Financial POA? Guardianship? Any help is appreciated
Just looking for some advice and to make sure I'm thinking about things in the right way. I'll try to keep it short but the story might be long.
My mother is in poor health, increasingly so. These health complications have meant increasingly frequent hospitalizations, most often related to COPD related flareups. She didn't use her CPAP machine and now doesn't use her BIPAP machine. She's also supposed to be on a constant oxygen flow, but we don't believe she uses it. She also has wounds on her knee and feet, and has already lost toes, so her mobility is impaired.
I live 3 hours away and am her only child. Her sister lives on the other side of the country. Both of her parents have passed. She has some friends in the area, but they're increasingly distant to her because of her "boyfriend". I won't dwell on this history much, but she's emotionally attached to him and relies on him as her caretaker. He's been in and out of prison, uses and traffics drugs and guns, has had his license suspended, and is all around a very irresponsible person with violent friends.
Last year she agreed to move into an assisted living facility, the goal was to move in by the end of last year. This came as a relief to all of us, and I worked with a friend who works in the industry to visit several places in the area which would be good fits. Primarily, she wanted a two bedroom unit to herself, with a full kitchen, and where she could smoke on the premises. At the time she understood she could not smoke in her room at any of the places, but these places would allow her to have cigarettes and had designated areas for residents to smoke away from the entrances.
She selected one, we moved her in, and she was evicted less than a couple months into it for smoking. thousands and thousands of dollars later she's back at her house and the idea that she'll voluntarily move somewhere else is gone.
A couple years ago during a hospital stay we were able to agree for me to become her medical power of attorney. However, its becoming more clear that I need additional powers/responsibilities. Whether she can agree to voluntarily give me financial power of attorney or other types of control, I do not know.
This brings us to the most current situation. She's currently in the hospital. We have a shared checking account which I have access to, and I can see that her "boyfriend" is spending money. Nearly $1,000 since she's been in the hospital, in addition to other curious purchases made this month. This is in contrast to prior months where I don't believe he had control of her debit card. I do not have access to close the debit card since it is in her name.
We have a financial advisor who I talk with occasionally who manages the estate. Approximately 20 years ago my mother and her sister went through the process of gaining guardianship over their mother's assets (which the financial advisor here also managed), and this advisor suggested I begin considering this as well given the behaviors she's seeing too.
The difference is, my grandmother at the time definitely did have dementia and was being scammed by someone in India. Here, my mother is being taken advantage of willingly by someone who (at times) provides assistance to her in the home. She refuses to have a professional provide care, and declares she doesn't have the money to afford this. I believe it would be hard to prove she's not able to make decisions, but i dont fully know the bar here. She's definitely not making good decisions.
So at this point my questions are 1. What sort of powers should I be working towards? Financial POA? General POA? Something else. and 2. If she is not amenable to this (and I doubt she will be), what actions should I be taking to protect her?
I can help answer any other questions, since I know this is a lot but I've left plenty of things off already. Thank you for any help or even just letting me vent and organize my thoughts here.