How to remove someone as power of attorney
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How to remove someone as power of attorney
My 90 year old dad appointed my sister as power attorney and me as healthcare
proxy. My sister who struggle with alcoholism and depression as been using my
dad’s monthly income for her own use and had become delinquent in paying for my
dad to be in the nursing home. He was almost put on 30 day notice before the
holidays. He is set up on Medicaid and basically his entire monthly income, with the
exception of 72 a month for personal care is supposed to go to the nursing
home. She neglects paying his bill, uses it for herself, and has not once in the 18
months that he’s been there, sent him a dime to his personal care account. I need
to get her off of this quickly, please help. We live in MA.
Sincerely,
Denise Higgins
Asked on February 3, 2017 under Estate Planning, Massachusetts
Answers:
SJZ, Member, New York Bar / FreeAdvice Contributing Attorney
Answered 7 years ago | Contributor
Your father, if he is mentally competent, could remove her at will by simply notifying her in writing that the POA has been cancelled and/or by drafting a new POA in favor of someone else, which new POA also states it revokes or cancells all prior POAs. (It would be a good practice to, in this case, send copies of the writing or new POA to anyone who has been business with the attorney-in-fact or agent (person granted authority under the old POA; your sister), as well as to your sister herself.) If your father is mentally competent and chooses to not do anything, you can't do anything about this, either: while leaving your sister as the agent may be a bad idea, a mentally competent adult is allowed to make his own bad decisions, and others cannot gainsay them.
If you feel your father is not mentally competent (and can be shown by medical evidence or testimony to not be competent), then you can petition the court to have him declared incompetent and have a legal guardian appointed. In the process, you can provide evidence of what your sister has been doing, to persuade the court to not appoint her. If a guardian is appointed, that guardian (which could be you) would have the authority to remove her as attorney-in-fact or agent, and would also make the decisions, arrangements, etc. for your father that she should have been making.
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