C
cherican Asked December 2013
Where do I begin the process of obtaining guardianship of a parent?
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My mother died over a year ago. I'm the main caretaker of my father who has seirzures, and a stroke, with many other disabilities. He thinks he can live on his own, and has become increasingly combative and irrational. he went home to stay with my sister for the holidays and is supose to return Jan 3. He's refusing to come back, and says he's going to evict the people renting his home, and getting a reverse mortgage. I have durable power of attorney for him, and three letters from his doctors stating he is unable to safely live by himself and needs daily supervision.
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Moxie1 Dec 2013
If you have POA plus the 3 letters from doctors, in most states you can force your father to move into a facility without being his guardian. If it were me, I'd go ahead and make arrangements for him to move to a facility upon his return. I wouldn't take him back to his home at all.
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pamstegma Dec 2013
I would pursue full guardianship. Talk to your attorney, there are too many pitfalls with just a POA.
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Moxie1 Dec 2013
If you are going to pursue guardianship, it typically costs around $10,000. You would start the process by hiring an eldercare attorney. BEFORE you do that, do some research on the internet in regards to the possible outcomes in your area. Where I live, if you pursue guardianship, this usually results in your parents being placed with a guardian appointed by the court rather than you - even if you have no past legal issues, no abuse and are financially stable/well off, so that there is really no reason for a court appointed guardian. This means you have no control of where your parents are placed or their assets and you have to trust a court-appointed stranger, who is paid from your parents assets to make all the decisions without your input. There are people in my area whose parents were placed at a facility over an hour away from their homes when the children would have placed their parent in a luxury facility nearby. To me, that is an unacceptable risk to take and I was advised by my attorney to avoid pursuing guardianship. He further said that medical and financial POA is enough in most cases. Where you could run into an issue with only POA is if you have siblings or other family members who decide they want to be POA and persuade your father to change POA's. But things may be quite different where you live in regards to guardianship. Check with an attorney before you decide what to do and read up on guardianship in your area. If you come across news articles about problems with guardianship in your local court system, similar to what we have here, you probably don't want to pursue guardianship.
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terrync Dec 2013
I would like to ask anyone who can help me with helping control who gets POA if there is two siblings but do not agree on where the parent should live,the doctors say she must ether have someone to live and take care of her or she should stay with a sibling,but the problem is the sibling who wants control is only because of the parents pention not her well being,who controls who gets the final say? Is there any way to make sure both siblings have a say? Or is it the first to get the POA?And dose the parent have any say in the matter? Are the living condition checked first? Will there be someone to make sure the parent is being cared for properly?
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