Dear Mr. Premack: My mother named me as agent in her Statutory Durable Power of Attorney in 2003. In 2010 my brother convinced her to name him as agent, and she signed a new Statutory Durable Power of Attorney. He has taken over her financial affairs with the exception of an inherited IRA that only I have information on. My brother has questionable judgment and lives with our mother. Although the rest of the family thinks Mom is incapacitated and thinks she did not understand

Dear Mr. Premack: My father got married several years after my mother died. His new wife was still married to another man in Thailand when she married dad. I suspect she (who now claims to be divorced from husband #1) wants to grab dad’s money and assets. My parents had a rather large estate that was partially placed in a trust for the children, but the children do not have a copy of trust. Also, we are unable to access dad (who has Parkinson’s) due to his new wife being a he

Dear Mr. Premack: My widowed father had his resources (home, 166 acre ranch) placed into a revocable living trust. This trust was enacted about nine years ago. Does this trust prevent the family from having to go through probate court? If so, can MERP still file an estate recovery claim against his estate if he needs to be placed permanently in a nursing home? – HR, McAllen, TX You are asking about big legal issues: trusts, probate, qualifying for Medicaid and Medicaid’s esta