Legal Question in Real Estate Law in New York
Selling a property when there is no power of attorney
I am one of five siblings whose mother is incompetent. I believe there is no power of attorney. She is currently living with one sibling who has not paid taxes on her property or his own since 1997. He has told his siblings he would be taking care of this when we found out a few weeks ago but has not. Both houses are still on the anticipated auction list; soon to be put on confirmed auction. If we can arrange payments of the tax liens on my mother's property, would siblings be able to sell property without power of attorney or do we need to wait until it becomes part of her estate? Also, what would it take to force the sibling in control to reveal all her financial records to the other four? He is thankfully taking fairly good care of her, however, he refuses any outside help, nursing home for mom,or help with paying bills, etc. I don't know if he has been paying her other bills, but he has been handling her finances for about 15 years. Answers to my questions and any other advice would be greatly appreciated.
2 Answers from Attorneys
Re: Selling a property when there is no power of attorney
1) Physically or by conference call, the non-custodial brothers must approach your custodial brother, FIRST THANK HIM FOR TAKING CARE OF YOUR MOTHER THE PAST 15 YEARS, then tell him you are all concerned about him and your mother because of X, Y & Z. Tell him you want to help, but to do that you need to know what the status of all your mothers finances are, and if he's having problems, and he obviously is becuase of his unpaid taxes, you need to know what's going on with him. [maybe because of age, financial, emotional or other causes, he needs help...] IF this does not work, tell him he has no choice, because if he won't accept your help, you will be forced to go to court to get all correspondence, SS, bank and other information sent to another address, and authority for his other brothers to to manage your mother's matters.
2) Then contact the township tax office, explain the situation, and ask for their cooperation (which may be limited) for a short while until you can straighten things out. Tell them you will pay right away if you can get a lien in the property, and IF they can, they should cooperate. This may give you a little leverage later, an with the court if it comes to that.
3) If the custodial brother will still not cooperate, go to a lawyer, file for incompetency of your mother (easy) and ask to be appointed guardian of your mother. Then, you will have financial control, and the judge will order him to give you an accounting of your mother's finances for the last 5-10 years.
Good luck.
Kevin J. Begley
Re: Selling a property when there is no power of attorney
By paying the taxes you would be entitled to a lien on the property. Unless she has an appointed guardian you cannot sell until her death and a fiduciary is appointed to process her estate.
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