She has dementia lives with my sister and we have no idea. My mother, who has moderate Dementia, lives with my older sister, one of 7 adult siblings. She "decided" mom would live with her, since she cannot care for herself. My sister has full POA and medical over my mom. But my question is, all the other siblings do not know where a penny of my mother's Social Security money goes. Should we all know?
But now I am kind of torn about this question. In cases like this, question should be asked.
With that being said, now that I am doing the money management, I expect the same thing. Since none of the seven siblings assist financially or physically for that matter, than they absolutely cannot ask me a gosh darn thing about where there money is being spent.
They should be able to see that there are no more disconnections, they finally are getting some clothes here and there, the house is getting some needed repair, the car finally has new shoes, etc. But there still is a lack and they need help.
I guess you can say there is no clear answer to this question.
If you and all the siblings see the finances and see there is a problem or lack of finances to handle what is needed, what are you all prepared to do? The biggest question is why do ALL of you need to know? Is this a witch hunt?
If it's any consolation, your sister can be held to account by whatever regulatory authority takes care of vulnerable adults in their neck of the woods; but how your mother's money is spent is no more your business now than it was when your mother was in charge of it. Technically, that information is confidential and should be kept private by your sister. Was it something your mother was in the habit of discussing with you?
With Mom at home, that means your sister's grocery bill has gone up.... the water bill probably is x4 as high with all the laundry involved with an elder especially one with dementia [daily washing of sheets].... the heat temp is probably set much higher thus higher utility costs... all the trips to the many different doctor offices [gasoline]... the cost of Depends if Mom needs to use those... cost of medicines, safety items, eye glasses, hearing aids, etc.
Time for you and the other siblings to help pitch in with these high costs of caring for an elder at home.
If you want to be aware of the disposition of your mother's SS, I think you would want to also be involved with her care. Sis can't do it alone.
Get together with your sister and other siblings and work out arrangements to help your mother and your sister. You'll probably see then that SS doesn't go very far.
I'm going to assume mom gets the average Social Seciurity check of about $1200 a month. If your sister is keeping ALL of it, it's still not enough. If she IS doing that, though, unless she has a personal care contract in place with mom, if mom has to go on Medicaid in the next five years, Medicaid's going to want all that money paid back.