To sell or not to sell…

Who's the POA and why does mom need to know if the house is sold or not?

She's not ever going to be emotionally ready to sell. With dementia, her ability to process the logic around the decision is impaired even if she isn't in the later stages.

The POA has a fiduciary obligation to act in her best interests around her finances. This means that allowing a house to sit empty while paying taxes, maintenance and insurance costs when there's no possibility she'll return there is counter to the role of POA. (Also, if it's empty be sure to let the insurance carrier know, sometimes there's a clause that a house has to be occupied for the policy to remain in force)

I, with mom's permission, arranged the sale of both of my parents' homes. So BTDT and it turned out— through no fault of my own— to be an experiment in the best practices for doing this with a reluctant seller.

House #1 was dad's "dream home" on a golf course and the "fancier" of the two. They were never going to live there, and mom needed the money to fund a new place nearer me. She was new to the diagnosis (later mid-stage) and a little in denial and insisted on his input (aka blessing) as being respectful to him as her partner. It went very badly. He became aggressive to the point of near violence which resulted in him needing an increase in his psychoactive meds in order to remain with her. This sale also required a traditional sale with a realty team that were just incompetent and annoying.

House #2 was his "happy place" in FL and he was very invested in getting back there and away from the doctors who said he couldn't drive and me enforcing it. This time, mom had learned from her mistakes and it was so much easier. We had a much better team in FL; they rented it for the season and arranged a turn-ket sale which was so much easier as there was less stuff to deal with. I flew down and got the personal items packed into a PODS, shipped their Miata and signed the papers for the transfer as POA. Easy peasy.

FWIW, we never told dad we sold it. He had a suspicion, I think. One day he asked me to find the Zillow page for the community on the computer (he was struggling with tech by this time). I opened the page and he scrolled right past the list of his own home which frankly shocked me given his threats to me around selling it.

If you're not emotionally ready to sell, would this person consider renting? Or perhaps a rent-to-own contract? That might be a bridge to getting used to the logical decision while meeting the obligations of the POA.

HB

I would say that the most important things to consider are: 1) what is in the best interest of your mom’s care - she is likely not moving back, so what will allow her to have the best quality of life now - selling, renting, something else? As others have said, it’s probably not leaving the house sitting empty. 2) what is going to allow you and other family to provide the best possible care for mom? Spending your time managing her house is pro ably not the best use of your time. Dementia caretaking takes up a whole lot of time on its own.

Whether she psychologically wants the house or not is no longer relevant. It’s horrible and sad but true. My moms house is rented out because my family is estranged and we can’t really handle a sale right now - but it generates a very modest income toward her care. I’ve told her many times she still has the house and she could care less (she wanted to live with me and that wasn’t possible). I made choices based on what I thought would be best, and safest, for mom. Then I tried to help her adjust as best as possible.

Think about what will be easiest and most helpful for you, and her care. That will help with decision making.

I arranged the sale of my PWD’s house without a discussion, on the grounds that it was sitting empty and was draining resources. And I could not maintain it from far away.

Empty house insurance, when you can get it, is high.

I agree with everyone about the psychological question and your fiduciary responsibility. But I wonder if you have had the house appraised or talked with a real estate agent about pricing. I only ask because I was offered a quick as-is sale by a relative of a neighbor. I signed up with a realtor instead (for messy family reasons I won’t go into), and although we sold below the asking price, we got about $40k more than the earlier price I was offered. Clearing the house was a pain, but I would go with a realtor again if I had it to do over.

My inclination would be to sell unless you can reasonably rent it out for income as JulietteBee describes for a good income….most situations are not that advantageous for the family IME. Your mother does not need to know that the house is sold.

That is a very important consideration that I was not aware of. Going through a similar situation. I will wait until we find her suitable accommodations as we currently stop by her house at least 2x per week. She has mostly lived in the house since she was in high school. I will absolutely not tell her. I don’t think that she will ask much about it once we get her situated.

My father died six years ago, which of course was devastating to my mother. She always thought she would go first. She wanted to live in her house alone, but that wasn't possible. She already started showing signs of memory loss, so she went to live with my brother and his wife. After several different places, she went to live in an independent living facility. She was despondent when her house got sold, when she realized that her life would never be the same. She's lived there for three years, I and other family members believe her dementia has become Alzheimer's - although she has not been diagnosed with it. She's not remembering where her room is and gets very confused, finds it really hard to speak at times and doesn't know who family members are. She's coming to live with me next month, so I'm trying to learn all I can about this awful disease and treat her with kindness, love and patience. There will be three of us living in my house - myself, husband and her. My husband and her didn't really hit if off when she came to visit me several years ago, so I hope there won't be constant battles I have to get in between.

Anybody out there with a similar situation like this?

I know this is not the same but we had to make the decision to sell Pops car. He loved that car and purchased it right before my mother died in 2021. He would run his errands and listen to his music, his getaway. We had to take the Keys in March of this year…very difficult. Made the decision about a month ago to pay it off and sell it. I explained to him he would make some money off of it and it will help pay for some of his care. He agreed but we had several days of agitation and aggression. Car was picked up Saturday. He hasn't mentioned it once. I'm thinking out of sight out of mind.