CA PoA blocked the date petition is filed for temporary conservator?

[tingtong]

California
I had Power of Attorney financial for Mom. Mom could no longer remain in her home due to her dementia. Mom moved in with a sister. I contacted a realtor and arranged for the sale of Mom's home with it clearly stated the proceeds would go to Mom's savings account to help pay for her needs. Sister knew about the plan. The realtor found a buyer and requested Mom's signature on escrow documents. My sister would not respond to the request to help with getting Mom to sign the documents.

Sister filed a petition for temporary conservator for Mom. On the same date of filing the petition with the court an attorney prevented the sale of the by contacting the realtor saying I did not have the legal right to sell the property.

Sister was not yet Conservator. This was just the initial petition.

On filing the initial petition did sister and her attorney have the right to block the sale?

Were they in some way granted powers by the court on the date of filing?

 

[Edgar 1776]

The Attorney has no legal Authority to order anyone to do anything. With that being said, the realtor did the wise thing by not selling the home until after the court decides who has what authority over your mom and her estate.

 

[LdiJ]

California
I had Power of Attorney financial for Mom. Mom could no longer remain in her home due to her dementia. Mom moved in with a sister. I contacted a realtor and arranged for the sale of Mom's home with it clearly stated the proceeds would go to Mom's savings account to help pay for her needs. Sister knew about the plan. The realtor found a buyer and requested Mom's signature on escrow documents. My sister would not respond to the request to help with getting Mom to sign the documents.

Sister filed a petition for temporary conservator for Mom. On the same date of filing the petition with the court an attorney prevented the sale of the by contacting the realtor saying I did not have the legal right to sell the property.

Sister was not yet Conservator. This was just the initial petition.

On filing the initial petition did sister and her attorney have the right to block the sale?

Were they in some way granted powers by the court on the date of filing?

You shouldn't have needed your mom's signature to sell the house since you have the POA, but that is water under the bridge now. I do agree that the realtor was probably wise to put things on hold at this point.

 

[Dandy Don]

Was your POA obtained from your mother BEFORE she was diagnosed with dementia or AFTER?

Do you have a will from your mother that shows who she wanted the home to go to?

You should have a talk with a local family law attorney or business law attorney who can advise you about what powers you DO have as a POA and what you CAN NOT do as a POA.

 

[LdiJ]

Was your POA obtained from your mother BEFORE she was diagnosed with dementia or AFTER?

Do you have a will from your mother that shows who she wanted the home to go to?

You should have a talk with a local family law attorney or business law attorney who can advise you about what powers you DO have as a POA and what you CAN NOT do as a POA.

Its really a moot point since the sister is applying for temporary conservatorship of mom. I suspect that the judge will make either the OP or his/her sister the conservator and therefore the POA will no longer matter.

 

[tingtong]

Thanks for the replies.

Mom is dead already. The home title is in a Trust which is why, and this is me just guessing, the title company would require the signature of the trustee, Mom. Therefore my Power of Attorney would not work.

Once sister got conservatorship and attempted to sell the house herself she discovered it wasn't going to be so easy. The trustee, Mom, was no longer considered mentally competent to sign. The house title is in a Trust that sister and attorney apparently did not have a copy of. It seems no one thought they should ask me about the Trust which I do have a copy of. By then I had already distanced myself from the entire situation out of frustration once the attorney contacted the realtor and sister ultimately got conservatorship. I had no communication with sister although she and the courts had my address.

Coincidentally I am the alternate trustee for Mom's Trust. So I guess I could have signed the necessary papers to satisfy the title company once Mom was declared mentally incompetent. But no one thought to contact me?

In the meantime, thanks to sister's attorney claiming I did not have the legal right to sell the property effectively stopping the sale, Mom's estate has incurred large attorney fees trying to sell the home and the bills associated with maintaining the property taxes etc. There is buyer that's been waiting a long time but things move slowly in the courts.

I don't think that Mom's estate should be responsible for paying all the excess costs due to sister's carelessness and that of her attorney.

That is why I asked my original questions. Rephrased here.

At what point did my sister and her attorney have the right to intimidate the realtor to back down from doing the sale?

On initial petition for conservatorship was sister granted some powers automatically?

 

[Edgar 1776]

You are asking this question from a position of anger, which is very common in estate issues between siblings.
From your sister's point of view, her attorney calling the realtor is reasonable under the circumstances. There was no emergency to sale the house, and now the assets can be sold and distributed according to the Trust. Sorry for the loss of your mom, and if you are now the Trustee, you have obligations to complete.

 

[tingtong]

You are asking this question from a position of anger, which is very common in estate issues between siblings.
From your sister's point of view, her attorney calling the realtor is reasonable under the circumstances. There was no emergency to sale the house, and now the assets can be sold and distributed according to the Trust. Sorry for the loss of your mom, and if you are now the Trustee, you have obligations to complete.

Thanks for your reply and kind words.

Anger has long passed. I think now I'm more in a state of disbelief by the bumbling of the affairs by sister and attorney.

While it may not have been an emergency to sell Mom's home her savings and income were so low a sale would ultimately be needed to care for her and she was not going to return to her home.

Once sister became Conservator she attempted to proceed with the sale, same buyer arranged by the same realtor who I had hired to list the house.

Now a few years later the house is still not sold because of title issues mentioned above and continues to accumulate attorney fees along with the other bills prop taxes etc. 10s of thousands of dollars of Mom's estate lost because of that fateful phone conversation sister's attorney had with the realtor.

Which brings us back to my original question:
On the same day sister petitioned the courts for conservatorship did that attorney have any legal right, based on the petition, to make the claim to the realtor that I had no legal right to list/sell Mom's property?

Edgar, you replied in a post above: "The Attorney has no legal Authority to order anyone to do anything."

Wouldn't that imply the actions of the lawyer, who had no legal Authority, were illegal by attempting to intimidate the realtor into stopping the sale?

The Conservatorship has not yet ended, partly because of the house and sister needs the courts to sign off on her accounting and other issues which really are an even bigger part of the story but I will not go into those details here.

None of the attorney fees have been paid, they are waiting on the sale of the house.

An argument could be made that most of those accumulated attorney fees are unjust if they did not have the legal right to contact the realtor in the first place.