Can my mom’s POA (my brother) prevent us from getting my mom from AL in FL and taking her into my home?

Beware of judging your brother for how he's chosen to handle your mother with Alzheimer's/dementia. You're hearing a woman with a broken brain crying and begging for you to take her home, not knowing any of the details of how and why she was placed there to begin with. My mother had everyone convinced there was nothing at all wrong with her, with advanced dementia, incontinence, being wheelchair bound and having CHF, etc. It was ME who was the bad guy for "putting" her in a place with crazy people where she "did NOT belong" except yes she did. And I was locking up her dead mother and siblings in the closets, too.

I'm not saying your brother is a saint, but it's quite possible he's acting in MOM'S best interest here. Trying to take care of an elder with dementia at home is not the cakewalk many seem to think it is. It often becomes impossible for even the strongest amongst us.

You have been given good advice about your rights here, or lack of rights. Go visit mom and see for yourself what's going on, but not in one short visit.

Best of luck.

At a minimum someone needs to go to FL to see in person what mom is like and beyond a 20 min scheduled visit.

The rest of the siblings - if all in agreement - have to pick 1 to be their spokesperson and then each put $ to have this one go to FL for a week or so (Comfort Suites level) and then to meet with atty & visit other facilities (if change needed) during that time. Y’all do your attorney research in advance & meet with 2 or 3 during trip down to pick 1.

Guesstimate, $50K cash initially for all this and there will be continued costs for elder law representation. It’s going to be expensive as you’ll need ones that do litigation & they will hire experts to evaluate your mom. The 50 large would be for initial costs…. Like to secure representation and for your week/10 day stay. Imo You want a firm that mentions doing a forensic review on your bro.

Now’s a good time to do this as you can use visiting mom over the Holidays as a reason to come down to FL.

Please reread what ITRR posted as it’s mucho importante. This is why it will be costly. If brother had her ruled incompetent, then a judge would have to look at that ruling and determine if that Guardian (bro) should be removed and replaced by someone new and why it’s better. Your mom is legal resident of FL, I don’t think a judge is going to allow her to move out of State at this point in time. She’d stay under new guardian and then later on they petition for a move to another State under supervision of the Court of your State. And will be legal cost for that in your State to be done.,

So I'm curious. You say that she is in AL., which isn't typically a facility that can handle heavy memory care issues. And you also say that he had an emergency hearing to have her declared incompetent. That is a strong statement. The average invocation of a POA doesn't typically take a hearing. It just takes a doctor or two signing off that a person no longer has capacity to make their own decisions. It just depends on how the POA is written.

Did he have a guardianship hearing for her?

Was he the person she had named as her documented POA? Is there an actual POA somewhere that contests his authority?

Outside of that - I want to caution you. Do you know anything at all about your mother's mental health? If there was ANY legitimacy at all as to how your mother was declared incompetent - I'm guessing that it is possible she has dementia. And if she does - you may be setting yourself up on the wrong side of things here a bit.

My FIL has moderate dementia. Along with a whole list of other comorbidities. Earlier this year we had to make the hard decision to move him to a SNF. He was NOT happy but he agreed to it. We chose a very nice place. But he has not acclimated. Instead he chose to sit in his room and commiserate with his sister on his cell phone every day. Literally EVERY SINGLE DAY. Calling her every day telling her that we abandoned him, that they don't feed him, take care of him, never answer when he pushes his call button, when he screams out for help, that he waits HOURS for help. She falls for every single word of it.

It didn't matter that we told her that he had dementia. It didn't matter that we told her that every call was logged. It didn't matter that we told her about our own surprise visits. Or about hearing things on the phone when he accidentally called us. She only listened to him. And she decided WE weren't doing enough to help him and she decided that she was going to be his avenging angel and started doing things that she thought were helpful.

Spoiler alert: They weren't. Because these things were not happening.

The reality of dementia is that the things they share - they are their reality. But they aren't REALITY. They do believe what they tell you. But they aren't real. And you can't see or know that from a phone call. You can't possibly KNOW that when she is sobbing 1,000 miles away.

It's hard. But if she does have dementia you are going to either have to let your POA brother do his job. OR you are going to have to get in the rental car and get the hotel room and go see for yourself. And no quick little visit for a couple of hours is going to do it. You will have to visit at different times of the day and night, over multiple days to get a good understanding of what is happening. You will have to call and talk to her while you are there, and then also visit to see if you see differences. You will need to take notes of the facility and the way it operates and REALLY understand what it is. And you will need to understand that if you aren't cleared to have information about your mother in their files - they can't tell you anything.

But there is genuinely no good answer here unless you see for yourself what is happening. And you can't go in like a bull in a china shop. You have to do your due diligence and get the full story. If your heartstrings are pulled, you may have blinders on. You need to take them off and take it slow.

The PoA (Power of Attorney) is a document that is drafted by an individual who has presumably CHOSEN a trusted family member/friend to represent their best interests. Do you believe (or not) that your brother has your mother’s “best interests” at heart?

If your mother’s POA was done in Florida, within the laws of the state, you may hopefully be able to get information online about the functioning of the document in that state, and at least get a sense of what a designated PoA may be expected to do.

You are obviously estranged from one another as a family. Does ANY family member have a conversational relationship with your brother?

Some of the anger you may be feeling may be totally well intentioned but at the same time possibly misapplied. Most people are unwilling to enter care even when their own welfare is being compromised by their current lifestyle. Crying jags, loss of appetite, loud outbursts, and even “escape” attempts, terribly upsetting to loving family members, are not unusual.

In some cases (my most recent situation) it is necessary to use what may appear to others as subterfuge when making arrangements to transfer a LO to a setting that can provide a higher level of care. The “….took her out to lunch….” May even be suggested by the residence as the most peaceful way to remove her from her previous setting.

Having your mother “declared incompetent” may have been part of the directives in the POA, and hopefully was done by a competent professional with training in geriatric assessment. There may be a difference in Florida state law between “lucid” and “competent”.

Is anyone in your family willing to attempt to extend the Olive Branch to your brother with the ultimate goal of developing some contact with your mother? Anything is better than nothing.

The best possible situation for people who live in ANY residential care settings is to have plenty of contact with loving and concerned relatives. At this point, I’d try anything legal to provide that for your mother.

BEST of Luck! NO EASY ANSWERS in this one.

Yes, he can.
What you describe isn't uncommon when a person has dementia and no longer has the ability or judgement to care for themselves. Her home and car would be sold to fund her care in the AL. Not unusual at all. Because people with dementia may not recognize that they have dementia, they may need to be moved to a safer level of care by the use of subterfuge, like getting them out of the house for a lunch, and making the move.

Mollymulee/Orangelover/OP - I'm going to also suggest that you seriously consider the ramifications of moving your mother. When we moved my FIL to the SNF in April - one of the first things that Nurse Navigator advised us on was something called location/move disorientation/deterioration.

My FIL had been through a cycle of hospital/rehab/home over the course of about 4 months. Each one of those was considered a move or location change. And then the final change was to the SNF. So basically between 11/30 and 3/30 he had physically been moved or changed his "primary" location a total of 10 times - the last being the move to the SNF. As a result - he was mentally pretty weak and somewhat confused. They say that ANY TIME you move a truly elderly person - particularly one that is in a weakened mental state - you are compounding that weakened mental state and adding to their confusion. ESPECIALLY if you are taking them away from what they are used to and moving them somewhere new.

Even if your mother is unhappy where she is - it IS what she is currently used to. So let's say that you are able to move her - long shot - but let's just say you are- you need to be fully prepared because it's not likely to be the easy slam dunk you think it will be. If you are expecting a happy family reunion when you get her back with family, and for mom to be so grateful to you and sis and to be over the moon happy to be moved - you might be in for a shock. She might not react the way you expect. Because people with compromised and weakened mental capacity never react the way we expect them to. They are completely unpredictable. And she isn't happy now. But she may not be happy when you move her either.

And you may just be swapping one bad situation for another bad situation.

You REALLY need to know what the REALITY is before you start down this road. DO NOT make any giant leaps in logic with you emotions without really understanding what your mother's TRUE mental state is. It is imperative that you stop, regroup, and do your research before you make another move. Because if you do manage to get permission to move her - you could quite literally be opening a can of worms that you are not prepared to deal with.

And believe me - EVERYONE thinks they are prepared. Until they aren't. And then...it's almost always too late and EVERYTHING is crisis mode at that point. Don't do that to yourself. Slow down and take the steps to find out what is really happening.

Look into mediation.

Find a way for you & your brother to communicate & listen to each other's point of view.

Opinions can vary. What may look hard-hearted, may be a practical solution. What may look like love or duty may be wishful thinking.

The care solution for your Mother will be best without the extremes of hard hearts or wishful thinking.

Just good regular hearts & good thinking brains.

It's unfortunate you were not able to present a defence in her incompetence hearing, I think your only other recourse would be to petition for guardianship but that can be a difficult and lengthy process with no guarantees of winning.

I think the best you can do is to discuss with brother the feasibility of moving your mother to an AL/MC nearer to family.

Take what your mom with dementia reports with a grain of salt.

If he had an emergency hearing to declare her incompetent he is now her legal guardian not just her POA. Her rights to being autonomous are now gone and he has ALL the power and authority.

I recommend that you speak with her facility and find out how she is actually doing, because it takes 2 doctors to testify before the courts, with compelling evidence that she lacks the capacity to make her own decisions. Money doesn't come into play when someone's rights are being removed. It is a very serious matter and it is really hard to get a judge to take anyone's rights away.

The behavior you describe is so common when dealing with a broken brain. I suggest that you try not to engage in those conversations and try to ensure that she is in the proper level of care.

Best of luck, dementia just stinks through and through.