Legal Question in Wills and Trusts in India
My mother is aged 80 and mentally disturbed and I want to have her properly checked up by medical specialist (geriatric / Alzheimers).
Please allow me to explain the situation before I ask my question : I request your patience.
I am living and working abroad and my mother, who lives alone with her two servants, has consistently refused to come and live with me. I am the only surviving son, she has no other immediate family. She has two servants, one is loyal but old and getting very stressed and complains to me that he can't manage. The other is younger but does not look after her. However, he is useful for doing shopping and paying the bills. There are relatives but they are all after her money so I have discouraged them and in her present condition they cannot do anything useful. The bank has finally signed over her accounts to me with POA as my Mom's signature does not work and initially they froze her accounts because of this and even her household bills and servants' salary could not be paid.
The servants tell me that they are finding it increasingly difficult to manage. Therefore I am wondering how long this situation can continue.
What I would like to do is to have my mother medically assessed by the specialists and with a written set of recommendations for her car.
To do this, I will need to sell my mother's properties sing my GPA, invest the proceeds in the bank and use the income to pay for her medical care and geriatric care.
The bank manager says I cannot do this as if I have her assessed as medically incapable then even my GPA will be invalid. My mother's accounts will be frozen, I will not be able to sell the properties, I will not be able to pay for anything.
Owing to my commitments abroad with a modestly paid salaried job and a big mortgage, I am not in a position to pay for my mother's care in India. Had she agreed to live with me I could have brought her to live with me. Then she would have got the state medical care automatically, same as I get.
Please advise what is and what is not legally possible and advisable in this circumstance. Many thanks in advance for your help.
1 Answer from Attorneys
29.09.2013
Dear Sir,
As far as routine banking operations are concerned, in case your octogenarian mother is not in a position to sign clearly on the cheque, you must request the Bank Manager to record and validate your mother's thumb impression, so that she can affix her thumb impression on the cheque, whenever she desires cash withdrawals. That addresses your bank concern. Rest be assured and don't be under any wrong notion - the bank has no authority whatsoever, to freeze your mother's A/c. That addresses your mother's bank A/c operation issue.
You are talking about selling your mother's properties using her General Power of Attorney (GPA) which cannot happen, because in each and every property purchase and sale transaction that takes place today, the buyer (Purchaser) and the seller (Owner) directly deal with one another, and sign all Agreements and documents themselves; they do not rely on any Power of Attorney, since it invariably leads to future complications. Besides, since you say that your mother is reluctant to stay with you abroad, you should think where is she going to stay, if at all you are going to sell all her properties. Sitting abroad, you shouldn't be taking such an arbitrary call of selling your mother's property; that's purely left to her to decide for herself.
Regards,
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