Living with elderly and sharing expenses. Any advice?

My 84 year old father-in-law was left widowed 5 years ago. My mother-in-law did all the financial stuff, cooking and decision making. Father-in-law became ill with colon cancer 3 years ago and had to have part of his colon removed and use a colostomy bag. While in the hospital, we checked the house to find moldy food, expired canned food that was bulging and blown up, and a house that was in disarray and dirty. It was obvious that dad was not eating right, and unable to care for himself. Long story short, we all moved in together since other family lived out of state and he did not want to go to a nursing home or assisted living. He was fearful of taking care of the colostomy bag and wounds and wanted help. Since then he has had 2 eye surgeries, back surgery, colostomy reversal and bouts of depression. We never had an written agreements as to arrangements we made. It was all verbal. We split the household bills into per person and then we took another 100 per month for his care. Without us, he would not be able to function on his own. I guess my question is, because my husband's family is so dysfunctional and unwilling to help and I worry about the future - are they going to have a leg to stand on to even question that? Maybe I just worry too much about everyone else that quite frankly, have never gave a crap and would just as soon see him in a nursing home.

Financial Planning

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Are you keeping your money separate from the money in the joint account? Do either you or your husband work outside of the home?

I think your husband's family would have less of a leg to stand on questioning your arrangement and where the money went after he dies with a written agreement than with one. It would also be good to have gotten one just in case his care gets beyond what ya'll are able to handle and his estate is such that he needs to apply for medicaid.

Is his estate large enough to have paid for him to go into a nursing home without medicaid?

Is there a will and who is the executor?

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Yes, we have our own checking account. The only reason why my husband is on his father's account is so that he can write dad's checks for dad's bills since dad is not able or willing to do it on his own (mom always did it and dad has no idea how to keep a checking account). Bills that he pays on his own would be his own home phone, his supplemental health insurance, medicines, etc. and those are written on the joint account. When dad needs $, my husband writes a check out to cash and makes his dad sign the front and back and cash it at the bank himself. If we buy things for dad, such as clothing - it comes out of his account and receipts are kept. The share of his utilities and care are written in a check once a month to my husband and deposited into our own account. My husband works full-time and I work part-time outside of the home so I can care for his dad the other hours. Dad put the house in my husband's name a year before we moved in. When we moved in, we had to sell our home and take a loss to be able to do this but everyone in the family agreed that this was the best option (and nobody else had another suggestion). With that, we added my name to the deed so the house is out of any dispute with the family and all members were notified of that. In doing so, the lawyer stated that the trust that was set-up should be dissolved because there was not enough assets in dad's name. The trust was dissolved and all family members were sent letters from the lawyer. We agreed verbally to forfeit any right to what cd's dad had at that time and they were all changed to dad's name POD each child's name except my husband. But it was also agreed that there may come a point where those cd's may have to be used for his care if he had to be placed somewhere. Every penny of the cd funds are accountable for, nothing has been touched but granted if it is - it will be well documented where it went as far as his care.

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I wanted to add that dad's checking account is a joint account with my husband, with survivorship.

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And he has POA and Healthcare representative over his father.

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The cd money would only be used if dad had to be put in a nursing home...... We would never use that money.

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Living with elderly and sharing expenses. Any advice?

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