Sue your mother for mental incompetency? What a bully.

Today's question and answer is a bit of a rant, but I can't apologize for that. This comment from a reader made me really angry. Here is the question and my comments.

"My question pertains more to the mental capacity side of things. My mother was left a 1/6 share of an estate and she was left to live there and care for the property. Over the course of 8 years she didn't pay the property taxes and we just found out last week we had been 2 weeks away from the property being foreclosed by the government. Now my question is, my mother doesn't understand the consequences of actions such as not paying taxes, bills, etc. We want to know is it possible to take someone to court for incompetency when they have almost jeopardized our family's farm. We would like to have her removed from the title because we have decided we can't trust her with the responsibility of taking care of the place we've allowed her to live at?"

Wow. Unbelievable. Let me say first, I am so glad you lot are not my family. Yes, I have a few comments on this situation.

You can't sue people for "almost" doing something to you.

Was the arrangement set out in a contract? Was your mother being paid for the work or the responsibility of the property? If not, how exactly are you going to sue her? No contract, no damage, no power of attorney. I'd say you're out of luck.

If your mother owned only 1/6 of the title, why was she expected to pay all of the tax? Apparently the people who owned the other 5/6 didn't pay either. Considering none of them even bothered to check on taxes for 8 years and just assumed that someone else would fork over the money, I'd say they deserved to lose the property.

Your mother was left a share and she owns it. Neither you nor anybody else can take her off the title just because they want to punish her.

If your mother doesn't understand things like bills and taxes, why was she left in charge?

Who are you to to get all bent out of shape about "our family's farm"? Are you one of the owners? If not, butt out, because YOU haven't "allowed" anyone to do anything. If you are, you have only yourself to blame for leaving someone in charge who didn't know how to do the job, and then not paying your share, paying her, or doing anything else to protect your property. I can see why she didn't ask any of you people for help.

It might interest you to know that in most families, when an older person begins to fail at handling everyday tasks such as bills, their kids don't sue them. They help them and protect them.

What a bunch of bullies.