Dying Dad's Tangled Finances

My already occasional blogging has taken a back seat so I can deal with my father being put into hospice.  The prostate cancer that he said he was “free of” some six months ago has metastasized throughout his body and he has weeks left, which will be spent bedridden in a state of stupor, with small periods of lucidity. 

This is bad, but not my biggest issue.  The problem is the old man is 85 years old and he did zero planning for any sort of care, his finances, banking, anything.  This health episode started almost two months ago with a rush to the hospital, from which time he has not been able to manage his affairs.  And no one has any idea about his bank accounts, bills, credit cards, anything.

So I had to start a “forensic accounting” of his life, digging through files and papers trying to make sense of everything.  He did not leave a list or information of any kind, like he was going to live forever I guess?  Unlike me he was a very unorganized man and a procrastinator.  Maybe he figured he would get to organizing everything one day and never did.

I did manage to finagle a Power of Attorney (POA) during one of his few moments of lucidity, but that has proven to be almost worthless.  Banks basically ignore POAs when the person is incapacitated since they are more afraid of fraud than making you angry (what you going to do, sue BofA?).  So banks just ignore the POA and wait, figuring you’ll show back up soon enough with proof of death and Letters Testamentary.  If you have those two pieces of paper, which means you have a probated estate, they have all sorts of standard processes and procedures to get you going quickly.  Until then, too bad.

So unable to have “him” pay for anything, including his credit cards and bills, I have had to pay all my father’s bills personally, including his dying.  Care is super complicated since he decided to re-marry at 83, just 18 months after my mother and his wife of 60 years died (he never lived alone and couldn’t).  This new 87-year-old wife wanted him to “die at home”, and since spouses get decisions over health care, could make that decision.  Problem was she wouldn’t pay for it, and the old man was unconscious and unable to do anything, and we couldn’t get into his accounts.  So I ended up footing the home nursing bill at $1300 a day!  After three weeks of that to the tune of about $25,000, the new wife broke down about him dying in the home and nurses being there 24-7, so I thankfully rushed him by ambulance to a nice managed care facility for a much more reasonable $350 a day, which he will stay for the last couple weeks of his life.  He's barely conscious for 30 minutes a day so it really doesn't matter where it is as long as someone is taking care of his medical needs.

All up, all in, I have paid about $30,000 of my own money to take care of him, his bills and his credit cards.  I can legally get this back from his estate – and since I will be executor will not be difficult - but that will take time.

He was just lucky he had a kid liquid enough to take this on.  There were some super easy things he could have done like just listing his bills and accounts in one place, putting a POA in place at the bank when he could walk in and do it himself face-to-face, or arranging for end-of-life care.  Heck, I do not even know what his funeral wishes are as he never wrote them down, so I am already running around spending time planning and making decisions for that. 

Managing his affairs and health has effectively become a full-time job, but one that will end in a few weeks and becomes estate management.