I had POA for mom with Parkinsons and dad with cancer. Dad cared for mom 24/7 here with help 6 days a week (me, one of them). I work more than 40 hours a week at a job, and have kids k-12. My sibling moved my parents out of state to live in his home where his wife would care for them. step-dad changed his POA and my mother's (although she is not competent). Then, shortly thereafter, my step-dad moved them out to an apt to live independently (something the social workers said they/he could not manage here any more). My brother let them go. Now my dad is blind in one eye and going blind in the other and on oxygen, and still mostly caring for my mother who requires care 24/7. I haven't seen them - all information is from my dad as my brother refuses to speak to me. I was against him moving them - but agreed that it was better for them to be cared for by family than in an assisted living situation with strangers. My "against" stance was b/c he and my dad refused to talk about any of the details - any...medical, financial, care now and when things get much worse. I had been completely open with all of my siblings (step and bio) when I was in charge of their care. Now, I get no information except what dad communicates. Mom is incapable of talking on the phone, or even in person it's difficult. I am not sure what to do.... 1) Should I fight to bring my mother back here and put her in assisted living? [My brother is very good at legal issues and probably will turn my life upside down for me to do this, even though he does not have POA to my knowledge, step-dad put it in his name - but mom wasn't competent when he did that.] 2) My sibling doesn't have a legal responsibility to care for our mother - I don't think. So, if step-dad passes away first, I would never know and maybe my brother won't look after her. I don't know. I have no information about any of their affairs. 3) Should I notify someone about my dad's declining vision with respect to driving? He drives Mom everywhere - to doc appts, etc. It has to be unsafe for him, Mom, and others...but without driving, who would do it for them? 4) other advice is welcomed. BTW - when they were here, it taxed us financially (as they would give no funds to assist with their care - they only live on minimal funds as it is) and emotionally (every decision, every everything fell on me even though I work more than 40 hours a week and have kids. I did, however, communicate with all members of the family on both sides - bio and step. Nothing comes to me now, except what step-dad chooses to communicate.) Advice?
If your mother is not competent and you have data to back that up, like a statement from a doctor, then what your step-dad did was not legal regardless of one's competency. A person can only change their own POA, not some other person's.
BTW, my step-dad resents me having both POA's over my mother. My step-brother as well as other step-siblings will not talk with me about their dad's health and future care needs which they must have their heads in the sand about.
My mother's sister has not been any help plus she has only visited my mother once since she fell and broke her hip a year ago and her brother never came to see her in the nursing home because it would be too depressing. Well, he's now depressed 6 feet under ground, but he did travel all around the country to see his grandchildren. Also, my mother's sister has been on vacation with her three boys and their children, visited her brother in his final days with liver cancer and attended the funeral, but nope still has yet to see my mother. Oh, but when it looked like mom was going to die, she asked mom for her half of their mom's china which was something they had talked about but is not written in the will and my mother had never mentioned to me when she was of sound mind. Yet, her sister did not see it as her place to tell me that my mother had not been paying taxes since 2004 until I discovered it in 2008. Not her place? give me a break, but oh have a chance to get part of an inheritance in which she is not even mentioned, zoom she flies down like a vulture ripping off the dying. It is so tempting to write her and say "you got that china under the duress of mom's expected death which did not happen, well then, that's your Christmas present from her estate in whose will your name does not appear, "Merry Christmas" However, that would be cruel.
There are some family secrets that I know about her as a single parent and her boys that would make the rest of her life look like she was a saint.
In my opinion, if your step-dad revoked the earlier POAs over himself and declared himself as his own POA, then that could be used as evidence of incompetence because he was conducting his business in an nonbusiness like manner.
I wish you well.