RAISING YOUR PARENTS

This past week, I came across a widow (late 70s) and her two adult children (mid 50s) who had a serious problem: the mother did not confide with her children and the children believe mom had enough business sense to take care of her own finances.

Five years ago, mom went to a major lender and obtained a mortgage. With her minimal social security check, she was having a hard time getting along, needed some "fix up" on her home and some money to spend. She most likely used a portion of her new found money to make the $935 per month mortgage payment until six months ago. Of course, she ran out of funds.

Her son saw a friend one day, the friend wanted to know if everything was okay with his mother since he had read in the local paper that her home was being foreclosed upon by the lender. The son had no idea and drove immediately to visit his mother in the family home for the past 60 years. When asked about the foreclosure, she broke down and cried, for the past six months while she had been receiving threatening letters from the lender she filed them in a kitchen drawer. She was waiting to tell her children the day before the foreclosure, because she did not want them to think she needed their assistance.

As a result, the kids paid off the mortgage of about $97,000 with penalties and mom will be deeding the home to them. All hope is on she does not require major assisted living within the next five years, due to Medicaid's ability to look back five years.

If you have parents over 65 years old, make sure to ask them about their finances, they probably would like you to be involved or at least know the door is open for help and while your at it make sure their will is up to date.

Theory: They raised us, now it is time to raise them. But, we knew they were raising us, we can not let them know we are raising them during their senior years.