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See an attorney!
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If your POA is Durable and dated prior to her date of incapacity, the bank must acknowledge your POA. I had my mother sign a Durable POA that specifically stated my duties as to get handling her finances and even the mail. Medicare and social security accepted the POA but the VA wouldn't. I had to apply for fiduciary responsibility over my mother and her finances pertaining to the VA. When she did pass, social security notified the bank before I could and the bank closed the account.and sent the money requested from the Treasury Department and I found out when I tried to sign into the account. I flipped my lid. However, when your mom dies, so does the POA. Unless you are the executor or administrative person on her will, you are out of luck.
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That answer is to easy, see an attorney. We at least I am trying to reasonably respond on short cuts that caregivers can take to avoid legal expense which is not cheap.
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Further to my responses bank managers have bosses in local zone offices. If that manager is playing hardball go above his head. Community Banks have Board of Directors go fight with them on the issue.
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What this question highlights is the need to have all legal documents deposited in the public record (look it up how to do online or call an attorney) with the dept of records early on in the process. A simple process that an elder law attorney can help with.
Any attorney worth his/her salt will do a phone consult without $$ if the conversation is short and to the point. Call your local Bar Association for names of such lawyers.
Make certain the POA is in the medical records of your doctor's office.Take it to an appointment and have staff make a copy and then ask to have it in the record. You might need to call the medical records dept. in the next few days to be certain that it has been done. Follow up is important.
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If your mother signed a DURABLE power of attorney when she was capable, and her signature was notarized at the time, the "durability" means that it continues to be effective even when she has lost the capacity to sign documents. IF this is the case, suggest that the bank clerk send the document to THEIR legal department for review. Many times tellers are just following their instruction book which says, "Give Form 7 to customer for signature." You should not have to hire an attorney to make the bank follow the law.
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For the record, my mom's bank had all of the documents and still refused to acknowledge the POA. The hospital, yes; the bank, no.
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thankfully I didn't have that problem, all I had to do was supply the bank with a copy of the POA (twice) because some dummy either forgot to log them into their computer, but I told them I was only providing it one last time. I would have my mother close out their account (my dad in NH) but my fathers SS goes into that account and the only way to have that changed is to have my dad sign a paper and he is NOT capable of doing that. so until his time has come to pass, then I will provide a copy of death cert and have closed out. good luck
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My mothers SS# was stolen and used to file taxes with which generated a refund for the thief. The IRS realized that they paid out a refund the garnished my mothers SS check. I worked with the IRS identity fraud office, faxed POA paperwork allowing them to clear up the problem. Now they tell me that My mother has to file to back tax paperwork that I was told by the IRS was not needed to be filed for the year 2013 and to fill out a form 2848 along with proof that I am her POA. I need them to see that I am the POA n order to ask for an extension to file. They already have the information, I faxed it in Oct. with the IRS person waiting by the fax machine to receive it. That was how the fraud problem was cleared up! I am my mothers SS payee a different set of hoops to jump through, I am my mothers Fiduciary for the VA a different set of hoops again, and POA and medical POA for doctors and hospitals. So this afternoon I will wait on the phone in the cue for hopefully only an hour or so until I can get my husband on the other line to fax the paperwork while I am on the phone with the IRS person! They don't make it easy!
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This financial situation happens more frequent than most people are aware. I must say I agree with parts of each answer so far. What the State Laws require may have a great deal to resolve this matter.

When you are first looking at a POA (for financial purposes) make sure your lawyer is totally aware of the laws in your state.

Please be sure your POA is for financial and not health purposes. This also happens a large portion of the time, a POA for health care and the custodian unaware of the limitations of this POA.

Most importantly, if the person is receiving any state or federal financial aid (most are), there is another card you can play. You can ask for legal help from these players.

Be sure that all next of kin are in agreement regarding you having this information. Thus. there is a untied front which means a lot to the financial institution.

This gives you some information which may help. And you can always go to www.justiceinaging.com for more direct help. This a federal network representing low income seniors. There are lawyers with this group and they can help in most every state, as there is a representative within each state bringing information to them.

I hope this will help.
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A DPOA is a notarized document that must be signed by the elder in front of the notary public, where the elder presents a valid photo ID.
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From reading the answers here, it varies from state to state apparently on whether or not a DPOA has to be filed. In Michigan it does not. Whenever I have a meeting with anyone concerning my folks finances, I take copies of the DPOA with me to give to whomever I am seeing. I do NOT give them the original, which I have with me and they can see. I had an experience with one bank where they did not want to return the original to me. So I would strongly recommend that you not give the original to anyone so they can make a copy.
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The old Government runaround, I am experiencing the same thing with the Veterans Administration been waiting 2 years for a pension decision. Wonder why peoples programs are not expedited by these agencies and have caused some of our members such heartburn. Anyway good advice from all and we do appreciate the guidance of many.
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re the VA, yes, they will only accept their own POA; I had to get the form from them and again, have my cousin's help to get my dad to sign it, since by then he didn't have a clue - though not sure he really would have ever had; he just didn't understand all these forms; way before then we ran into that with the means test form that they'd somehow duplicated/doubled/doubling his income somehow but that was separate from the fiduciary responsibility over his pension/Aid & Attendance for paying his grandson to be his caregiver, which has led to some issues since his passing, but which came after the doctor he had in the hospital did draw up a letter stating he was incapable that I took to the VA to have put in his medical records, though sometimes I wonder why, since it just led to that. but, rich, sure don't understand SS notifying your bank and certainly don't understand bank closing the account; of course I don't your dates; dad had already gotten his check for the month he passed, which I learned later is considered retroactive so was really for the month before so no problem with that one and then was early enough that I think they then just didn't send the next one and he had more than that in his account too is maybe why they couldn't just close it, more than the check to be sent back, but can I ask then why you were trying to sign into his account anyway, if that was the case? I did have issues with the grandson as caregiver that I did end up using the funds dad did have in his account - forgetting about a withdrawal I'd made earlier to pay the clergy for his funeral - or at least give them their donation - they really didn't actually charge at all, it wasn't even a suggested donation, there was no mention of money by them at all, now the funeral home brought it up - maybe that should be part of pre-pay plans as well. I'm also so glad someone had the bank caught his other, not checking, account after I'd had the POA filed and made it POD, payable on death, so I could still access it immediately after he died, even though I was executor, because that would still have taken some time
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The bank must accept the POA. Ask to speak to the manager and keep going up until you get someone who knows the law. Guardianship is $5000-$10,000. The benefit to getting POAs and health care proxies while the person is still competent is that you don't have to waste your time (A LOT OF TIME) and money on guardianship.

As for being "prosecuted" for forgery, in order for that to happen, someone would have to care and bring it to the attention of the authorities. Not likely to happen in our busy world.
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Banks do no have to except poa infact there is no law that anyone has to except poa, you need to look into the difference between the diff poa, a dupoa is the highest, do your reaearch
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As funny footnote to this story, about 18 months after I had my name put on the accounts, I called the bank (far away) to have a very large sum transferred from the savings to the checking account. I was inquiring about the correct papers and what I needed to have signed and mailed in. I was trying to prove who I was, etc.

The cheerful young woman on the phone said, "Oh, that is not necessary. I can do it right now." And, ba-da-boom. She did it. Transferred $10K from one account to the other.

So, I guess luck plays a role in all of this. Ah, if only it were all so easy.
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My elder law attorney told me that banks have to abide by the POA. The POA is a properly executed legal document. It is not optional. As far as "different POAs" are concerned, there are 2: Durable POA, which is in affect immediately, and Springing POA, which comes into affect once the person is incapacitated. It makes sense that if you have "springing POA," you should have to prove that the person is incapacitated, so that the bank can properly abide by the letter of that document, which basically is "only accept if person is incapacitated." That does not sound like the case here. It sounds like a bad case of ignorance. That's why I recommended going up the ladder to some one who knows the rules. Often, the transactional people don't. This is also what my elder law attorney suggested if someone at first rejects your POA. That being said, there are new (past 5 yrs) standards for POAs. They need to detail all the powers, for example, "bank accounts, real estate, safe deposit boxes," etc. line by line. I would also call the corporate office of this bank and let them know what happened. One of the higher ups will call the bank manager and make sure he/she understands that the bank must comply with all properly executed legal documents.
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Bof A would not let me open a joint account because he wasn't present because he was bedridden. So the account was put in my name only per he request. Now BofA closed the account.
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are you talking about your uncle?
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The hospice social worker or RN can initiate this. Regardless, unless the patient died immediately, the MD should have been out to visit within the first week on the program and usually within 24 hours. You can also ask whoever certified the patient as terminal (takes two doctors) or the primary, or the referring MD if they are familiar with the patient and have recently seen them.
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Info update on POA. PLEASE CHECK IF THIS IS YOU. I had a little bit of a surprise this week - well a lot of surprises but this one is important to you peeps. I know many of you have joint accounts and many bank staff think that if you have a joint account (not husband and wife in this instance - that in the UK comes under a different set of rules) you don't need a POA. In fact of the three banks I had the pleasure (?) of visiting not one of the staff had a clue about the implications of a POA and why you DO need one even if you have a joint account.

Everything will run positively smoothly (well maybe) UNTIL you want to do something like change an address. SAY WHAAAAAT? Yep I rang to change Mums address - now bear in mind I HAD registered the POA with the banks 15 months back and had extreme difficulty doing so (I took the appropriate docs down twice and still had to go a third time because they lost them!)

Well it turns out that the branch staff don't realise that you NEED and MUST have the POA to make alterations on the account so they just shredded the document (close your mouths people!!!!!yes I was aghast and open mouthed too). I can draw all the money out but I can't change an address - MADNESS but thats the UK law on joint accounts so make sure even if you are in a joint account that your POA is registered to cover that too
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oh Jude, I am just shaking my head. Scary!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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why are you trying to change the address?
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Because we are moving debs to a one floor apartment so I can manage Mum xx
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can't you just then file a change of address form at the post office?
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In the UK we would only do that to have post redirected. To actually change the address on the bank file you have to have POA for (in my case) Mum in the UK. It is a royal pain in the butt but hey ho it has to be done
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In the USA.. I have just gone in online and changed it or changed the way I get the statements. Now just get emailed statements. I never had problems with banks. Only getting into my Aunt's safety deposit box. My DPOA papers did not specify I had that particular authority, so I couldn't get in.
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Some states have laws that provide additional assistance. I am in North Carolina, where there is a law that says that if a bank or other institution is concerned about a POA that is valid on its face, it may request n affidavit saying that the person presenting the document is the person named, that the person signing the POA is still living, and that the POA has not bee revoked. That affidavit provides the protection the bank wants/needs. If it still refuses the document, it can be charged with the costs of enforcing the POA. I have been able to send a copy of the highlighted statute and solve similar problems. Good luck to you!
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ALL I want to do is have a DPOA so his sister cannot coax him into sighing his share of the family farm over to her and his one daughter coming here and taking anything she wants. I need something that I can use as a legal stop for these. he has the beginnings od Dementia and 3 agencies told me I should get a DPOA.
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