Legal Question in Elder Law in New York

Need advise

My brother decided to pay his wife to care fior my mother with my mother's money(but he never told my mother he was doing this). He did this for one year and then got POA and continued to do it for 2 more years. When I questioned him about this, he went and filed for guardianship. He recently lost guardianship and I became the guardian of her person, and co-guardian of her property.

My question is: Can I sue my brother to get the money he took from my mother? He had no right or consent to take this money out of my mother's bank account and pay his wife. Will it be easy to recover this money? I have a letter from my mother stating that she wants an accounting of her money and she wants to be restituted for it, but my brother refuses.

Thank you for any advise you can give me on how to proceed. Will I have to proceed with the court appointed co-guardian?

PT from NY


Asked on 3/30/08, 9:18 am

1 Answer from Attorneys
Richard Bryan Richard Bryan Attorney PC

Re: Need advise

You will have to go back to the judge and ask for the power to sue your brother, and to hire an attorney to do so. You may or may not be successful, depending on how much money is involved . If your brother had Power of Attorney and his wife was actually performing some services (rather than just pocketing the money) and the payments were reasonable, it's hard to see how you would prevail. But maybe.

Good luck.

Rick Bryan

New York, NY

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Answered on 4/19/08, 1:21 pm


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