Legal and Financial Transition

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.

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.

I have always done all our financials so not exactly the same problems you have. However, as my DW's memory has deterioated I was concerned with what happens if I get incapcitated. I had set up a trust before my father passed and so knew how well that worked so I have done that for us.

I have set up a revocable living trust and put all our assets in the trust. We are joint trustees but I am in the process of adding my daughter as a trustee so that if something happens to me she will have control. The purpose of the trust is to serve as a platform to control the disposition of property at death. Assests in the trust will not go through probate, which is a public process, costs thousands of dollars from your estate and can take up to a year to finalize.

Also have Last Will and Testament, to cover things not in the trust. Note these items will go thru probate so be careful. Have a Durable Power of Attorney for both of us with my daughter as trustee, and Medical Power of Attorney for each of us, very important. The point is that if anything happens to me our assests are on autopilot and not in the hands of people we have not selected. Like a corporation, my daughter can take over as CEO and manage everything.

I was lucky enough to find a lawyer who had a package deal for all of the above including any future changes so look around.

Hope this helps.

I have gone thru this with my DW. We have always had separate checking accounts and split paying the bills. Her ssi is deposited direct deposit and most of her payments are deducted automatically. I managed to "help" " her by paying the other bills on my computer. I got into her accounts and websites and changed the contact info to my phone and email without telling her. Sound sneaky have to do this sometimes it's necessary. Trying to reason with her is impossible.

Fairly early on my dh totaled his car. I had taken over finances by then, but when the insurance company was sending the check for the car I put the mail on a vacation hold so I could pick it up at the post office. Later on, the insurance company sent a check for the premium overpayment and my dh thought the $300 check was the total payment for the car. Didn't bother him at all that the amount was way off! But he got hold of that check and wanted to eat out until it was gone.