My sister was POA for my mother the last two years of her life.
My mother had a lot of cash in the bank and she lived off of her pension, my dad's pension (he passed on 10 years ago), and both her and my father's social security.
My mother died and she claimed there was no money left. There is no way this is true unless she basically drew down the cash for the past 2 years.
The will states I should get 1/3 of everything but the will was not notarized.
First question is what can I do to find out on my own what the accounts were and second is this legal for my sister to do as POA?
"A lot of cash." Mmm. What were your mother's care needs and how were they met?
It isn't unreasonable to expect your sister to provide an account of how your mother's money was spent. Only you have to be aware of the sensitivities involved in this. When a person has just devoted the last two years of her mother's life to running herself ragged caring for her, she's unlikely to be in a particularly co-operative mood.
What was your involvement in your mother's care? What sort of terms are you on with your sister?
Where I live, nursing homes cost 12-15K per month.
In home care runs about 250k per year.
Do some math before you start thinking there should have been any money left.
Will probate be opened?
Since you do not state what 'A lot of Cash" was there is no way to determine if she could have gone through it or not.
I can say that I have 2 in homes, one AL the other MC and they are running down their cash at a face pace, these places are expensive. This year alone each has gone up $300 a month.
You might want to hire an attorney if you feel strongly that there was some hanky panky going on.
When my Dad had caregivers helping him at home, it was costing him $20k per month, yes per month. Plus he was paying $12k per month as my Mom was in a nursing home. Those were big bites out of their savings.
As for pension money, was it an Annuity? Or a lump sum pension where your parents could take that money and invest it? Annuity is usually the same dollar amount over all the years, it doesn't keep up with inflation.
Chances are your parent's savings were all used up. And I wouldn't be surprised if your sister had to dig into her own pockets to pay for things that your Mom needed.
Please find out the whole story before accusing someone of wiping out funds.
If you wish to engage a Trust and Estate attorney that attorney can quickly send a lawyer-letter to the executor of that will asking after your mother's estate, assets and beneficiaries. It is a claim, basically that says you believe yourself to be a beneficiary. Your questions can best be answered by buying an hour of an attorney's time. I wish you luck.
Pay attention to what Barb and MeDolly wrote about the change for “income” once your dad died, this is mucho importante!! Moms $ got adjusted when he died…. mom no longer was $$$ of money but maybe 65% -70% of that. If you didn’t know this all the time since your dad died, it probably has been beyond frustrating your Sister as POA to have you understand that mom didn’t have $ like she used too.
As far as going after Sister for misappropriation, well without reams, like REAMS, of more info, whether or not your Sister as POA did her proper fiduciary duty for your mom is impossible to determine. To find that out now, you as a potential heir to your mothers Estate, would out of your own wallet, hire a probate attorney that does litigation. FWIW most probate guys do NOT do litigation work, so as a first step you call around to find a probate firm that does this and schedule appointments with couple of them to find one that you gel with and then pay them a representation fee for them to start their forensics.
On your own, you can contact probate court to see if a docket has been opened for your late mothers estate. If she died fairly recently, may not have yet happened. State laws super important in all this. Like some States allow for up to 4 years for probate to open. But it is on you or really anyone who is a probable heir or is a debtor or could have standing to monitor what happens in probate court. Like on you to go on-line to find PC filings, or look for Legal Notices in the newspaper, or actually go down to the courthouse or an annex to see what’s on the boards. If you cannot hire an attorney that is what you are going to have to do and then fill out whatever forms required to get copies of documents from the docket and pay for all. Then it’s on you to review what’s been filed to see if accurate and then you file challenges to contest if not. Ya gotta file forms very much in a specific format and by a certain timeline too, probate is very precise / rules driven. I’ve been Executor x 3 & absolutely no way I’d ever DIY it. 1st time had litigation & loads of fun, learned a lot. Biggest takeaways is that attorneys are the winners if litigation happens.
Personally imho unless your mom had in excess of $ 350K cash on hand/investments (plus whatever mo income) the last 2.5 years of her life, there is no money left. It’s all outflow. Even then, it would be cutting it close depending on where she lived. Avg time in a facility (IL, AL, MC, NH) is 2.5 years.
You can't accuse until you see where Moms money went.
As others have said, care is crazy-expensive. My mother was in nursing homes for 2 1/2 years, and the final accounting was right around $215,000. There just may not be any money left, but your sister should be able to provide an accounting. If she can't, then that's pretty suspicious. Unfortunately, if she's spent the money, do you really expect her to be able to cough up the money she owes you and any other heirs? You'll owe the lawyer money for his time regardless of whether you can collect, so keep that all in mind.