If you spend a week reading r/legaladvice, you start to see the same thread over and over. One adult child gets power of attorney over an aging parent. The rest of the family gets shut out of the finances. By the time anyone catches on, the accounts are drained. A California daughter just got convicted of doing exactly that with $500,000 of her mother’s money. The case is textbook, and Redditors everywhere are living the same story right now.
I keep a mental list of Reddit thread patterns that show up again and again, where the comments are trying to help but don’t quite nail the legal machinery. This one’s near the top. A parent with a diagnosis, or fading memory, or a recent hospitalization. One sibling “steps up.” A power of attorney form gets signed, sometimes at the parent’s kitchen table, sometimes in a hospital hallway. Months later, the other siblings start noticing that Mom’s checking account balance is weirdly low. Or the house is on the market. Or Dad’s credit card is being used at places Dad doesn’t go.
The r/legaladvice threads go in two directions from there. Some people want to know how to stop it. Others want to know if what their sibling did was actually illegal or “just family drama.” The comments try, but half of them miss the key lever. The other half assume every state handles this the same way, and they don’t.
“Do siblings have a legal right to know if power of attorney is being abused?”
— via r/legaladvice
That title alone tells you how blurry this feels to a family in the middle of it. The answer, incidentally, is yes, almost always. Just not through the channel most posters imagine.
The California case that just landed
You don’t have to take Reddit’s word on the stakes. The California Attorney General’s office announced a conviction in a Placer County elder abuse case where a daughter named Betty Ann Engelbrecht was convicted on two felony counts of grand theft from an elder. Between 2013 and 2017, while holding power of attorney over her mother (who had been diagnosed with a neurodegenerative disease), Engelbrecht transferred more than $100,000 from her mother’s bank accounts into accounts in her own name. The final theft figure in the case exceeded $500,000.
“Not only is this a cruel betrayal of trust, it can wreak havoc on the health, mental health, and financial safety of our seniors.”
— California Attorney General Rob Bonta, quoted in the AG office press release
The detail that hits hardest is how ordinary the facts are. A mother with cognitive decline. An adult child with legal authority to sign checks on her behalf. Four years of quiet account transfers before someone in the family noticed enough to push. This isn’t a strange outlier. The Department of Justice’s Elder Justice Initiative reports that older Americans lose an estimated $28 billion a year to financial exploitation, a substantial portion of it committed by family members with trusted access.
Montana brought a similar case to conviction last year. New York’s surrogate’s courts are backlogged with petitions to remove fiduciaries who look a lot like Engelbrecht. And nearly every week, a new Reddit post hits r/legaladvice with some version of the same facts.
Here’s what’s actually happening legally
Power of attorney isn’t ownership. That’s the sentence most people in these threads miss, and it changes everything about what’s been done and what can be undone.
When a parent signs a POA naming a child as agent, the child steps into a fiduciary relationship with the parent. Fiduciary is a legal word with a specific meaning. It means the agent has to act solely for the benefit of the principal (the parent), with the principal’s interests placed above the agent’s own, with full transparency, and with duty of care, loyalty, and accounting. Every major state codifies this. The Uniform Power of Attorney Act, adopted in some form by a majority of states, spells out the duties explicitly.
A few things follow from that.
Transfers from the parent’s accounts into the agent’s own accounts are not “gifts” unless the POA document specifically authorizes gifts, and even then the authority is usually limited. Self-dealing by a fiduciary is presumptively improper. The burden flips to the agent to justify each transaction.
The agent has an ongoing duty to account. That means producing records on request. Statements, receipts, a ledger showing every in-and-out. Refusing to share the accounting is itself a breach of duty and, in a lot of states, a standalone ground for a court to remove the agent.
The parent is still the principal. The parent, if competent, can revoke the POA at any time, in writing, and appoint a new agent. The parent’s spouse, other children, or an interested third party can petition the probate or surrogate’s court for an accounting, for removal of the agent, and for appointment of a conservator or guardian if the parent is no longer capable of making those decisions.
None of that is “family drama.” It’s black-letter law. The difficulty is that most Reddit posters have never navigated probate court, and the machinery sounds more intimidating than it actually is.
What should have happened (before the accounts were touched)
The family should have been talking about these documents before anything was signed.
A durable power of attorney is a serious legal instrument. Durable means it survives incapacity, which is exactly the situation in which it matters most and exactly the situation in which the principal can no longer police the agent. The time to structure the POA carefully is when the parent is still sharp enough to participate in that structuring.
Best practices other siblings can flag, even after the fact, even for future similar situations with the other parent: name two agents jointly for major financial decisions, not one alone. Require written quarterly accountings to be delivered to a named third party (another sibling, a trusted attorney, a family accountant). Cap the agent’s gift-making authority in writing, or exclude it entirely. Name a specific “monitor” or “successor” in the document who has the right to see account records without needing court permission. Keep the house and major accounts in a revocable trust rather than under POA, because a trustee has stricter, more visible duties than a POA agent. And keep a paper copy of the current POA with every adult child in the family, not only with the one who’s helping the most.
Most of those protections cost nothing except a more careful initial conversation with the estate planning attorney. Almost none of them appear in the “free POA form” that adult children sometimes download off the internet and bring to the hospital.
What to do if you’re in this right now
You think a sibling is abusing POA over a parent who’s still alive. Here’s the sequence.
Get the POA document. A copy. The agent is required, on demand from the principal, to produce the POA. If the principal can still ask, have them ask in writing, even if the request is simple. If the principal can’t ask anymore, other children with standing can often obtain it through counsel.
Ask for a written accounting. Again, this is a fiduciary duty. Under most state statutes, an agent must provide records of all transactions to the principal on request, and in many states to any “interested person” under specific conditions. Put the request in writing, send certified mail, and keep a copy. Refusal to account is itself evidence.
Report suspected financial exploitation to Adult Protective Services. Every state has APS, and most will investigate suspected elder financial abuse. The federal Eldercare Locator at 1-800-677-1116 connects callers to the correct state APS office. Also report to the local police or sheriff’s office if the theft is ongoing. And, where the parent is banking, the CFPB’s resources for older Americans walk through how to get the bank’s fraud department engaged.
Petition the probate or surrogate’s court. This is the step most Reddit posters underestimate. An interested family member can file a verified petition asking the court to compel the agent to produce an accounting, to remove the agent, to appoint a conservator or guardian for the parent if capacity is at issue, and in many states to order restitution of misappropriated funds. In some states the statute is called a “petition for surcharge” of the fiduciary. The relief is financial and it runs against the agent personally.
Hire an estate or elder law attorney. These cases are fee-shifted in many states when the court finds a breach of duty, meaning the recovered funds can carry the attorney’s fee. Most elder law attorneys offer initial consultations on these situations for free or at reduced cost, because the fact patterns are so consistent that they know within a phone call whether there’s a case.
Freeze what can be frozen. Once counsel is involved, they can often ask the court to freeze accounts where the agent is listed, to enjoin the sale of real estate, and to require the agent to post a bond. The point isn’t punitive. The point is stopping further damage while the court sorts out what happened.
If the parent has already passed away
The path is different but not shorter. What’s at stake now is the estate.
Funds a POA agent diverted during the parent’s lifetime belong to the parent’s estate, not to the agent, and the estate is distributed under the parent’s will or (if there’s no will) under the state’s intestate succession statute. The executor or personal representative has standing to pursue the agent for breach of fiduciary duty, conversion (which is the civil version of theft), constructive trust, and unjust enrichment. If the agent is also the executor, any interested beneficiary can petition the court to remove the executor and appoint a neutral fiduciary.
Civil cases typically yield judgments for the amount stolen plus prejudgment interest, and in many states punitive damages are available for willful breach. Criminal prosecution is separate. Both can run concurrently. The Engelbrecht case in California is a criminal case, and the civil recovery (if any) runs through probate and civil court.
Frequently asked questions
Is a sibling abusing power of attorney illegal?
Yes. A power of attorney creates a fiduciary relationship between the agent and the principal. The agent must act solely for the principal’s benefit, with loyalty, transparency, and duty of care. Self-dealing, undocumented transfers to the agent’s own accounts, refusal to account to the principal or authorized interested persons, and gifts beyond what the POA document expressly authorizes are all breaches of fiduciary duty. Depending on the state and the facts, the conduct can also be criminal elder financial abuse, grand theft, or fraud.
Can other siblings see the POA document and account records?
The principal has an absolute right to see both. Other interested family members generally have to request them in writing and, if refused, petition the probate or surrogate’s court for an order compelling production. Most state statutes give standing to spouses, adult children, and other “interested persons” to seek an accounting from a POA agent, especially when the principal is incapacitated or has died.
What is a petition for surcharge?
A surcharge petition asks a probate court to hold a fiduciary (including a POA agent, trustee, or executor) personally liable for losses caused by breach of fiduciary duty. If granted, the court enters a money judgment against the fiduciary for the amount improperly taken, plus interest, and in many states additional damages and attorney’s fees. The petition runs in probate court rather than general civil court, and the procedures are state-specific.
How do I report suspected elder financial abuse?
Start with Adult Protective Services in the state where the parent lives. The federal Eldercare Locator at 1-800-677-1116 connects callers to the correct state APS office. Also report to local law enforcement if theft is ongoing. Notify the parent’s bank in writing, requesting a fraud review. The CFPB has detailed guidance for reporting elder financial abuse to banks and regulators.
Can a power of attorney be revoked?
Yes. A competent principal can revoke a POA at any time, in writing, and deliver the revocation to the agent and to any third party (bank, brokerage, title company) that has been relying on it. If the principal is no longer competent to revoke, another interested person can petition the probate court for termination of the POA and appointment of a conservator or guardian. The moment a court appoints a conservator, the existing POA is typically superseded.
What if the POA agent spent the money and doesn’t have it anymore?
A court can still enter a judgment against the agent personally for the amount misappropriated, plus interest and in many states punitive damages. That judgment is enforceable through wage garnishment, bank levies, and liens on real property the agent owns. If the agent transferred funds to third parties or to the agent’s children, those transfers may be voidable as fraudulent conveyances, and recovery can sometimes reach into those hands as well. Criminal restitution ordered after a conviction is another enforcement channel.
