My mother agreed to a Durable POA here in NJ. Three of us, myself, mother and a witness. We all went to the notary together to sign the documents. Myself and the witness signed in their notary book. We left the notary. Two weeks later my mother was involuntarily admitted into a behavioral hospital by me. They accepted the POA. When I went to her bank to try to access her account by getting another debit card, she misplaced her debit card, i.d and social security card,before being admitted,they denied the POA because the form itself was not signed. The notary didn't remind the three of us to sign before leaving.I went back to the notary to get a copy of the book where my mother,the witness and myself signed. The copy showed where myself and the witness signed but my mother also didn't sign the notary book. They took down her information from her identification,her i.d number but she didn't sign their book either. I have no way of accessing her account to pay her rent for the months of September and October and she has taxes that has to be paid upcoming in November. What can I do?
Banks are exceedingly careful about POA. They are protecting your mother's money. You can imagine that any greedy child may show up with confused parent in tow at any Notary and have that notary look at the parents signature and ID and attest that it IS INDEED the correct signature and ID. That means NOTHING about the parent being of sound mind.
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You have now admitted your mom into a "behavioral" hospital, whatever that means. It means either you are questioning her mental acuity or her mentation in some way. That would mean she was likely NOT able to sign a POA at the time she did so.
Sadly you are now down to seeing the attorney that should have been seen at once. So go to your best Elder Law Attorney and ask what options you have now. If your mother is competent to sign POA the attorney can examine her for said competency. If not you are down to asking the courts for conservatorship/guardianship. If you get that it is of the highest fiduciary duty to keep meticulous records (which are required of a POA as well).
Your note to us serves as warning to all those who think to pull a document off the computer, have mom sign before a notary, and think that it means much of anything at all. It doesn't legally where finances are concerned.
Good luck.
THIS IS ALL FOR YOUR MOM'S PROTECTION.
One word to anyone out there planning for the future, add one of your children to your bank account as POA or authorized user now. You can tell them or not, that's up to you. But if this kind of thing ever happens to you, your children will be able to help you immediately and there will be little to no red tape and frustration.
Sounds to me these documents were taken off the internet. Because of what happened here, this makes a good argument for using a Lawyer to draw up DPOA and medical. By using a lawyer, its all done in his office. My lawyer used his secretary for a witness and one of his employees was a notary. Mom signed in front of all of them.
Regarding the taxes and assuming there is no-one joint on her bank accounts you will either pay them yourself or delay the payment and risk fees and a lien on the house until you gain access to her account.
If so, when you sign these sort of things do you ever tell people that you are attesting to a "signature only" and that doesn't always mean much under the law, that if it is a will or POA or MPOA they should consult an attorney because banks often will know a notary witnessed a signature, but they won't know other things that attorneys examine things for?
Or is that entirely out of the realm of what you can/should do.
I know when I had to have things notarized the notary never even ASKED what the document was. They just did their job, checked my ID, took my fingerprint, entered it into their ledger, and that was that. I guess it would be not be expected for them to ask about anything else, and could in fact be considered a violation of privacy.
A way around this issue, before it happens, is to put critical accounts on auto-pay from her checking account or to make the account joint ownership. One can usually add funds into a checking account, even if you are not the owner.
At this stage of the game, do you have electronic access to her bank account? Is she the sole owner of the account or is it a joint account?
I suggest you pay out-of-your pocket for this month (you could even write up an IOU). As soon as she gets better, get the document corrected, or/and, if she trusts "you", put a joint signer on the account.
....and in case you didn't know, a Durable POA does not give you access to information on her account for Social Security and Medicare. This requires a different form and different authorization with Social Security. It would be good to get that set up also before you have to use it. If she is willing, you could call Social Security (and wait the 45 minutes or so on hold), and have her give you the authorization over the phone. However, if she can sign her name, I'd also file the form with Social Security so that you won't run into the "non-access" at a later time.
...and yes, even though it costs, I would go to a Legal service to ensure you have all the docs needed for the state she lives in and have assets in.
I don't understand how this happened. The purpose of a notary was to confirm Mom was who she was and WATCH her sign the POA. Actually, the witness/s is to sign in front of the notary, too, I think. I would say this is a big error on the Notaries part.
See if the bank will except a medallion. I had to do this when a POA was not good enough.