A short prelude:
* initial screenings show Dad has dementia. He's not running around naked wearing a napkin for a hat and initially presents fairly well, so its not blatant to strangers that dad is vulnerable. He is scheduled for a full neuropsych eval late next week.
* Dad attempted to give away a house to his home health aid. The home health aid (HHA) is registered in the state adult protective services registry as having exploited one or more clients in the past.
* We're in the process of obtaining guardian and conservatorship for my dad. The emergency hearing was early last week and my brother and I were appointed temporary guardian/conservators. I'm now waiting for the bonding company to approve which should be early next week (depending on the business shutdowns across the country). The final hearing is out in May.
The problem: sheltering accounts
The first must-do as conservator is I have to shelter all of Dad's financial accounts so that he can not find them nor access them. The atty says if Dad can locate an account (probably with help from the home health aid), he can take control of it, even with the conservatorship in place.
According to the atty and my reading so far, this means I have to find all new institutions and open new accounts to make finding the accounts harder.
From what I've googled, a conservator account must be opened in the name of the ward/trust, which means using Dad's SSN.
Maybe this isn't workable, but I am attempting to leave his existing checking account with a reduced balance as his spending money account to give him as much autonomy/normalcy/familiarity as possible. The new sheltered accounts would collect all/most of his income, pay his primary bills, etc and be the source of funds to top off his spending account as needed.
The concern is that when I transfer funds from a sheltered account into Dad's "allowance account", the transfer/deposit transactions will show the institution/etc that the funds came from. With some help from either dad's neighbors (until we get him into assisted living) or the HHA, the name of the originating institution would be visible and thus the account findable.
EIN: I'm exploring getting an EIN for the trust (revocable trust, but paperwork is being filed to assign me as "sole successor trustee" so that dad can not give away a house).
The thought is if accounts are under the trust EIN instead of Dad's SSN, the accounts would be harder to find and gain control of.
From what I've read so far EINs are not typical for revocable trusts.
I can't be the first person to have to do this, but I can't find anything about how to setup accounts for the wards funds while still protecting the accounts from access by the ward.
Does anybody on here have any experience with conservator accounts?
Any suggestions??
Maybe I have to go full tilt and abandon the idea of letting dad keep some fiscal autonomy over his spending money and just use a reloadable debit card.
* initial screenings show Dad has dementia. He's not running around naked wearing a napkin for a hat and initially presents fairly well, so its not blatant to strangers that dad is vulnerable. He is scheduled for a full neuropsych eval late next week.
* Dad attempted to give away a house to his home health aid. The home health aid (HHA) is registered in the state adult protective services registry as having exploited one or more clients in the past.
* We're in the process of obtaining guardian and conservatorship for my dad. The emergency hearing was early last week and my brother and I were appointed temporary guardian/conservators. I'm now waiting for the bonding company to approve which should be early next week (depending on the business shutdowns across the country). The final hearing is out in May.
The problem: sheltering accounts
The first must-do as conservator is I have to shelter all of Dad's financial accounts so that he can not find them nor access them. The atty says if Dad can locate an account (probably with help from the home health aid), he can take control of it, even with the conservatorship in place.
According to the atty and my reading so far, this means I have to find all new institutions and open new accounts to make finding the accounts harder.
From what I've googled, a conservator account must be opened in the name of the ward/trust, which means using Dad's SSN.
Maybe this isn't workable, but I am attempting to leave his existing checking account with a reduced balance as his spending money account to give him as much autonomy/normalcy/familiarity as possible. The new sheltered accounts would collect all/most of his income, pay his primary bills, etc and be the source of funds to top off his spending account as needed.
The concern is that when I transfer funds from a sheltered account into Dad's "allowance account", the transfer/deposit transactions will show the institution/etc that the funds came from. With some help from either dad's neighbors (until we get him into assisted living) or the HHA, the name of the originating institution would be visible and thus the account findable.
EIN: I'm exploring getting an EIN for the trust (revocable trust, but paperwork is being filed to assign me as "sole successor trustee" so that dad can not give away a house).
The thought is if accounts are under the trust EIN instead of Dad's SSN, the accounts would be harder to find and gain control of.
From what I've read so far EINs are not typical for revocable trusts.
I can't be the first person to have to do this, but I can't find anything about how to setup accounts for the wards funds while still protecting the accounts from access by the ward.
Does anybody on here have any experience with conservator accounts?
Any suggestions??
Maybe I have to go full tilt and abandon the idea of letting dad keep some fiscal autonomy over his spending money and just use a reloadable debit card.