the opposite, which forestalled the possible ugly mom-on-the-stand scenario.  It would have been an uphill battle for her, I'm certain.

P. was an "interested" party.  Big time.

An order to show cause was issued, which basically seeks more information from all parties in the form of a response to the petition.

Mom and her attorney responded, but I don't know what the response was.  I imagine that her attorney would have to oppose the guardianship, as a rule, at least initially.

Paul responded, through his attorney, that he was opposed to a guardianship.  Big surprise.

My memory is a little fuzzy on the dates of our various court appearances, but I think the first one was on May 19, which would have been after all the responses to the show cause order were received.

I do, remember, however, that at this first court date, my brother picked up my mother at Antique Village and brought her with him to court.  I can only imagine the conversation that took place in his car with her that day!  P.'s attorney met them there.

I was there, with my attorney, and Mom's court-appointed attorney was there, as well.

Oh, yeah.  The trust attorney was there, too.  Who invited him?

Because Mom came with P., they sat together with P.'s attorney, Mom's attorney and the trust attorney.  I sat apart, with my lawyer.   I'm sure P. felt a sense of victory, armored as he was with all those lawyers around him!

On May 19, the judge set a trial date for September 8.  The judge also ordered mediation for all parties to try to resolve the issue beforehand.

Here's what happened between May 19 and July 1, 2008:

A date, time and location for mediation was fixed and the parties met with a retired judge to try to come to an agreement.

Mediation required the parties/attorneys to meet together with the judge initially, then to meet separately with the judge to air their individual concerns.  The judge would then meet with the opposing party and discuss the concerns of the other, and so forth.

After these "negotions," my mother and her attorney ultimately agreed to the guardianship.  It's possible that, having spent more time with Mom, her lawyer saw that things weren't right with her.  I don't know.

Mom was very confused as to why all this stuff was going on, and couldn't remember anything that she was told from minute to minute.  Whenever I reminded her about a court date, for example, she would say, "Why am I going to court?"  I think it might have been clear to the mediator that, perhaps, a guardianship was the best option.  I'm only speculating, though.

And, in the end, P., very angrily, caved in and agreed to the guardianship, as well.  Because the contents of these sessions with the judge were private, I don't know how or why this occurred.

We all left with the understanding that the mediation agreement would be prepared and sent to the parties for signature shortly.

When P. received the agreement, he refused to sign it.

On July 1, my attorney filed a motion to enforce the settlement agreement reached during mediation and requested another hearing date, as well as attorney's fees for the cost of pursuing the matter.

On the same date, July 1, P.'s lawyer put forth a motion to withdraw as P.'s counsel!

Another hearing date was scheduled for August 14.

It took some weeks for P.'s attorney to extricate herself from the proceedings, after having to file a lot of documents with the court.  I don't know why P.'s attorney essentially resigned, but was told by my own attorney that it was very unusual and could point to some severe disagreement between client and attorney on how to proceed.

It was only on July 23 that P.'s counselor was officially withdrawn.  The same day, a notice was sent by the court to P. to employ new counsel.

The retired judge, who oversaw the mediation, provided a letter to the court regarding the earlier mediation agreement, and it was filed with the court on July 24 as supplementary material for the earlier motion to enforce settlement.

On August 14, the hearing was held and the motion to enforce settlement was granted.  Also granted were attorney's fees to cover the costs of pursuing the matter.  A judgment was entered against P., in my favor, for these fees.

Neither P. nor a representative of his was present at that hearing in August.

The granting of the motion to enforce settlement and the judgment for attorney's fees against P. were finalized by an order of the court on August 20, 2008.

Mom now had a guardianship of her property.

I thought everything was resolved, but I found out differently during the months that followed.  It would take another year to finally put to rest The Great Commotion!

 

 

A Timeline . . . And a Lawyer

The saga continues.  This is a long entry, with more papers to read, but should be the last with so much reading to do!  As my readers are few (but comments so helpful and insightful!), I won't link the previous entries.  Instead, I'll just go back and file the posts under the category, The Great Commotion, on the sidebar.

My next entry will explain what happened once the entire issue was in the attorneys' hands.  After that, I want to write a little more about my family history, because readers have wondered what could drive a person to be so callous and entitled.

So, onward . . .

1.  Mom and Dad created a revocable family trust in 2000 (they were both 76 years old at the time) and designated P. and I as equal beneficiaries of the estate.  As P.'s children had both been born and were elementary school-aged at the time, I must presume that their inclusion, or not, in Mom and Dad's final wishes was discussed at the time.  P.'s children were not named as beneficiaries.

2.  After Dad died in January 2006, Mom and I went, maybe in February or March,  to the trust attorney for her "free" consultation, promised after the death of one of the trust grantors.  We reviewed Mom and Dad's assets, determined what things needed to be addressed in any way, updated forms and so forth.

Mom sat through the meeting in a kind of marginal, distant way.  Most of the stuff, like what we needed to do to transfer Dad's IRA into Mom's name, for example, was complicated and over her head.  Should it be "transferred" or "assumed?"  And why?  Stuff like that.

After Dad's death, neither Mom nor P. had any role in wrapping up Dad's affairs.  And there's a lot of that stuff.  Contacting various government agencies and insurance companies.  Filling out forms, providing death certificates.  Making sure payments are made.  And whatever else.  While I had been working on my parents' tax returns for a few years, I wasn't familiar with insurance policies and such.

Mom wasn't able to help and P. didn't want to help.

(Well, I guess I should be fair here.  P. did "help" after Dad died.  Before I arrived at the nursing home in Olney, two hours away, after receiving a phone call letting me know Dad had died, P. had fixed the time and date of Dad's funeral!  It was scheduled, five days hence, at 9 a.m. on a Monday morning--just at rush hour, the last day of January (it was a frigid day and raining sheets).  No phone calls to a funeral home were made, though; no discussions as to the disposition of the body; no consultation about possible out-of-town guests; no planning about any kind of gathering; no help or assistance on how ANY of this would be achieved.  I was furious.  When I asked P. why he had scheduled the funeral so quickly, he said, "I need closure."  After Paul left the nursing home that morning, Mom and I did not see him, again, until he arrived for Dad's funeral at Arlington National Cemetery five days later.  The graveside service was to last just 30 minutes, because they are tightly-scheduled there at Arlington, for obvious reasons.  We could not begin until P. arrived . . . 15 minutes late!  Oh, yeah.  He also picked up the cold cuts for the after-funeral gathering at Mom's.  Everything else was left to Mom, me and Tony.  Oh, and after the funeral, he had Mom write him a check for $600--for funeral clothes for him and his kids.)

With Dad gone, Mom was in complete charge as the surviving grantor and trustee!

At the appointment with the attorney, we had a discussion about the possibility of Mom needing a co-trustee, but we left the appointment without altering what was already in place.

Why?  Because Mom was heated in her determination that both P. and I should serve as her co-trustees.  I was wary and lukewarm, at best.

Why?  Because my parents' had created their trust to allow a trustee to operate independently, without the consultation or approval of the other trustee.  If there were more than two, a majority was required for any action taken.  With P.'s ability to persuade Mom, this concerned me greatly.  The prospect of P. having unfettered access to my parents' assets sent a chill up my spine.  The HELOC against Mom's home was still in the future, but his refusal to repay previous loans, his disinterest in helping me and Mom with anything after Dad's death, and my knowledge of his overall character caused me to stop dead in my tracks.

May I just say that such an arrangement is NEVER a good idea.  Better to have some checks and balances, somehow, somewhere.  Did I mention that if P. and/or I could not serve as trustee for ANY reason, once Mom was determined incapable, that the trust attorney was designated to serve as sole trustee of my parents' trust!  I smelled CONFLICT OF INTEREST.  It did NOT serve this attorney to act in the best interest of family harmony.

I just couldn't sign on to this.

3.  During the summer of 2006, Mom took that trip to the bank (mentioned in an earlier post), at the bank's behest, and purchased municipal bond investments, while believing she was purchasing savings bonds for her grandchildren.  Remember?

4.  Mom and I, again, arranged to meet with the trust lawyer, in August, because of my concern that Mom had demonstrated a need for protection from herself.  Again, Mom insisted that she wanted both P. and me to be "put on the will," as she would often say.  I VERY reluctantly agreed, and P. was notified of the time, date and location of the appointment.

He did not show up.  I was relieved.  I was able to get Mom to agree to appoint me as her co-trustee, with P. serving if I was unable.

At that meeting, the attorney and I discussed Mom's municipal bonds transaction, the fact that she didn't understand what she was doing, and what we could do about it.  He offered to write a letter on Mom's behalf to the bank, but I declined and said we would try to handle it ourselves.  BIG mistake, on my part.

If I had accepted the attorney's offer, I would have had written proof, sort of, of my concern about Mom's cognitive abilities.

In the end, it played out that this attorney proved to be a real "roadblock" in my attempts to protect Mom's assets, once P. became involved and it was clear that there was a lot of disharmony and mistrust.

From August 2006 until September 2007, I served as Mom's co-trustee.  While we included my name on her checking account and safe deposit box (which contained no valuables, only business and personal papers), none of her investments nor the deed to her home were altered to show any changes.  They all still reflected the owners to be either Mom alone, or the family trust, with Mom and Dad as trustees.  It was all pretty complicated, and I had enough on my plate with a full-time job and seeing to Mom's needs.

But, being able to sign checks was important, because Mom was having quite a bit of trouble with staying current on her bills.  She didn't like me to actually sign the checks, but we reached a happy in-between-place where I would write the checks, file the paperwork, etc., and she would sign them.  It worked pretty well.

Still, I DID have the appointment-of-co-trustee document, in case I ever needed it.  (I never did.)

Throughout this year, P. was barely a presence in my or Mom's life.  He rarely visited or called, and showed absolutely no interest in Mom's affairs . . . or health issues.

Until the Great Commotion of 2007-2008.

After learning about the HELOC plans, I was informed by Mom that she and P. had made a trip to the trust attorney on September 27, 2007, to have a new document created, assigning P. and me, along with Mom, as co-trustees.

It was sent to Mom's house and presented to me for signature.

I didn't sign it, but took it home with me.

After considering the situation, I faxed this letter below to the trust attorney.  (I'll just post the first page; Page 2 was full of references to the trust language regarding incapacity and me instructing the attorney NOT to make any alterations, etc.  It was terse and forceful, and I'm sure it rubbed him completely the wrong way.)

 
The attorney never bothered to call me back, though I had spoken with him earlier about my concerns.  This letter was sort of a follow-up to that phone conversation.

Over the next few days, I fretted and fretted about the whole matter.  My mother was terribly upset, but not really understanding what my concerns were or the possible ramifications of her desire to appoint P. as a trustee.  She insisted that she wanted P. "on the will."  I felt I had quite a clear vision of the situation.

But I was worn out.  Oh, so worn out.  I was ready to cave.  And I did.

On October 15, 2007, I faxed the following letter to the trust attorney's office.

 
I believe I mentioned in another entry that I was scheduled to visit Mom on the weekend of October 13-14, 2007, but when I called, Mom told me not to come up.  When I called, again, on the 15th (Monday), I told her I was coming to check on her out of concern.

It was on this day, the same day I sent this letter to the attorney, that I learned of P.'s plan to take Mom to the attorney to have her sign documents altering my parents' will for the benefit of himself and his family.

Needless to say, my resignation did not happen once I learned about that plan.  It was the final straw for me.

It was a good thing I insisted on seeing Mom on that Monday, I'm thinking.  And it was sheer happenstance, because no one had uttered a peep to me about the intended meeting, or the plans to change my parents' will, until P., on the spot, was forced to come clean with me on the phone.  Not Mom, not P., and certainly not the trust attorney.

A few days later, after coming back to Olney from my place (where I had taken Mom after learning of P.'s plans), we visited her family doctor who, then, called the trust attorney and recommended that Mom not sign anything further until she had a neuropsychiatric assessment.

So . . .

I scheduled an appointment for Mom, and she was seen by a clinical practitioner in November, 2007.  I didn't realize that she had to be seen by neuropsychiatrist in order to get a formal statement about Mom's abilities.  So, I had to take her back the next month, in December, to be evaluated by the doctor.

Mom was assessed and diagnosed as suffering from probable mild-moderate Alzheimer's Disease.  She scored 17/30 on the Mini Mental Status Exam.  She had poor results on the other tests, as well.

I requested and received a letter to that effect, which was sent to the trust attorney.  A care plan for Mom was also formulated, addressing medications, living arrangements, home help, etc.

The second letter required by the trust documents was provided by Mom's family physician in January, 2008.  I kept the letter to take with me to a meeting I had scheduled with the trust attorney in February.

Meanwhile, Mom moved to Antique Village in mid-January, 2008.

By mid-February, it became necessary for me to send the following letter to P.

 
 
I bet you can tell how angry I was by the terse tone.  Adult Protective Services was contacted by Antique Village, and Mom, P. and I were all interviewed.  P. believes that I contacted APS.  I know, because I found notes in Mom's room about it.

On the same day, I faxed this next letter to the trust attorney.

 

And here is the attorney's reply.  You'll want to read that last sentence of the first paragraph carefully!

 
!!!!!

All the while, since the previous October, I had been in contact with an attorney of my own.  I was petitioning the court for a guardianship for my mother.  This last email from my mother's trust attorney effectively ended my communication with him.

After Mom moved to Antique Village, it was our intention to do a little more work on her home (we had undertaken an earlier rennovation project in the fall of 2006 and spring of 2007), with the intention of selling the house if Mom felt that she wanted to remain at Antique Village (which she did!).

Tony and I both put in weeks and months of work at Mom's house during both projects.  Tony oversaw the rennovations of 2006-07, helped Mom move to Antique Village (we asked for P.'s help, but he didn't show up), and changed the locks on Mom's house when she moved.  Mom had lived in her home for 25 years, given out numerous keys over the years and, now, her house would be vacant.  I kept the new keys to myself, for the time being.  You see, back in November, 2007, P. had entered Mom's house, while we were both there, and become so irate, yelling at me and slamming doors, that we both became very upset.  It was frightening.

Regarding all these events, below is a set of emails between me and P.  Read the original message at the bottom first, then P.'s response to me.

A few minutes later, I received this next email from P.  You've already read the bottom part--the trust attorney's email, informing me that P. was now the sole trustee of Mom's assets.  It's the brief note on top that you haven't seen, yet.

I haven't communicated with P., nor seen him, outside of a courtroom or other court-ordered surroundings, since I received this last email. 

 I learned that the American Bar Association has published guidelines on how to proceed when there is a case of possible dementia.  Mom's trust attorney disregarded these guidelines, even after I provided documents supporting my concern.

Because my mother signed a document in the trust attorney's office on September 27, 2007, and did not receive her mental fitness evaluation, and the subsequent letters from the doctors, until the following December-January--roughly 90 days later--it was the attorney's apparent opinion that Mom was of sound mind to sign the appointment of P. as co-trustee in September.

I found it all very questionable, at best; I lean toward unethical, though.

My petition to secure a guardianship for my mother was filed March 13, 2008.

Persuasion

Lovely readers, you are so patient to stay with me on this story, which I began in the November 13 post and continued on November 14 and 15.  I'm hoping to wrap it up in just a few more entries.

I think if you or I were faced with the dilemma which plagued my mother, as I've related in the last several posts, we would pretty quickly have a sense of the situation and be able to settle, in our own minds, the best course of action, firmly, decisively, and without delay.

Not so for the demented individual.

Decision-making . . . holding details in the mind . . . insight . . . understanding complex information, like finances, business, numbers, interest rates--all lost, and fairly early on, with dementia.  Never mind comprehending a complex document like a trust.

The only way to try to help a person with dementia remember something is to remind them, persistently and repeatedly.  Constant phone calls, visits, lectures.

Mom endured an awful lot of these during the time of the Great Commotion, and made numerous notes about what she was instructed to understand, say and do.

 
 
 
 
 

I found all of the above notes, written by Mom, on my various visits to her house in the fall of 2007.  They are the notations made by her during phone calls or visits with P.  Here are a few more.

 
 
 
 
This last one is particularly alarming.  Can you read what it says?  "Closing all accounts."

And, a few notes up, it appears that P. is conveying to Mom that $100,000 is an amount routinely given to grandkids for their educations.  Or maybe that a college education routinely costs $100,000?  I don't know.

In these notes, I see that Mom is writing words like "will," "trustee," and "power of attorney," without understanding what they actually mean.

In addition to the badgering of Mom by P. regarding alterations to my folks' will, other allegations appear to have been made against me during those conversations.

 
Mom has been told that I have sold family mementos on EBay.  I know this because she asked me if I ever sold anything on EBay, on more than one occasion, during this time.  (Never have.)

 
Here, I have apparently been accused of stealing and that the police are being called.

We learn from Mom's notes that P. is "against it," "disapproves," and "is hysterical."  P. urges Mom not to see a doctor or psychiatrist.  A lot of the same language used in formerly-posted letters and emails written by P. appears in Mom's notes.

Poor Tony, who has always been so good and kind to my parents, is yanked into the fray in one of these notes.  When I showed it to him, Tony simply shook his head.

I would like to make clear that, on principle, I don't have any problem with grandparents helping grandkids with educational goals.  However, the first consideration is the financial security of the elder.  Demanding fully-paid educations, especially including Masters degrees, from grandparents--even if they are in the position to provide those (and Mom isn't)--seems to me to be the very definition of entitlement.  And, in the case of P., there was the matter of the un-repaid HELOC against Mom's home.

Emotional and psychological torment?  Manipulation?  Alienation of affection?

What do you think?

More

Continuing on with the bleak story of the disintegration of a family (click here for Part I and here for Part II), I have here the remaining contents of the accordion folder, which was left by P. for Mom to review and digest.  As mentioned in my last post, Mom had hidden the folder under her mattress then, inexplicably, confessed to hiding things she doesn't want others to see UNDER HER MATTRESS (where I found it).

This series of emails is between P. and a friend of his who works as a paralegal in a law office.

I cropped them to hide the identity of that other person and email addresses; otherwise, they are completely intact.

 
This first one seems to be a response to one that was sent by P. to his friend earlier.  I don't have the email that engendered this response.

 
I know this email from P. to his friend is really hard to read, but it's worth it.  His pure hatred toward me for getting in the middle of his plans regarding my mom's finances is palpable.

 
Here is the last of the series, a response to the long one above.

It's interesting to me that P. never once mentions my mother's difficulties with her memory and cognitive abilities.  Or the fact that he's recently convinced Mom to mortgage her home for a personal project of his own.  I wonder if that would have made a difference in the responses of his friend.

In my imagination, the friend's response would look something like this:

Gosh, P., I'm so sorry to hear about all the troubles within your family.  While I sympathize with you as a friend, I must honestly say that, if your mom has memory or cognitive problems, the best thing to do is to have her evaluated.  After all, the most important thing is her health!  Also, it would be wise to consider that her assets are really hers alone, to be used for her own benefit, while she is alive. 

I've been meaning to let folks know, by the way, that I'm going to always respond to readers' comments in the comment section of whichever entry they responded to originally.  I hope that's okay.  Seems to me that it used to be a lot easier to respond a while back via someone's email, but that option doesn't seem to exist anymore.  I sometimes take long hiatuses (hiati?) from posting, and it always seems that Typepad makes changes pretty often when I'm away--and not always for the better, IMO!

Later. 

In Which I Am Labeled "Ho"

In the midst of this Great Commotion, I was up at Mom's one night, when our conversation turned to hiding places.

I don't remember in what context or why this subject arose, but Mom almost-gleefully told me that whenever she wants to hide something, she puts whatever-it-is under her mattress.

Intrigued, I waited until she went into the bathroom, and lifted her mattress to discover a small, cardboard accordion file!

 
Written on the outside, in my brother's handwriting, I saw some notes to Mom, a couple of pie charts and some personal sentiments he holds about me.

The pie chart on the right shows the original intentions expressed in my parents' will, which was prepared in 2000.  My initial, A, is on the right half of the pie.  P. is on the left.

P. has drawn arrows pointing to me, A, and indicated to our mother that I am greedy, selfish, have never worked and have no children.

The pie chart has been redrawn and reconfigured on the left, to illustrate P.'s wishes to alter the original chart/will to include P. and W., P.'s two children.  That wholesome word, family, floats above.

P. instructs Mom to ask the trust attorney, Jim Walsh, if "the boys are protected."

Finally, he urges her to recall that the investment transaction, when Mom went to the bank and purchased municipal bonds while believing that she was buying savings bonds, was reversed.

Inside of the folder was a variety of papers.

 
There were six different printouts regarding providing for grandchildren in wills and/or trusts.

 
 
 
I also found the above signed and dated diatribe.  You will see a person by the name of Mrs. Reynolds mentioned.  Mrs. Reynolds is an old friend of my mother's, whom Mom has known since 1965 or so.  My brother did, in fact, call Mrs. Reynolds and questioned her about her own family's will and trust details!

 
 
One day when I was away, P. (you can see here that his name is Paul) called our house and spoke with Tony.  When I got home and heard about it, I asked Tony to type something up for me about their phone conversation.

 
I fired off this letter to P. after his conversation with Tony.  I found it in the folder, as well, with that lovely endearment written near my name.  Disturbing to me is that P. meant for Mom to read it!  In the same vein, once I called P. and left a lengthy message for him regarding my concern about Mom's mental state and the possible need for an alternative living situation (assisted living).  The next time I went up to Mom's, I helped her to retrieve her messages--a process which was confusing to her--and found that P. had somehow forwarded the message I left for him to MOM'S PHONE!

Finally, below is the letter I received from Mom's friend of 50 years, Mrs. L., back in 2003.  During the Great Commotion, I faxed this letter to Mom's trust attorney, hoping to convey to him that there was foundation for my concerns about Mom's mental state.

The trust attorney, Jim Walsh, made the letter available to my brother, who promptly related his knowledge of it to Mom.

 
 

In case you're wondering, P. never repaid the HELOC loan.  Indeed, after making a handful of payments, which were often late, he quit making the monthly payments altogether.  I discovered this when Mom began receiving phone calls from Chevy Chase Bank at Antique Village about the delinquent account.

When Mom's house was finally sold in 2009, after being vacant for 18 months because of the obstruction of a certain party, Mom was required to pay off the HELOC from the proceeds of the sale.

I've tried not to interject my thoughts and feelings about the documents, except for the occasional exclamation point, I've included here, just to present the evidence, as it were.

This is because I am most curious to learn what you readers perceive about P. as you read them.

More, lots more, later.

An Explanation . . . and a PSA

I realize that my last post may have seemed alarming, maybe overly-dramatic, to you lovely readers who commented.  I truly appreciate the understanding and support I receive from you.  Yes, I do.

Anyone who has had to care for an elderly parent knows the sense of absolute impotence generated by the knowledge that, at some point, there is literally nothing more you can do to ensure continued good health . . . continued life.  The realization that the end of life for that aged, loved one is exponentially nearer every day is such a hard thing to acknowledge, isn't it?

In my mother, I've seen a dramatic decline in the last six months.  Aside from her cognitive/memory issues, she's a person who's always enjoyed pretty robust physical health.  This is no longer the case, and urgent doctor visits and trips to the ER have become the norm.  While she's still upright, so to speak, her gait is so extremely slow these days that ambulation down a hallway, out a door and into a car must be accounted for in a schedule.

We've been to recently, or will be going to soon, a gastroenterologist, an endocrinologist, a dentist, an orthopedic specialist, an eye doctor and a neuropsychiatrist.

Thus, the sadness, exhaustion and frustration mentioned previously.

I wish I had siblings, like Miz S does, to help shoulder the burden.

In fact, I do have a brother, P., who lives just 15 miles from Mom, but he hasn't been to see her in about 18 months now.  As for shouldering the burden, P. has, instead, quadrupled it.

Here's a little history.

During Dad's final months in 2005, when he was at a nursing home, and after his death in early 2006, P. asked Mom, who was then living alone at home (but abusing alcohol and very confused), to loan him some money on three or four occasions for a variety of reasons.  She readily made the loans to P., but never received repayment.  This distressed her greatly, and she would often complain that P. never paid her back any of the money she loaned to him.

I wasn't overly concerned because the loans were not too significant, maybe totaling $3,000 or $4,000.  Still, when Mom complained about it, I would just tell her not to loan any more money until the previous loans were repaid.  Over and over, again, however, P. continued to extract these loans from Mom.  And Mom has never seemed able to put her foot down where P. was concerned.

In 2005, P. had purchased an expensive property in Howard County, Maryland, for $680,000 (according to public tax records).  I believe the loan stipulated small mortgage payments initially, but ballooning substantially after a few years.  A typical arrangement for the time . . . and part of the housing bubble/unsecured mortgages fiasco which caused us all a heap of hurt, whether we were involved in these shady deals or not.

By the way, P. is an electrician by trade, earning enough for a comfortable, middle-class living, I'm guessing, but not enough to meet a long-term mortgage obligation on the Howard County property.

Anyway, back to my story.

After Dad's death in 2006, Mom stayed in their home.  She continued to have problems with her memory and with abusing alcohol, but I convinced her to keep the aide we had hired when Dad was living at home.  I also enrolled her in the Antique Village day program for seniors two or three days a week.  So, we muddled through for a time, with the occasional big bump.

One of those bumps occurred when Mom's checking account became so flush, after Dad's insurance benefits were paid, that she started receiving phone calls from Chevy Chase Bank (and I am naming them because they were NOT AT ALL elder-friendly) about investing that money.  (Chevy Chase Bank was bought out by Capital One Bank earlier this year.)

Mom went to the Olney branch on Georgia Avenue and was bamboozled into buying municipal bonds with a high load up front.  She paid several thousand dollars in fees/commissions right off the bat, which decreased her investment of $40,000 immediately by that much.  Given that she was 82-83 years old at the time, the chances that she would re-earn even those fees/commissions during her lifetime were pretty slim.  But, that's all academic because . . .

A short time afterward, she called me one evening, very flustered, and asked me if I knew what she had done with the SAVINGS BONDS she had purchased for her two grandchildren.  Flabbergasted, I told her that I didn't know anything about any savings bonds or her recent adventure at the bank.  I told her that I would take her to the bank to find out what happened.

At the next opportunity, we went together to Chevy Chase Bank, where it became apparent that Mom had, indeed, been to the bank, signed documents and invested her money in those municipal bonds, without understanding AT ALL what she was doing!

(Here is a textbook example of why it is so important to have a person with suspected dementia seen, tested and diagnosed at the earliest possible moment.  Mom had consistently refused to investigate her memory problems, since I became aware of them in 2003, until her family doctor "prescribed" an assessment.  I wish I had pushed harder earlier on because, by the time she went in late 2007, the damage was done, in more ways than one.)

While it was somewhat costly to "reverse" this investment, I encouraged Mom to do so on principle, because the bank clearly took advantage of a confused, elderly person.  But this was not the end of my dealings with Chevy Chase Bank!

During the summer of 2007, Mom told me on the phone one night that she was going to make a loan to P., again, and that she needed to pull some paperwork together in order to do so.  Things like the deed on her home, for example.  Around the same time, I learned from two different people well known to Mom that P. had been at her house almost daily and that she had cancelled many of her routinely-scheduled obligations to go places with him.

RED FLAG!

I discovered that P. had taken Mom to Chevy Chase Bank and gotten the ball rolling on a home equity line of credit (HELOC) against Mom's unencumbered-for-decades home!  On the phone, I asked Mom what the loan amount was.  She told me $2,000.  I asked her why she needed the deed to her home to make a $2,000 loan.  Why not just write a check?  She couldn't answer me.

I then called P. and asked him what was going on with the bank and why Mom needed the deed to her home, etc., and was told that Mom was taking out a HELOC in the amount of $42,000 to be used by P. to pay for expenses to subdivide the Howard County property.

When I expressed my concern that Mom's cognitive issues made it extremely unwise for her to sign any legal documents whatsoever, I was told to mind my own business and that this was between Mom and P.

RED FLAG!

Over the next week or so, I tried to speak to both P. and Mom about coming up with another way to help P. with his needs, but he was dead set on the HELOC, promising to make the monthly payments and repay the loan in its entirety within a year.  My mother was unable to pull the needed documents together, and I refused to help because I believed she was being taken advantage of by P., after his response to me when I conveyed my concern about Mom signing legally-binding documents (like the municipal bond investment, for example).

I was worn down eventually by my mother's weeping and her desire to help P., so I relented and amassed the needed documents, but drew the line at taking Mom to the bank when asked by P. to do so (can you imagine the gall?) to complete the process for him.

Just a day or two after, I learned that P. had taken Mom to my parents' trust attorney (later described by my attorney as some guy who operated a "trust mill") and added P. as a co-trustee on my parents' revocable trust.  (This trust business is very complicated, and I will write later about how my parents designed their trust and the ensuing complications.)

RED FLAG!

As the HELOC and co-trustee events were unfolding, I planned a visit to Olney to see Mom, but when I called her, she told me not to come because she didn't feel well.  I called again, a day later, and was, again, told not to come.  This occurred over a Saturday and a Sunday.  On Monday, I called and told her that I was coming up to check on her and that if she didn't want me to stay, I would leave.  This was all very unusual, as it was my practice to spend some days/nights each week at Mom's, cooking, cleaning, running errands, etc.

When I arrived on Monday, I found Mom sitting in a chair, dressed, with her purse by her side, ready to go out.  I asked her where she was going, and she told me that P. was picking her up to take her to the lawyer's office.  I asked her why she was going to the (trust) lawyer, but she couldn't tell me.  I told her that I would stay and tag along to find out what it was all about.

We waited and waited, but P. never showed up.  Finally, I asked Mom to call P. to find out when he would be coming.  He told her that the appointment was not until the next day.  I took the phone from her and asked P. why he was taking Mom to the trust attorney.

He told me that he was taking Mom to the lawyer for her to alter our parents' will in order to include his two children.  Apparently, all this was arranged when P. had taken her earlier to be appointed as a co-trustee, and they were going the next day to sign the altered will.  When I asked P. why he was doing that, he said that he had talked to a lot of "businessmen" about it, and they told him that that's how "things" are done now.

RED FLAG!

So, there was now a done-deal, hefty HELOC against my mother's home for P.'s personal benefit, an anyone-can-operate-independently trusteeship for P., giving him full access and authority over all of my mother's assets, P.'s attempted (and I say attempted, because it was at this point that I secured representation to petition the court for a guardianship for my mother) alteration of my parents' wishes as expressed in their will and, at the center of it all, an elderly, cognitively-compromised, recently-widowed, alcohol-abusing mother.

Upon learning of the imminent alteration to my parents' will, I gathered Mom, her dog, Cindy, and a suitcase, loaded them into my car and took them to my place in Calvert County.  It was clear to me that Mom couldn't be left alone.  After a few days, we returned to Olney so that I could take Mom to a previously-scheduled appointment with her family doctor.  I typed a statement about what had been occurring over the past few months and planned on discussing the matter with Mom's doctor at that appointment.

Imagine my surprise when I learned at the appointment that P. had taken Mom to her doctor just the week before (after I had expressed my concern to the trust lawyer about Mom's cognitive deficits)!

Doctor:  Do you remember being here to see me last week with your son?

Mom:  No.

Doctor:  Do you remember what you told me?

Mom:  No.

Doctor:  Well, you told me that your daughter was trying to have you declared crazy and put in an institution.

Mom:  I did?

Mom's doctor wrote a "prescription" for Mom to have a neuropsychiatric evaluation and called the trust attorney, and followed-up with a written notice, that Mom was not to sign any legal documents until an assessment could be completed.  Nothing could be done about the HELOC or the appointment of P.'s trusteeship, but any alteration to our parents' will was put on hold.

Learning that P. was cruelly trying to frighten Mom with false allegations of institutionalization opened my eyes to exactly what I was dealing with.  I came to see my brother, just then, as a villain of Shakespearean proportions.  I discovered written materials at Mom's house--notes, emails, admonitions, threats and false allegations--which fully support the sense I now have of his character.

Throughout the development of these events, I called Chevy Chase Bank to express my concern about the HELOC, I called the trust attorney to express my concern about P.'s trusteeship as it related to the safety of my mother's assets, I called various organizations and associations concerned with Elder Law and I called a close friend to get references for an attorney to help me put a stop to what I strongly felt to be a threat to my mother's financial security.

I was told that there was nothing I could do unless my mother was assessed and deemed incapacitated.

The ensuing legal battle and the absolute destruction of our family at the hands of my brother defined, and continues to define, my state of mind to the present day.

Thus, the anger and bitterness mentioned in my previous post.

I'll continue to write about how things unfolded in this case, because all this was just the beginning.  While I don't have any kids and, so, don't have to worry about most of these issues, some of you might benefit from my experience when considering your own plans regarding your parents and/or your children.

Financial elder abuse is a huge, and growing, problem.

And most of the abusers are family members--adult children or grandchildren.

So, plan wisely and well, taking steps to ensure your own financial safety and security first and foremost.