Daughter steals complete set of China and Sterling silver from elderly Mom. What should be done?

norestforweary, The Medicaid penalty is something that could be a problem if your MIL ever needs to go on Medicaid for her nursing home care. What it has to do with is the transfer of assets.

"There is a look back period of either 3 or 5 years depending on when the transfer of assets occurs. To qualify for Medicaid nursing home coverage, your mother (in law) must have very low income and assets. Medicaid will look at any transfer of assets she's made in the previous years. If assets have been given away, or transferred for less than full value, during a "look-back" period before applying for Medicaid, your mother (in law) may be ineligible for Medicaid nursing home coverage for some period of time. The length of ineligibility is calculated by taking the value of the transferred asset and dividing it by the average monthly nursing facility cost in the state where your mother lives.The look-back periods are different in length, and in severity of penalty, depending on when the gift or transfer was made:

• For gifts or transfers she made before February 8, 2006, the look-back period is 36 months from the date your mother(in-law) applies for Medicaid nursing home coverage. If her gift or transfer falls within this time, her period of ineligibility begins to run from the date of the transfer.
• For gifts or transfers your mother (in-law) made on or after February 8, 2006, the rules are much tougher. The look-back period for transfers made after this date is 60 months from the date of your mother's Medicaid application. And if a less-than-full-value transfer falls within this time, the period of ineligibility begins from the date of your mother's application for Medicaid coverage (NOT from the date of the transfer, as under the earlier rule)."

If your MIL is well-off and has the assets and money for her future care, then, the sister taking the china and silver is still illegal, but of concern mostly on a moral and ethical basis. But if your MIL is not well-off and eventually her home and other assets will be need to be sold in order to pay for her care in a memory care facility or nursing home and she outlives the money received from these assets, and it has not been 5 years since your SIL took the china and silver, then Medicaid will not pay for her nursing home expenses for a certain amount of time. $15,000 would cover 3 - 5+ months of care in a Medicaid facility depending on what part of the country you live in. If your MIL must go on Medicaid and your SIL would not be willing to pay for these months of care, then you and your husband will have to pony up the money for this.

So, in order to make a decision about what to do, your husband needs to know if your MIL can afford to private pay for a nursing home for the period of time of whatever her remaining life expectancy is. With Alzheimer's, most patients die within 3 - 10 years of diagnosis with the average life expectancy being 4.5 years from the date of diagnosis, however, some patients have been known to live up to 26 years. (Source: Longevity dot com) The length of life expectancy has to do with the age at which she was diagnosed.

Thank you Moxie good information! My sister in law and her 8 yr younger boyfriend have no morals..... My mom died when I was 18, I have 5 sisters and no one took one thing of my mothers for years after her death! The immense greed of his 58 yr old daughter of her mother is disturbing on many levels. My mother in law will not be able to use her own belongings for all her reamaining holidays, which she always loved. In the past, the daughter has made comments about respecting her mother's dignity......she acts like the doting daughter at her Mom's church it is all a show!

No Rest, I usually am not one to write bluntly. But for this situation I will. Someone in this situation needs to get a backbone, and if your husband can't locate his, you need to get yours in gear. Now. Today. Last week when it happened would have been better, because now they wil ask why it was not reported immediately, but that's water under the bridge. There is no nicer way to say this; sitting around and crying woe is us, oh my poor MIL, shame on my awful phony SIL - while doing nothing - is nothing but a worthless pity party. And if SIL and her current BFF are amorally thieving to support a drug lifestyle, getting the cops involved might be better for them in the long run anyways.

In an extreme situation, which this could potentially turn into, your SIL could be arrested for Felony theft and your husband could be arrested as an accessory to theft (which is also a Felony) for not reporting this because he is POA. The problem is that the caregiver knows and is a witness and the caregiver also is a witness that the POA was told about the situation and has so far done nothing. If, for example, the caregiver works for a caregiving company, she might tell her boss and she might tell her boss nothing was done. The boss or caregiver might decide to report this to APS or the police. Next thing you know you have a big problem. If something like this happened, then your husband would lose POA of his mother. It might be that the court would have to appoint a guardian - someone no one in the family knows who is paid to be your MIL's guardian and has the right to decide what to do with your MIL, where she will live, how her money will be spent and receives a generous salary from her estate.

There are ethical and legal issues regarding not reporting this theft. At this point, if your husband reports it, he can explain that the reason he waited a week was because he wanted to give his sister a chance to return the items first. Also, if the sister has sold these items or they cannot be retrieved, it is possible that the courts will either force her to repay your MIL or that your MIL's homeowner's insurance may help pay for the missing items. That said, your husband's and MIL's relationship with your SIL will be over forever. Which, sadly, may be for the best for all concerned.