Legal Question in Wills and Trusts in North Carolina

First, if your mother is mentally competent and decides that she needs a new will, she needs to have an attorney draft one. She can sell everything, but it will not be divided up equally unless she either destroys her old will or does a new one. If your mother is interested, I can prepare a new will for your mother for a reasonable fee provided that she is mentally competent.

Have her contact me at [email protected] if interested. Geographic location is not an obstacle and travel is not required.

Your mother does not have to show her will to anybody, including your siblings, if she does not want to. It depends on the family. I encourage people to discuss their wishes with their children, but this is not required. Your mother ought to stick them all and leave her assets to an animal or other charity! There is no requirement at law that she leave anything to any of her children, including you.

You are not responsible for providing an accounting to anyone other than your mother (unless the POA says otherwise). I would review the POA and see what it says. Your siblings can accuse you all they want. The question is - will they get an attorney or not? Litigation is very very expensive. Unless the siblings have more than a mere hunch that you are engaged in wrongdoing and unless they are going to get a worthwhile payoff, this will go nowhere. And even if they succeed in removing you as POA, what then? What does the POA say? Who would take over if you were removed? What would that accomplish as the POA would still be obligated to use your mother's assets for your mother's benefit. The POA just cannot do whatever he or she wishes.

The only way a valid POA can be defeated is by a guardianship proceeding in which they will have to show (1) that your mother is mentally incompetent and (2) that you are unfit to be in charge of your mother's affairs.

However, you need to keep pristine records accounting for every penny that is your mother's and that is spent on her behalf just in case your siblings ever do try to pull something. It would be a good idea to have a statement from your mother's doctor that your mother, while elderly, is of sound mind and is capable of making and executing a will (the standard for that is pretty low - she just needs to know what she owns and who would be the natural objects of her bounty, i.e., her children) or other legal document.