At the age of 91, Mary Louise Terry was getting by on food stamps and
monthly Social Security checks, living under the care of her son in her
home of 11 years on Belen’s main street.
But a $100,000 insurance
windfall Terry inherited after that son died in May 2015 marked the
beginning of the end of her stable family life.
Terry, who has dementia, is now under a guardianship approved by a
Valencia County district court judge. She is in her fourth nursing home
in six months despite the fact she has three sons and a daughter-in-law
willing to care for her.
Terry – who had two other sons die within
three months of each other in 2015 – was assaulted last month by
another nursing home resident and has since been moved to a different
long-term facility in Albuquerque.
This
family photo taken in the early 1960s shows Mary Terry with five of her
six sons,
including David Stout, who is at the far right of the bottom
row. David had been taking care
of his mother at their Belen home until
his death in May 2015.
Her Belen house is gone, sold
by the guardian/conservator who by law can be paid out of an
incapacitated person’s assets. The state of her finances is unclear. And
family members in New Mexico say court-appointed professionals rejected
their offer to take care of Terry in their own homes.
“Mother
should have been allowed to live whatever years she has left the way she
wanted to. Like all the rest of us want to,” daughter-in-law Lois
Painter of Albuquerque said last week.
“None of us wants to live
like she has been living … Shuffled from one place to another, beat up,
etc. No one, right mind or not, would want this happening to them or
their loved ones. What would you think if this happened to your family?”
Secret process
Court
records show that in December 2015, Terry’s daughter who lives in Texas
filed a petition seeking appointment of a professional
guardian/conservator to oversee her mother’s finances and health care –
all under a secret legal process that’s supposed to be a “last resort”
to protect an incapacitated person.
Now, most if not all the $100,000 insurance proceeds are gone, other family members say.
They say the guardian/conservator firm, which handles all of the
Terry’s finances, took control of her $753-a-month Social Security
checks, which had previously been automatically deposited.
The New
Mexico family complains that the guardian never closed her bank
account, so hundreds of dollars of still-unpaid overdraft charges have
been assessed. Late payment fees and disconnect charges accrued when the
utility bills at the Belen home hadn’t been paid by the professional
guardian. Her homeowners’ insurance also lapsed, Painter told the
Journal.
Last fall, the guardian notified the family that Terry,
now 93, had to move from her Belen house to a $5,500-a-month assisted
living home. Just two months later, the family was told Terry was being
evicted because her money had run out. Terry has lived in three other
homes since then, but family members aren’t sure how those bills are
getting paid.
“There’s been no accounting of money to us at all. None. All that was told is, Mary doesn’t have any more money,” Painter said.
Guardians have authority over the personal health and welfare of the individual adult deemed incapacitated by a court.
But
family members say that, in the past year, the assigned professional
guardian “never shows up” when issues with Terry’s care arise and
consistently asks Terry’s son to respond to emergencies.
Roxanna
Gates, owner of the guardianship company, CNRAG, Inc., declined to
respond to questions from the Journal, citing confidentiality
surrounding guardianship matters.
Painter said last month that
CNRAG sold Terry’s Belen house for about $82,000, which Painter said was
$40,000 under the appraised value. How much of that money will go to
the guardian or other bills isn’t information that is furnished to her
New Mexico family – only to the court. (
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Full Article & Source:
Family laments mom’s fate under court guardianship
