Elderly Parents and Looking Out for Them

Arative

Arative

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I'm not lawyer but since there is no will everything should just go the surviving spouse. No else would be entitled to anything.

As far as taking care of her. That's a tough call. My mother in law had been taking care of her parents, about a year before her mother passed and then her father for the past two years until he passed two weeks ago. He was 96. Her life basically stopped for the last three years. Couldn't do stuff with our kids as much as she had been. The last 6 months were the worst, she basically couldn't leave her house. Her parents didn't have a whole lot maybe $30k in a bank account and a house that might go for $120k if she's lucky. They didn't want to go to a nursing home and at the end my mother in law wouldn't put her father in a home. Would have had to have burned through all their assets before Medicaid would start covering it

My father had a stroke last May. He had a stoke probably 30 years ago and had been on social security disability since then living in a low income apartment. I had to move him to a nursing home, they take all of his social security except $50 a month. Medicaid kicks in the rest. That nursing home costs $7k a month.

What kind of insurance does she have? Medicare might pay for home health care but I'm not 100% sure. You could probably do out of pocket.

Taking care of aging parents is time consuming and can be expensive. Sucks but that's the reality of it.
 
BrutulTM

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It might be too late at her age but everyone should have nursing home insurance as they get older. I think the cut-off is 79 but if you are 75 and have significant health issues they may not take you or the premiums are going to be high. Medicare won't pay for nursing home care unless you have zero assets. That includes anything that was signed over to your children in the last 5 years so you can't get around it by just dispersing your estate right before you go to the nursing home. Most people don't last a real long time after they go into a nursing home but if you do, $100k a year for care can be pretty devastating to some people who wanted to leave an inheritance for their kids. Nursing home insurance isn't cheap but if you have assets you want to protect then you better have it.

Taking care of parents at home is something to think real hard about. Depending on the relationship it can be pretty doable as long as the person is capable of doing basic things for themselves but when it reaches the point where they can't eat or go to the bathroom or walk around the house unsupervised, you better send them to a home. I know people who gave up 5 or 6 years of their life being an around the clock caretaker and it's brutal. I wouldn't recommend it for more than a brief period when they get to that point because eventually you literally can't leave them alone for even an hour and at that point you have no life at all and you are going to wind up resenting that.
 
Captain Suave

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Arative said:
Medicare might pay for home health care but I'm not 100% sure.
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Be careful with this. There are clawbacks against the recipient's estate that extend back five years before delivery of first service and can easily wipe out the value of a home, etc. There are irrevocable trusts that can protect assets.
 
Arative

Arative

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Captain Suave said:
Be careful with this. There are clawbacks against the recipient's estate that extend back five years before delivery of first service and can easily wipe out the value of a home, etc. There are irrevocable trusts that can protect assets.
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Medicaid has the 5 year claw back. It's basically use all of your assets and be broke in order for Medicaid to pay for everything.

Medicare part C might do home health care but that depends on the policy you get. Parts A and B don't pay for home health care.
 
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Kithani

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I know I'm gonna get shit all over for it, but I never really understood why people get mad they can't keep their house (that they no longer need) and just have the rest of us pick up the tab when they need to live in a facility with 24/7 support staff. Like... yeah... you should probably use your assets to pay for that shit before asking me to? IDK

Bonus points that house almost always ends up going to the most useless for society child and not the ones that are actually productive
 
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TJT

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Metalhead said:
He had a son that was killed about fifteen years ago that was married to a piece of shit and has two brats who are now adults. We buried him on Wednesday and already the vultures are circling trying to get anything and everything they can between them, their mom, and some of the brothers, sisters, cousins, etc. My mother in law apparently doesn't have any agency herself as they are acting like she's already dead, too. We're trying to get everything locked down to protect her interests and to make sure she doesn't lose anything but who knows what's already gone missing. The day he died we caught his little sister already rifling through his stuff. Looking for meds and cash, I'm sure. My wife is taking her to our attorney this weekend to get power of attorney and hopefully something in place or advice at the very least.
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The vultures out there make me sick.

When my father died he had a large amount of commercial fishing equipment he had accumulated over the years. The day after he died some people he knew broke into the locked shop on his property and stole all of it. Some ~$80k in commercial crab pots and other stuff he had. That was just the start.

If you are abandoning that property and its rural you are about to get picked clean. By your own fucking blood. We ended up having one of his very close friends just liquidate all of it for us because we really didn't need it anyway. But didn't want it stolen. Judging by the lack of interest in cars you mention here you may want to do something similar.
 
Furry

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TJT said:
The vultures out there make me sick.

When my father died he had a large amount of commercial fishing equipment he had accumulated over the years. The day after he died some people he knew broke into the locked shop on his property and stole all of it. Some ~$80k in commercial crab pots and other stuff he had. That was just the start.

If you are abandoning that property and its rural you are about to get picked clean. By your own fucking blood. We ended up having one of his very close friends just liquidate all of it for us because we really didn't need it anyway. But didn't want it stolen. Judging by the lack of interest in cars you mention here you may want to do something similar.
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Just had step grandpa pass away, and my grams is quickly going out the door with him. She just refuses to do anything to take care of herself or change her situation. Its a struggle to even get her to eat. Thing is she HATES almost all of her grand children and children, since most of them are dirty liberals or drug addicts. She's basically forcing me to be in a situation where I can take absolutely everything of value when she dies.

I have no idea why she wont spend anything on herself instead. I'd much rather she do that. I've now been made co-signer on bank accounts with over a mill sitting in them, and I'm the only one on her will. The vulture situation is going to be intense when she goes. Most my relatives have no idea grams decided to like me this much. They just know that she posts right wing extremist meme's on facebooks and repeatedly insults all of them while never showing up to any family gathering ever.
 
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moonarchia

moonarchia

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Furry said:
Just had step grandpa pass away, and my grams is quickly going out the door with him. She just refuses to do anything to take care of herself or change her situation. Its a struggle to even get her to eat. Thing is she HATES almost all of her grand children and children, since most of them are dirty liberals or drug addicts. She's basically forcing me to be in a situation where I can take absolutely everything of value when she dies.

I have no idea why she wont spend anything on herself instead. I'd much rather she do that. I've now been made co-signer on bank accounts with over a mill sitting in them, and I'm the only one on her will. The vulture situation is going to be intense when she goes. Most my relatives have no idea grams decided to like me this much. They just know that she posts right wing extremist meme's on facebooks and repeatedly insults all of them while never showing up to any family gathering ever.
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Remind her that the only way she stays voting R is to stay alive.
 
Metalhead

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Thanks for the replies. Things are starting to calm down somewhat, but its not done by a long shot yet.

She's 76 so there isn't any dating that's gonna happen. She was married to my FIL for 48 years. She's told my wife that she is ready to go too and just wants to see her husband and son again. Honestly despite the stroke she is in fairly good shape physically; the damage from the stroke was all cognitive. Her short term memory is shot and when she talks gets he/she and names all jumbled up. You can be talking to her about someone and at the end of the conversation find out she was talking about a completely different person lol.

Her grand daughter posed the idea that she could quit her job and move in with her to take care of her. Problem is this girl is one of the kinda shitty ones - not completely evil but just shitty - and she'd be bringing her husband and three little kids with her. I think baby daddy also has two other kids that stay with them occasionally from a different marriage. She never stays home and is always running around so I'm not sure what level of care she would actually provide. My knee jerk reaction to hearing it was she's just expecting a nice house and free room and board and she'd just drug up and lock my MIL in a closet while her crotch fruit destroyed the house.

I'm pretty solidly 100% on never ever renting to family unless it's under the expectation of never getting paid, and she's going to need some kind of income.
 
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moonarchia

moonarchia

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Metalhead said:
Thanks for the replies. Things are starting to calm down somewhat, but its not done by a long shot yet.

She's 76 so there isn't any dating that's gonna happen. She was married to my FIL for 48 years. She's told my wife that she is ready to go too and just wants to see her husband and son again. Honestly despite the stroke she is in fairly good shape physically; the damage from the stroke was all cognitive. Her short term memory is shot and when she talks gets he/she and names all jumbled up. You can be talking to her about someone and at the end of the conversation find out she was talking about a completely different person lol.

Her grand daughter posed the idea that she could quit her job and move in with her to take care of her. Problem is this girl is one of the kinda shitty ones - not completely evil but just shitty - and she'd be bringing her husband and three little kids with her. I think baby daddy also has two other kids that stay with them occasionally from a different marriage. She never stays home and is always running around so I'm not sure what level of care she would actually provide. My knee jerk reaction to hearing it was she's just expecting a nice house and free room and board and she'd just drug up and lock my MIL in a closet while her crotch fruit destroyed the house.

I'm pretty solidly 100% on never ever renting to family unless it's under the expectation of never getting paid, and she's going to need some kind of income.
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Get the house sorted now, not later. Go through every nook and cranny, attic, ceiling, and floorboard to make sure all hidey holes are uncovered. Start working with MIL to liquidate everything she doesn't want to keep, then get the house sold and move her somewhere closer to you. Put all money into a trust that your wife manages. Have MIL decide how she wants anything handed out after she passes and let your wife be the executor of the estate.

A nice senior community condo near you lets your wife spend time with her, and a unit fitted to her will be easier for her to take care of while she still has her facilities. If she can hold out for 5 years that trust then becomes untouchable if she needs to go into an assisted living type of situation as well.

Good luck.
 
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Janx

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So my mother passed away yesterday leaving me the sole living person in my fam (father/mother/bro all passed in last 5 years). It is a blessing as she has been in very bad shape for years now. I'm not sure if she had a will and wondering how much of a PITA its going to be to get house/bank accounts transferred over to me so I can get to work liquidating anything not of sentimental value. It looks like in TN without a will I should get full ownership of everything as the sole surviving child but there maybe extra steps/court has to do to manage the estate? Everything is paid off but not sure what happens to any medical debt that occurred over the last month of her being in the hospital/rehab (she had broken her hip).
 
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Captain Suave

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Janx said:
So my mother passed away yesterday leaving me the sole living person in my fam (father/mother/bro all passed in last 5 years). It is a blessing as she has been in very bad shape for years now. I'm not sure if she had a will and wondering how much of a PITA its going to be to get house/bank accounts transferred over to me so I can get to work liquidating anything not of sentimental value. It looks like in TN without a will I should get full ownership of everything as the sole surviving child but there maybe extra steps/court has to do to manage the estate? Everything is paid off but not sure what happens to any medical debt that occurred over the last month of her being in the hospital/rehab (she had broken her hip).
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With no will you'll have to go to probate, which is a PITA. The medical creditors will certainly come to collect.
 
Falstaff

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If your mom had medicare then hopefully you're fine from a medical cost standpoint. My mother in law was in two hospitals for 30 days + ICU for about a week before she died. The bill was like 150 pages long but we didn't pay a dime. She had a trust but she had one bank account that was only in her name (and opened after the trust was put into place and not added), so we spent a year in probate and only ended up paying lawyer fees but nothing else debt wise.
 
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tugofpeace

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When, if ever, did you guys relocate to be closer to your parents? Or did you somehow relocate them to be near you?
 
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Kithani

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Falstaff said:
If your mom had medicare then hopefully you're fine from a medical cost standpoint. My mother in law was in two hospitals for 30 days + ICU for about a week before she died. The bill was like 150 pages long but we didn't pay a dime. She had a trust but she had one bank account that was only in her name (and opened after the trust was put into place and not added), so we spent a year in probate and only ended up paying lawyer fees but nothing else debt wise.
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HIGHLY recommend a Medicare supplement with an out of pocket max for similar reasons
 
Haus

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tugofpeace said:
When, if ever, did you guys relocate to be closer to your parents? Or did you somehow relocate them to be near you?
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My one surviving parent is living in the house I was raised in around 20 minutes from me. But this is already a consideration in some ways. My sister moved back to Texas to move in with her and take care of things at the house (I take care of maintaining the finances, money, mom is currently 75).

But I have a goal to move away from town by at least an hour, and we've been having talks back and forth about if it would make sense to park her in a little side house/whatever on the property my wife and I end up building on. This is also since my sister, if she had the option, would rather live closer to one of her sons (and ergo her grandkids).
 
AlwaysFocus

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I went through a couple deaths in the family. Taking care of an older person who has dementia is nearly impossible, unless you do not work. I was angry at first that some family members wouldn't step up, but I no longer lived in the home, I did not understand the effort required. It got to the point where basically the oven and microwave had to have the breakers shut off.

Then she would get angry and try to tear the house down. Was unbelievable if you knew her before. Its like a lightswitch.

Also, its troubling how fast the vultures come out after a death. You really see who's who in these scenarios. One relative, who is turbo liberal, literally demanding that they get some form of inheritance, which was already given to the direct children.

Not even a direct child and they wanted money...


Got a relative who succumbed to cancer after several years, kids non existent for some period at the the last part, I dont know the exact issues I never asked when I went to visit him in his final years, he split the inheritance so some went to a group his life revolved around. Of course the vulture relatives came and tried to extract every single penny they could out of the estate. I actually am not sure if you can divert away a portion to non-children/spouse in my area, it has to go to the surviving spouse and if that isn't an option, then the kids, because the government doesn't want to take care of them either if they are poor.
 
Borzak

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Parents told me today they are looking to move. Mom is 80 and dad is 83. They expect my brother in law to go down hill rapidly and my sister would probably move near her kids which would likely be Tennesee. They asked me, no idea why. They want to move near more stuff. They have a hospital less than 10 minutes away they refuse to use. They moved there 15 years ago from a place that was 5 minutes away from a regional hospital and large shopping area that was nice on 5 acres and everything was super convenient. But they wanted to be close to my sister and grandkids. They see my sister once a year and one of two grandkids once in 15 years. They live 45 minutes away.

They are both kind of off reality. They say they want a place like mine minutes away from everything and can get delivery. I live on 35 acres that is landlocked by the national forest and some timber company land. Nothing is close but I like it. I think they are dreaming. Nothing is close to where I live and I like it that way.
 
BrutulTM

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Borzak said:
They have a hospital less than 10 minutes away they refuse to use.
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I can understand being pissed off at the local hospital but they should probably realize that it's the whole health care system that sucks ass and wherever they move will probably also be terrible.
 
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