Can I buy home as mom’s POA with some of her money if I am going to buy a home to take her in and take over care?

You can probably sell her home but I don’t believe you can purchase another home in her name. It depends on the laws of your state and the specifics of the POA, ie: what power does it actually give you. As POA you are responsible for being a steward of her money but it can’t be spent to enrich your life or living circumstances. If you sell you will need to use the money for her care. You should see an attorney before you do anything.

If your mom is now in a memory care facility she is way beyond being able to care for at home, no matter how good your intentions are.
You need to sell her home and use those proceeds to pay for her memory care, and when those funds run out you apply for Medicaid for her, and they will continue to pay if your mom is still alive at that point.
I don't think you realize just how difficult it is to care for someone with dementia 24/7. Right now she has lots of people caring for her, and if she were to come live with you, it will be only you providing that same 24/7 care and you will have no life what so ever.
So no you should not buy any house using your moms money under the guise that it's because you want to now care for her. Medicaid will definitely frown at that, and penalize her if and when she would need them in the future.

I have an ex-friend who uses someone’s POA money to buy a home.

Someone in the family reported it, and she went to jail for 5 years.

Be VERY careful. Consult an attorney.

Your mom is where trained professionals are caring for her. Please don’t assume that you can provide a high enough level of care for mom. Home care of a dementia patient is very difficult and the learning curve is steep. It doesn’t take long to burn out and wish you’d never started it, because once you’re in, it’s hard to get out. I’m caregiving for my fourth family dementia patient, and I know. Leave mom where she is!

No. You cannot buy a home in her name. She is no longer capable of making a decision to purchase a home, and it could look self serving your buying one as POA.

This is a legal Fiduciary responsibility that is held to highest standards under the law. You have a right to get expert advice about something you are doing for your mother as her POA. So do see an elder law attorney so that you more fully understand your roles as POA and its powers and limitations.

Curiousamypoa, please do not move your Mom, it will only make her dementia worse. Are you ready to work 168 hours per week? You will quickly find that you will need to hire caregivers to help with your Mom's care because either you or your sister, or both of you, will burn out quickly. And please note that 40% of family caregivers caring for someone with dementia die leaving behind the love one they were caring. Those are not good odds.


Depending on where you live, and you find you need to hire 3-shifts of caregivers, it could cost you $20,000 per month, yes per month. That's the amount my Dad paid when he need around the clock caregivers a few years back. That will bite into your Mom's savings a heck of a lot faster than her $6,700 cost in Memory Care.


Do not touch Mom's money to purchase a house. There is always a chance that your Mom may need to go back to a nursing facility, later under Medicaid. And Medicaid may consider whatever $$ you use to buy a house as "gifting". That means Mom will have to come up with the money to pay the facility as Medicaid will not kick in until the gifted amount is reimbursed. See how complex this can be.

Taking her out of memory care, using her money to buy house for you? Doesn't sound right. Get attorney.

Everyone is right about the ethical reasons, but the legal reasons are a little different depending on how the POA was written and your actual intent. It is very important to involve an attorney, however. As long as you are truly doing so "in the best financial interest" of your mother AND you purchase the home in HER NAME or in the name of her family trust, if there is one, it is doable. The important thing is that it benefits her and not you. I don't believe it's a good idea given the circumstances, but none of us know the actual circumstances and that is why you MUST consult an attorney and not attempt to wing it.

My POA said I could buy and sell. But if you buy, it would need to be in Moms name only. You cannot profit asvher POA.

What you can and can’t do is detailed in the POA paperwork. Consult with an estate planning attorney - and perhaps the one who helped your mom draw up the paperwork, as s/he will have discussed with Mom regarding her wishes, and may provide some insight.

As for selling the house, purchasing another and moving your mom in to care for her 7x24 - I did this with my dad (not the sell and buy part, but everything else), and did ok while he was doing ok. But then he had a BIG health event, and even though I had 8 hours of respite care a week (1 4-hour respite care worker shift twice a week), I only got 4 hours of sleep per night. It was unsustainable. I am smart, capable, and aware - and at the end of that timeframe (8 months), I could hardly put a sentence together.

I really advise against taking care of your mom on your own - no matter how capable you are. My dad ultimately needed to be closer to medical services and facilities, so we found a wonderful AL where we visited him 3-5 times a week. And staff to care for him - there were at least 4 ppl per shift who replaced the 1 of me.

It has taken me well over 2 years to regroup after this. While I am grateful I got to help my dad, it was diminishing returns for him, and for myself. As I stated above, I was losing the ability to function well and putting my own health at risk, and Dad wasn’t getting the quality of care he needed.

1. First, your mother’s Durable Power of Attorney should be reviewed by an elder law attorney to determine if her agent (you) has the explicit authority to give yourself a gift of the size of those sale proceeds. Most DPOAs do NOT authorize self-gifting, and some also do not authorize gifts exceeding the annual gift tax exclusion ($18,000 per year). The proper state would be at least the state(s) where the sale and the gift would occur. This is if you are intending to put those sale proceeds and/or the new home in your name, rather than your mother’s name. If the document does NOT explicitly authorize the unlimited self-gifting by the agent, then you cannot do that as her agent. If she has a Revocable Living Trust that is currently on title to her home, rather than individual ownership, then additional evaluation must be made.
2. Second, depending on what state your mom would be living in at the time that she needs to obtain Medicaid, your mother may well be rendered ineligible for Medicaid for up to 5 years by virtue of any gift(s) of money or real estate. California Medicaid does NOT penalize any such gifts made on or after 1/1/2024. But I do not know any other state that does not penalize such gifts.
3. Further, you could possibly be held liable for financial elder abuse for such gifts in civil court and/or in criminal court, even though you are her financial agent doing what you think is in her best interest.
4. It is very important to see the value of keeping her care in a high quality professional care facility catering to people with dementia. Caring for a person with dementia at home becomes increasingly demanding as her symptoms progress. It becomes an exhausting full-time job that will turn into a 24/7 job. Few family members have the professional skills to handle that care proficiently. And few humans regardless of their professional skills can handle any 24/7 job. Most of my clients who did that full-time care for a family member at home could not go on after a certain point, and they ended up way over their heads and compromising or ruining their own health. Their loved one also received poorer quality care by the loving caregiving family member(s) than the ill family member would have received at a quality facility. For example, in one case, it became impossible for the wife AND the son to keep their loved one clean because the loved one refused basic hygiene to be provided by the caregiving family members, but once the loved one went to a facility, their skilled caregivers were able to work with him to keep him clean.
5. There are so many risks involved in your proposed plan for dealing with your mom’s home. It would be best to contact me up with a long term plan of care under the guidance of an experienced elder law attorney to evaluate your mother’s DPOA and any trust, the options, future Medicaid eligibility, the sale of your mom’s home, capital gains tax consequences, the best way to achieve your goals. You can pay the attorney out of your mother’s funds as her agent.
6. What might be the best thing that only you can give your mom is to visit her on a daily basis in a high quality facility to watch over her care and to give her lots of love. If the facility knows you are coming every day, the caregivers will make sure that your mom is up, fed, cleaned, and dressed. You can and should read her chart, get to know her caregivers, ask them questions, find out how she is doing, and give her lots of daily love, even if and when she no longer recognizes you.
7. So I would say, try to decide where you want to live, and move your mom to a quality facility close to you. And use her money and any sale proceeds to be able to afford quality professional care for her so that you can oversee her care and remain the big provider of unconditional love that only you can give. Best of luck to you. Your heart is in the right place.

Curiousamypoa: Do not move your mother out of memory care.

Besides the many good points that others have made, here is another option to check with a local lawyer. Perhaps you could buy a house in your name, but with a mortgage to M for the total she puts into the purchase. That becomes her asset, may meet Medicaid requirements, and probably can be ‘spent down’ by her ‘rent and care’ payments to you. If it works, get a witness to M agreeing when you give her a simple explanation, documented in writing and signed. But check it, and the other points, first.