Is it legal for a Power of Attorney in Pa. to delegate the sale of a home she controls to family?
Friday, January 8th, 2010 at
10:46 pm
My Aunt has power of attorney in Pa., over drugs without prescription online my Mothers estate and is selling her ( My Moms) home to pay for my Mothers care expenses. Can she give her grand daughter or grand daughter in law the home to sell, who would then stand to make a profit on the sale? Although the person is a real estate agent, it seems unethical to me for her to give that sale to someone in her family instead of a neutral party.
This sounds like more of a personal problem then a legal issue, between you and your aunt.
Not to be rude but, Who cares… Some real estate agent will get a % of the sale. I would rather give that money to a family member then a stranger.
Well theres several power of attorney’s out there. Fact theres one that is for the medical, and also I’m not sure exactly but if your mom signed a power attorney to the other person, and she don’t change it someone else could go and talk to your mom and she could sign another power of attorney to anyone else, and then that would make it null and voided for the first person..
but that would be like for medical or even her personal belongings.. And it would be probably a court battle I’d think? best of luck
If your mother granted her a durable POA to act as fiduciary agent, she has the power to sell; and she may appoint whomever she wishes to carry out that sale. If you feel someone has taken advantage of your mother, and profited unduly or unfairly from said sale, you may act to charge the POA with fraud. Otherwise; what’s the difference? Some realtor somewhere was goingto be paid to sell it; and RESPA pretty much limits the opportunity to profit unfairly from such a sale.
OK, there are some issues here.
First, if your mom is still alive, she doesn’t have an estate. Her property only becomes her estate when she dies.
Second, a Power of Attorney gives the grantee the authority to do whatever (within the language of the grant) the grantor could do if she chose to. If your Mom was selling the house herself, she could choose to use her own granddaughter as the Realtor, so the person she has given her Power of Attorney to can do the same. If your mom disagrees, she can revoke the PoA, or override her sisters decision.
Third, is your Mom still competent to handle her own affairs if she chose to? A PoA only gives someone the authority to do what the grantor is able to do anyway. That is why a PoA becomes invalid on the death of the grantor – but it ALSO becomes invalid if the grantor becomes incompetent.
That means that if your Mom is not competent, the PoA is not valid, and someone – your Aunt, you, it doesn’t matter who – has to go to court and ask to be named as a conservator or guardian over your mother.
Richard
If the power of attorney states that she has the right to decide to sell assets, etc, then it’s legal for her to do so. I don’t see a problem with having someone in the family handle the sale of the home. How do you know that the granddaughter isn’t doing the sale commission-free? It sounds like you’re assuming. If the girl is selling the home comission-free then it saves the estate $. Perhaps you should inquire about the costs and not assume that she’s doing something wrong.