Revocable living trust, power of attorney, not being executed properly.

[Gab.gurl39]

Missouri. I live in Carthage, MO. My parents set up a revocable living trust many years ago. Healthcare Power of Attorney, advanced directive, and Power of Attorney were included in the binder with the revocable living trust, everything was clearly spelled out as to avoid any confusion because my Dad knew when time came grief would be overwhelming. My father, mother, brother and myself were the beneficiaries or executors not sure I am using correct terminology. In August of 2011, my father passed away, my mom then became the executor, sadly by fall of 2012 my brother moved my mom to Arizona and spent everything my mom had been left by my dad, mom just kept giving him money, allowing him access to bank accounts, all that left to this date is the family home, durig this time my mom began having mental health issues since then had been in and out of geriatric psyche units, and has been in several assisted living facilities 5 if them since early 2013. In January of 2013 my brother cimnitted suicide. I got heath care Power of attorney and Power of Attorney for everything else. The revocable living trust states that any of the people listed as beneficiaries or executors again sorry if my terminology is in correct may reside in the family own. Since my brother had spent all my mom had wr decided to move into family home, pay my mom rent to help out with her expenses assisted living is not cheap, we were already covering a lot of her expenses the trust also stated we could borrow against the house, we thought that would ve the best way to replenish the money my brother had taken from mom, with our rent payments and funds from home equity loan we could start to rebuild abs replenish what she had lost. We began moving into the family home. Day before Thanksgiving 2014 we arrive at family home, locks had been changed, ny aunt (Mom's sister) was there, she told us the state was taking house to cover my moms assisted living rent. And she would now be managing my mom's affairs and that my mom agreed. We were very confused, and shocked because Moms assisted living expenses were being covered each month via her social security, my dad's pension , VA benefits and everything else including her medical bills including medications were paid with her health insurance, and my husband and I paid the rest of her expenses out of our pockets, no money was owed, it was right thing to do, my parents took care of me so taking care of them is just what we do. Now my dads pension payments from his federal government retirement are screwed up. Anyways my aunt immediately took possession of the family home, moved herself in, and is now renting family home ti someone else while she is vacationing/traveling. My aunt has recently been contacting me in regards to issue with my dad's pension payments to my Mom
My aunt informed me she had been calling the federal employees retirement system pretending to be my mother in an attempt to i straighten this fiasco out. My aunt has never seen or read the revocable living trust, and apparently does not have Power pf Attorney if she was pretending to be my mom, when I was managing moms medical and finances, when necessary or required I presented the Power of Attorney. I have had Power of Attorney since early 2013 as my mom is not able to manage her own affairs due to her diminished mental capacity. I am sure this post is very long, and confusing to say the least. My aunt pretending to be my mom when calling in regards to the problems with dad's pension tells me she did not get or does not have any sort of Power of Attorney, impersonation is against the law correct? How do we go about enforcing the revocable living trust, such as removing aunt and now her renters from the family home and everything else included in the trust ? As I stated earlier in this post my aunt has never seen or read the revocable family trust, I know the advice will be to hire an attorney which we would like to do but unfortunately helping my mom out takes any disposable income we may have. What is first steps we should take? Where do we go from here? I apologize sincerely if my post sounds like I am some sort of uneducated idiot. Thanks for any advice, help and patience it is so greatly appreciated.

 

[tranquility]

There's a lot to unpack there and it might be easier to break out a couple of things. But, realistically, with our ability to re-read your first with context, what is your main concern?

 

[OHRoadwarrior]

As you had a power of attorney, failed to exercise your duties and now have a relative apparently misusing moms assets, I suggest you contact a lawyer familiar with trusts and have them clean up your mess.

 

[Dandy Don]

If you have the revocable trust, then the trust spelled out exactly who was to be the trustee and the successor trustee, etc. but you apparently did not understand the document enough to know what to do. Does the trust document name the brother as trustee? If it does name his as trustee, then he was right to assume financial responsibility to help take care of her--if he was not named as trustee, then you and the other beneficiaries should have consulted with an attorney after your mother died to get the trust enforced. if brother was not named as trustee, he may have even committed elderly financial abuse but it's too late to recover anything from that. Do you even know what you were supposed to receive from the trust as a beneficiary? Was your brother named as a beneficiary in the trust or was there no one named as beneficiaries in the trust at all?

Your power of attorney expired at the same time that the death occurred, but it's too bad that no one told you that.

Your aunt continued the mess by trying to control assets that she had no legal right to control. Right now, about all you can do is to report her misrepresentation/identity theft to the federal employees retirement system and see how they handle that matter--whether or not they will go after her to recover the funds she improperly and illegally got.

You need to be talking to/interviewing with at least one or more trust attorneys to get advice about how you should proceed--the first consultation is usually free or very inexpensive and should be affordable for you. If you explain in the meeting that you are at poverty level (do NOT mention that when you are calling to set up your first appointment), you might find an attorney willing to take your case and delay getting paid until some future date, if the house has any value at all.
Your attorney will need to review the trust document to figure out what should be happening and get information from you about what HAS ALREADY happened. At some point you are going to pay a few hundred dollars to get aunt and the renters evicted from the home.

The only good news in this that I see for you is that if you and your attorney take the proper steps to gain and/or transfer title to the home, you will probably be able to decide whether you want to live there or sell it.