My Mom does not have a Living Will. She has a POA,-my brother- an Advance Medical Directive, a DNR order, and a Will. My name and my brother. Mom is in the hospital and rehab w/ a broken hip. She will hopefully go back to assisted Living once she can walk again. She is 88. I am trying to figure out her finances before she dies and was told that if my name was on her checking account her money would be safe from the courts and we could proceed with her wishes outlined in her Last Will & Testament. I want to make sure I am doing the right things to keep her estate out of the hands of lawyers and courts.
Some ways to do it are to negotiate with her to run all expenses by you first if she might cooperate and remember the agreement. If not, try to get a financial POA and change her bank account so that it does not permit ATM or debit card overdrafts. You may be able to set up online access to her account and do the right things with it, such as moving most of her money to a different new account that bills can be paid from, and do not give her that new checkbook; you really should not do that as if you were her unless you have that POA. Or, if she is really incapacitated, you may be able to go to the social security office and get representative payee for her Social Security check and set that up into a different account where you can transfer funds as needed. SS office does not depend on your POA alone, you have to get the rep payee. Guardianship is an option if those sorts of things do not get things under control.
If you have zero cooperation but she is not deemed incapacitated, you have to get sneaky. You can report her debit card lost or stolen as long as you could intercept a new one that they would mail her. I just started doing my mom's bill paying, at first with her "supervision" then just by reassuring her we had taken care of it for the month already, and collected my mom's QVC and another shopping card at one point, and she never said anything about them to me. (She was too proud to admit she'd lost anything - yes, I took advantage!) I felt bad but otherwise she would fall for charity scams, and would buy endless supplies of Wendell Forge pewter trinkets plus chocolates that were "gifts" that she'd, um, forget to give away - it was better for her diabetes for me to buy her sugarfree and keep her candy dish full.
Keep good records, and do everything with as much respect and love as you can, but set limits and recognize what she can and can't realistically manage any more. It is not easy, emotionally or practically, and there is not one right way to do it that will work for every situation; it may not hurt to have a financial advisor or estate planner help you navigate it all.
I find it odd that "she has no estate" but she has a house with a loan on it. That does not make sense. The home equity loan is now due in full when the borrower dies. The Executor has to sit down with the lender and discuss a "short sale" of the property.