96yo Mother with dementia has been emotionally manipulated to not speak to any of her family with the exception of my late brothers wife. Reason being, us family members who were executors, recently tried to monitor her accounts, as precaution with how close the caregiver has gotten. Once caregiver got wind of this, she convinced my mother to remove my sister and I as co-executors and now has my late brothers wife (a friend of the caregiver) listed as the new executor. The caregiver, my mother and my ex sister in law have convinced my poor mother that we are the enemy because we want to fire the suspicious caregiver. Our calls and mail go unanswered and we have all been told (bullied) that if we try to remove the caregiver (per our mom supposedly), the rest of us will certainly be removed from her will entirely. We are all well off on our own and aren't looking to gain too exuberantly from mom's future passing, but find it very suspicious that we have been labeled the enemy by her in home caregiver, which is way out of character and we are worried. Although we don't want to risk getting cut out entirely and now having been removed entirely from the executor process (done with her attorney while we were out of town....no coincidence), I fear for my mother believing and loving so much in her caregiver- more than us, that in essence she doesn't even remember when or why she even changed the executor and will in the 1st place due to dementia. My fear is that the caregiver has brainwashed our mother into giving her everything, instead of her own family, who loves and misses her very much. But we are denied and shunned every time we want to visit or call. It's literally scary how quick this all happened within 2 months. Looking for help on how to handle this.
There is a legal term I heard once, called:
"Alienation of affection". I do not know if this applies here.
There are also 4th amendment rights securing "family's rights to association".
There is also the fact that with dementia, a person is deemed incompetent to execute a POA, assign an executor, etc. The caregiver and ex-sister in law likely did all this after your Mom was not able to do this competently.
There is also a likely conflict of interest in caregiver's involvement beyond the scope of an employee.
Imo, the very least you, as family, should do is require accountability, and make a visit to the attorney consulted.
If I had these concerns, I would phone the district attorney and ask some questions.
Disclaimer: Not an expert, not an attorney.
The first thing you need to do is get in contact with Adult Protective Services who will launch a full investigation into the situation, run a background check on the caregiver, and can help you to get in contact with your mother. I would highly suggest you hire an attorney who specializes in Medical Malpractice and Disabilities. The caregiver is abusing your mother in terms of reckless endangerment due to her manipulation and preventing you and your family from having contact with her. As a caregiver, she is supposed to only be involved in personal care, not legal or family matters.
Is this a private caregiver or is she part of an agency? If so, get in contact with her agency and report her immediately and explain that she is in violation of HIPPA law, which means she cannot violate your mothers rights, which includes using her disability as a means for manipulating her into doing things she is not completely aware of. Since your mother has dementia and the caregiver is aware of it, she is committing Disability abuse and it is considered a hate crime.
You can also contact your local Ombudsman as well, they handle legal issues concerning the elderly and can surely assist you as well. There are many Ombudsman programs depending on which state you are in.
Basically, it is better to have a team of professionals that specialize in Disability Abuse and Malpractice in order to really turn the tables on this caregiver, who will have to answer to the law for what she is doing.
Again, I am so sorry this is happening to you and your family. Keep fighting and do everything and anything you can to get that caregiver out of there.
You repeatedly refer to "executors." An executor is a person who carries out the instructions in a will after someone has died. So I wonder if you perhaps meant some other kind of authority to act on your mother's behalf, such as power of attorney or trustee.
You and other family members became concerned that your mother's caregiver was forming an unusually close relationship with your mother. In what way? What made you think so?
You tried to monitor your mother's accounts. What did you do? Did you have any authorisation to access information on these accounts?
You suppose that the caregiver talked your mother into ostracising the monitors and giving more authority to your SIL.
You have not been able to visit or call your mother for two months. Hmm. How hard have you tried to see her? And how often have you normally seen and called her before that? I'm not questioning this for no reason: my sister once explicitly accused me of isolating my mother, when I called her to postpone a visit. She said that I kept putting her off and it was very suspicious. The visit had indeed already been postponed twice, once because of a fall and the second time by my sister: presumably it had slipped her memory that she herself had been the one to cancel. So I know it doesn't take much for people to start thinking the worst - when you say you have been denied and shunned, what do you mean?
You certainly need legal clarification, and the last thing I’d worry about is being “bullied”.
Once you determine who, if ANYONE, has legal responsibility for your mother’s welfare, you can engage the backing of legal authorities to determine who is and who is not functioning in your mother’s best interests.
I have never heard of coexecutors. Lawyers usually do not recommend more than one Executor. Are you really talking about POAs?
I recall my own mother telling me stories about my Dad and her own Dad. It was rattling to first hear the stories until I realized it was the dementia talking.
And as mentioned by Daughterof1930, your Mom wouldn't be able to make any changes to legal documents. Attorneys are trained to notice if a person is having memory issues. Usually the Attorney tries to speak with Mom on her own, or if Mom insists on having another person in the room, the Attorney will watch to see if the other person is speaking for Mom or trying to convince Mom to change the documents.