This is a bit of a different spin and I was curious as to opinions. My elderly mother had a trust with a bank set up to handle all of her affairs after dad died abd she was not named as a co trustee. The bank trust had her POA including for medical decisions. My mom had to receive social security outside of the trust due to the laws. My sibling was made a joint owner of the account and handled any personal transactions from the ss money as my mom did not use a computer and did not write any longer. I found out that the funds were basically given to that sibling and another (who was later added as joint) over the course of ten years for sibling mortgage payments, small additions to a house, summer camp for their grandkids etc. they claim mom wanted to do that and they were acting on her orders. My question is this, it seems part of the money was put into a Schwab account to buy ATT stock because my mom wanted it and the beneficiaries were my two siblings (all according to them, no one heard my mom say that). Did they successfully get around a gift tax because the Schwab account was in my mom’s name? Also can they do all of that without being the POA since the banks permitted it and everything was done online? In total it was several hundred thousand dollars over ten years and for the last 4 my mom was very incapacitated. And yes, they are were not going to disclose these accounts, I only found out by asking questions after she died. One sibling told me some information and then they clamped down. I don’t believe the trust knew and she had used up all of the money in the trust for her care. I have a lawyer for probate but it’s going to be expensive. Just curious as to thoughts from folks that have ever dealt with this situation. It’s Florida which has strong elder protection laws but useless courts for enforcement.
Statistics: Posted by Ldouglass22 — Wed Jul 17, 2024 5:33 pm — Replies 3 — Views 373