Looking for some advice in dealing with an outsider my 95yo grandmother has recently befriended and protect my mother’s inheritance
My grandmother has recently made the transition to assisted living from independent living, this happened last October. While that was happening, she met a new friend who is 81F. This woman has become increasingly involved in my grandmothers affairs and it’s becoming very suspicious.
During the move, what she couldn’t take with her to assisted living went into a storage unit until we can figure out what to do with it. She has given this woman the unit number and the combination to the lock. I don’t necessarily think she’s stealing, but it’s suspicious to me. She could be getting items appraised without our knowledge with the intent of acquiring them later.
She recently got a letter from the bank which raised concerns for her. It was about beneficiaries for when she passes. The beneficiaries are myself, my brothers, and my mother. Nothing suspicious there, but my grandmother thinks the sky is falling and people are trying to steal her money. She gets this way whenever she receives a balance statement or there’s a policy update. Long story short, she reads every last piece of mail she gets from the bank, the stuff the rest of us never open and toss in the trash. And then she has to go to the bank and speak to the manager about it.
So anyhow, I’m going to take her to the bank tomorrow to give her peace of mind and she wants this friend to accompany us. She claims it’s to both help me understand (I’m 40 years old and have been an adult some time now) and because the bank may ask her questions that only her friend can help her answer. This is very suspicious to me and I think the amount of trust she’s putting in someone who’s a new friend is naive.
I know how this has to sound to a lot of you. All I’m concerned about is my inheritance. I’m actually not, it’s a small portion compared to what my mother is getting. I’m concerned about my mother getting her inheritance that her father (who passed away 15 years ago) wanted her to get.
My grandmother is a very controlling person, it works with my mother, but not my brothers and I. She has threatened to deny us our inheritance for choosing career paths she doesn’t approve of or taking trips (i.e., an Iraq deployment reunion I had a few years ago). My grandmother has always been this way, my grandfather was the exact opposite. However, she has gotten exponentially worse in the last couple of years. She’s also losing her mental faculties, no Alzheimer’s or dementia, she’s just old and very easily confused and not much in the way of memory.
She’s was and still is very psychologically abusive to my mother (her only child). I just want to make sure she gets what’s hers. So what can I do about this suspicious outsider and what can I do to protect my mother’s inheritance which she uses so often to coerce my mother?
Thanks