Legal and Financial Transition

Sallymander

MY DH is in early stages of dementia, but I can see it accelerating. We need to shift responsibilities to me and also to our adult son.

Though we own our assets and make decisions jointly, and it was he who insisted we revisit (together) our wills recently (thank goodness) DH has held the legal/financial reins for over 40 years. We are in good financial shape thanks to his hard work and judgment, but he is having trouble letting go.

DH strongly resists any changes to his established snail mail and paper-based system of bill-paying and other financial management. His filing "system" doesn't make sense to me and he can't always find what he's looking for (at least not directly or quickly). A few things have begun to fall through the cracks. Or are very frustrating. He finds online financial management and bill-paying confusing, but it would definitely be the way to go for me and our son. My early attempts to take over some accounts (and even to gain all the passwords) have not been successful.

I know I also need to update my POAs. My younger son is willing to be mine now that my DH cannot or won't be able to at some point. My son wants to discuss this with him, but I'm worried there will be "blowback".

Our Son is very capable and has his and my trust, but we have yet to make this transition. Do i/we go behind his back, informing our attorney of changes to POAs? inform our bankers and insurance brokers of his condition when he has not been frank with them? Or do we try to include him in these discussions?

What complicates this even more is that our elder son is simply not capable of doing any of this. And our daughter lives out of the country.

DH prides himself on how he as taken care of his family. And is holding onto autonomy with this more than anything else. But it's time…..or at least I think so.

M1

If you're thinking so, then it is definitely time.

My partner was a proud and excellent businesswoman, and giving up financial control was very hard for her. Fortunately, I had held her POA for years before it was ever needed, and was also a signatory on her checking account. But she, like your husband, was not tech savvy and was a snail mail/check writer. I had to gradually cajole her into letting me do online banking just by telling her that that's what everyone expected now (which is true); you may just have to tell him that paper checks are no longer accepted (hopefully he won't have the wherewithal to push back on this too hard). I also got her to agree by jokingly telling her that I was functioning as her executive assistant.

That said: I still had to resort to subterfuge. She was a sucker for every phone and mail solicitation, partucularly those involving animal charities, and in the year of deterioration before I caught on, she probably write $50,000 worth of checks to animal charities. I did a couple of things: first and foremost was hiding the mail, so that I intercepted all the bills and solicitations before she ever saw them. Then I converted those bills that still came by mail to online or e-bill, so that she never realized that she was no longer receiving certain bills in the mail. Then I also turned off the ringers on our landline phone, so that she didn't know it was ringing and would answer phone solicitors (she had only used a cell phone for work and gave that up pretty easily, that may be harder these days if your DH is used to one). I then also tore up plenty of checks that she wrote to animal charities and/or never mailed them. By that point she couldn't check her bank statements and never realized that they hadn't been cashed. You'll have to take the paper statements away from him too, in all probability, and just tell him that they haven't come/got lost in the mail.

What I was able to do was relatively easy because she was never very computer savvy and gave up computer access pretty easily. Her last time on a computer was when I came home to find her on the phone with "Microsoft" about to give remote access to a hacker. If your husband is used to using one, you may have to get more creative: at some point, he doesn't need to have internet access at all, or phone either for that matter, but that's a judgement call. Hard to tell him that it's broken if you're still using it. Agree that it might be better to have it all transferred to your son.

Sometimes a good elder law attorney will know how to convince someone to sign, in the context of "everyone in the family" updating their paperwork. I hope you find a way that works. There are folks here who have lost hundreds of thousands of dollars because they didn't step in soon enough.

HollyBerry

Is there any difference between the way he reacts to your suggestions, and your son's? does he have a trusted guy friend who has influence? A friend resorted to the guy friend tactic when her husband was losing the ability to keep track of things - it was along the lines of "man, you gotta take care of Sue, you gotta get all your accounts in order in case something happens to you, blah,blah, blah." Somehow it worked - the idea that he had to get everything set up to take care of her, coming from his best guy friend, was the right message at the right time. Just a thought. Maybe instead, one of your sons could try "we've got to set things up to take care of mom." Don't let him mention dementia - make it more about accidents or something else - hurricanes or natural disasters washing away all that paperwork?

JJ401

POA. I changed mine. Removed DH as my agent and replaced him with my son. I did not tell DH.
Telling him accomplishes nothing. At the most he’ll feel bad about it as he won’t understand the reasons. Telling him serves no purpose.

Once things start falling through the cracks, it doesn’t get better. You are going to have to figure out a way to wrest financial control from him. HollyBerry and M1 have some great suggestions you could try.

Jeanne C.

I know it feels like lying but truly it's often better to use work arounds and fiblets to manage your husband. You cannot reason with him any longer. It's kinder to keep him calm and alleviate any anxiety you can. Your son will need to understand this, too. Your main goal needs to be safety. That includes financial safety for you both.

I'm sorry you and your family are facing this. You're doing the right thing getting organized now.