How do I legally take control of my father's Money?

Question

I need a way to make sure my father no longer has access to his money. Now my parents are retired and living on a fix income, and my father is showing signs of some form of dementia, my fathers drinking has been hurting them financially and causing safety concerns. Over the past year I have had to buy them food and pay for their prescriptions.They agreed to let me have access to their account and even though my dad says hes not drinking, I will come home from work, my mom will tell me that my dad went out, did not come home with food or anything and was so drunk he was crashing into walls, and what do you know i would check on the account and 40$ would be taken out that day. When confronted about it he swears he never left the apartment, and that he doesn't know where the money went. We often find the empty bottles he tries to hide. When confronted with the bottles he gets quiet and swears it wont happen again. It does at least three times a week it does. So at the end of the month I end up having to go grocery shopping for my parents and pay for their prescriptions, (i wont give them money outright) The financial issues it is causing is only part of the problem, with my dads dementia he has been starting dinner and forgetting about it. at some point he will get up and find meat burned in the oven, things have boiled over on the stove. so far nothing has caught fire, but we are worried it will. I need help. I cant keep bailing them out money wise, and it is dangerous.

Update:

I ran out of space to fully explain. The drinking is making the dementia worse. On days he drinks are the days he days he forgets that he is cooking dinner. He is fine on days we know he has not drunk. Like yesterday I had off of work and was home all day. I know he did not go out and there was no alcohol in the house. He didn't act drunk at all and he cooked dinner fine. The day before that, he snuck out and came home crashing into the walls and what do you know, water boiled over.

Anonymous · Accepted Answer

What you need is a Power of Attorney, but you'll need legal advice.  In general, this is a simple and inexpensive process, but there might be some obstacles.

The biggest is you never said if your dad would agree to this.  If he does, this simplifies things a lot.  If he doesn't, then it's on you to prove he's incompetent.   For example you mentioned dementia several times, but if this hasn't been diagnosed, it's not a factor.

Another possible complication is that POA is generally requested by next of kin, and that's your mom. It doesn't mean you won't get it, but you'll be asked why mom can't do this.

Finally, POA goes beyond money, and this is where it might be most helpful.  When you obtain this, you can sign for him on any legal document.   I'm sure at some point, you want to get out of there and start leading your own life, and this might mean getting them out of their home and into some kind of assisted living.  All paperwork for this would be signed by you.

, · Answer

Not enough information.  Does your father already have a Durable Power of Attorney?  If he does, all that's needed is a visit to his doctor to declare him incompetent.  If he doesn't have a POA, you're going to have to seek the advice of a lawyer to help you with this.

? · Answer

rnaybe you should talk to a lawyer about all this, if its dangerous for hirn to live alone you rnight be able to put hirn in a horne

Brenda Morris · Answer

You need a doctor to declar your dad incompetent from his dementia or get your Dad to give you power of attorney over his accounts.

pit bulls bite · Answer

get  power of attorney paperwork

linkus86 · Answer

There are two ways.  By him voluntarily giving you control, or by having a judge declaring him incompetent and acting as his guardian.  The latter is far more extreme and not easily done.

I have a sister who suffered brain damage and while fully functional has lost her short term and working memory making her ability to manage money impossible.  My family overcomes this by taking care of her normal expenses and then giving her an allowance to spend on the rest of the stuff she needs.  Because she has no memory of where she spends the extra money, we allocate the allowance twice a week so if she over-spends one day she doesn't have to suffer the consequences too long.  The money is put in a checking account that she accesses by the use of a checking credit card that disallows her to spend more than what is in the account, and because she can't keep track of cash.  Plus the check card allows us to see where every penny is spent, and easy to show her after the fact, which sounds might be helpful to your Dad.

Anonymous · Answer

Seek power of attorney over your parents affairs and ask your father to seek help with is problem drinking.

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How do I legally take control of my father's Money?

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