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My sister opened an online stock account and placed Mother’s stocks in them (held in the name of Mother’s trust), then has all the account information sent only to her. My Mother didn’t request this, sister was only supposed to mail all the paperwork to place everything into the trust. Mother is totally competent to handle her own affairs, but sister has taken it upon herself to control everything. She told us today she would never give us the username or password. I told her I thought it was illegal to open an account in someone else’s name, but she still refused any help. Mother was very upset by the whole argument saying she never agreed to that. She feels like her daughter just took away her money. I told sister I would call a lawyer and we should all sit down and talk. She said she will never share any information with us. Isn’t this illegal? Should I get some elder abuse people involved? Last year she started having all Mother’s mail sent to her house. Now this happened! How do I fix this? My sister has no poa or guardianship over my Mother. My Mother can’t understand why my sister did this and neither can I. Ugh!

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Tryingmybest, I am curious how your sister is doing this Trust. Normally your Mom and the Power of Attorney makes an appointment with an Attorney, usually an Elder Law Attorney to set up the Trust. It is time consuming, and expensive to do, but worth it later down the road.

Who is giving you all of this information? I see from your profile that your Mom has Alzheimer's/Dementia.... is she telling you this? Could be there is a Trust but with your Mom's memory she doesn't remember doing this.

There does come a time when us children need to start overseeing our parent's bill paying and bank accounts. I took over when I noticed my Dad was throwing away active bills thinking they were junk mail.

If there is a Revocable Trust, I see nothing wrong with the Trustee [which would be your sister] making sure the money/stocks are all in a Trust. My Dad had stocks scattered everywhere, so I was able to put the stocks all with one Broker... and put all the checking/savings accounts with one bank.... makes life so much easier then dealing with a ton a paperwork from dozens of financial institutions.
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After my Father passed, my sister and I worked together to get everything in order. We all met with a lawyer and had Mother make a will and trust. At that time we helped her move accounts into the trust. We did everything together. Last year we met at a bank where Mother signed documents to move stocks into her name. That is when sister decided to have all Mother’s mail moved to her house so she wouldn’t have to go out and get the mail in the winter. After the paperwork was signed, sister volunteered to mail it all in to the broker. It all seemed okay until yesterday Mother was concerned about proxy votes and said she hadn’t sent them in. Mother also hasn’t received any communication from the broker other than direct deposits into her checking account of dividends. Mother is old and tired, but doesn’t have dementia. This confrontation was very upsetting. My sister yelled at her and me, and was very defensive. A simple log onto the computer to show us everything would have been sufficient. She sent me an email saying her and Mother did the proxies online with bank pin numbers. Some of her stock has been moved to another broker without Mom’ Knowledge. All this shows me she has been opening her mail. She said she did it to make things easier on Mother. I think Mother needs a lawyer. Or is this a criminal act?
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Pursue the organization that originally held the stocks. They are not allowed to move them to another organization without the proper paperwork. Report this situation and demand they undo the transaction.
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Your sister may genuinely be trying to do her best for your mother.
She probably is trying to make your mother's life easier and save her paperwork headaches.
The way she is going about it is SO out of order.

How would she like it if you'd done that, and then got narky about it when she asked questions?

You can probably find out from the firms' own websites what their regulations are about opening accounts on behalf of third parties. But in these days of practically paranoid anti-money laundering regulation I'd be astonished if what she's done is procedurally correct. Total transparency is the order of the day, after all.

But keep talking to her, and try to hang on to your temper. The probability, on current information anyway, is that she hasn't done anything evil with the money and she is trying to benefit your mother financially. Somehow, she has to be made to understand that there Most Certainly Is A Problem Here and if she will not share information with your mother - !!!!! - then you are, reluctantly, going to have to take formal steps.
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It’s sad this happened. I thought we had a good relationship.
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