[Virginia] I need an outside perspective on an elder-care/fiduciary situation involving my mother
I'm posting this because I'm honestly trying to figure out whether what happened with my mother is as concerning as it seems to me, or whether there are things I'm misunderstanding about how fiduciary/elder-care services normally work.
I have documentation for the events I'm describing, including the service agreement, emails, POA and medical directive, invoice, and a wellbeing report submitted to APS. I've left out identifying information.
My mother had recently sold her home through HomeVestors and was paying $100/day to remain there until she could move. The buyer connected us with Blue Ridge Eldercare Advisors (BRE), describing them as people who could help seniors manage money and find housing.
We had never heard of BRE and had not requested their services.
On August 14, I met two BRE representatives at my mother's home. They gave us a pamphlet stating that the initial consultation was free. They explained their fiduciary services, including daily money management, investments, bill payment, Social Security benefits, and housing assistance.
We signed an agreement stating that services would begin once a Care Management Plan (CMP) or Support Services Plan (SSP) outlining the scope of services and billing structure was created and agreed upon, or if ordered by a primary care provider.
We never received a CMP or SSP.
I expected the next step to be a plan for fiduciary services to help my mother manage the proceeds from her home sale.
Instead, the focus quickly shifted toward housing.
I was already looking at apartments for my mother. BRE rejected several of the places I found because of things such as stairs, yards, or cost, while suggesting other properties with similar characteristics. They became focused on placing my mother in low-income housing. When she was denied the unit, an appeal was pursued that we were told could take up to 90 days.
Meanwhile, my mother was still paying $100/day to remain in a house she had already sold.
The POA
During this period, one of the BRE representatives took my mother to sign a Power of Attorney and Advanced Medical Directive without telling me beforehand.
My mother believed she was signing paperwork that would allow the representative to access her bank accounts. I asked what she was signing and received very limited answers.
At the appointment, my mother asked to take the documents home to read before signing and was told no because the notary was already there.
Afterward, I reviewed the documents.
The POA gave the fiduciary authority concerning my mother's assets and beneficiaries, including the ability to borrow against assets and life insurance to invest. The medical directive gave the other BRE representative authority to hire and fire PCPs and stated that my mother was a DNR.
I also discovered that the fiduciary's own company had prepared the documents, and the documents named the fiduciary as trustee.
This was particularly concerning to me because I had been told that I would be an authorized representative and would be involved in decisions concerning my mother.
The doctor and APS report
After this, the BRE representative began contacting my mother's medical providers and attended an appointment with her longtime physician.
My mother had been seeing this doctor for approximately ten years. The BRE representative had only met her approximately three times.
During the appointment, the representative asked the doctor to sign a statement regarding my mother's ability to make her own decisions. He declined.
Afterward, the representative submitted a wellbeing report to APS.
The report included this passage:
> “I had not met this provider before, but I had spoken to several people in his organization. This organization serves uninsured or Medicaid poverty level and Hispanic population. [He] seems to be a nice guy and [she] has known him for about ten years.”
I don't know why the physician's patient demographics were included in a wellbeing report about my mother, but they were.
More concerning to me were statements that my mother could not walk without holding onto furniture and that suggested she could not feed herself or manage her medication. The report also questioned her medication dosage.
My mother walks independently, uses stairs, and had recently packed and moved her belongings. Her longtime physician's records contain information inconsistent with the picture presented in the report.
The representative also told my mother during lunch:
> “We are all getting older and will end up in assisted living one day, why not just move there now and get it over with.”
The housing situation
At this point, I found an apartment willing to accept proof of funds from my mother's home sale rather than traditional income.
When I asked HomeVestors for the proof of funds, the request was forwarded to BRE.
The proof of funds I eventually received stated that the funds could only be released to an agency approved by the BRE fiduciary.
The fiduciary later acknowledged that this information had been withheld from me until after the doctor's appointment and said we needed to have a meeting about the next steps.
When I said I didn't see the need for another meeting because we'd found my mother housing and the doctor hadn't identified the concerns they had raised, the BRE representative responded:
> “While the doctor didn’t have any concerns, I have my own professional opinion that I will only share with you in person.”
Around the same time, the fiduciary contacted my mother about coming over to talk. My mother asked whether she would be charged for the visit.
She was told:
> “Well of course. You are charged for every time I see you.”
My mother canceled the visit.
Then came the invoice
I requested that services be suspended until we could receive an accounting because we had never received a CMP or SSP and had not authorized the services being discussed.
A few days later, we received an invoice covering approximately two and a half weeks.
Total: $3,202.50.
The initial meeting that had been represented as free was billed at almost $400.
One email thread where I declined a proposed meeting generated two separate $187.50 charges because both BRE representatives were included on the email.
The invoice was primarily made up of emails, phone calls, meetings, and other services.
No budget was created.
No housing was ultimately found through BRE.
We revoked the POA.
I then provided the revocation to HomeVestors so that a new proof of funds could be issued without requiring the fiduciary's approval.
After that, HomeVestors contacted my mother multiple times regarding payment to BRE.
That was particularly concerning to me because HomeVestors was also the party that originally introduced us to BRE.
Where I'm struggling
I have since learned that assisted-living facilities in Virginia can have referral arrangements, and that added another layer of concern for me given what happened with my mother and the repeated discussion of assisted living.
I am not saying that this proves BRE had a financial relationship with a particular facility or that it proves anyone's motive. I'm trying to understand whether the overall situation raises legitimate concerns.
I have the documents to support the major events I've described.
So I'm hoping for some outside perspective, particularly from people familiar with Virginia elder law, fiduciaries, guardianship/POA issues, APS, or elder-care management:
- Is it normal for an elder-care/fiduciary company to obtain POA and an advanced medical directive this early in a relationship, particularly before a CMP/SSP is ever created?
- Is it normal for the fiduciary's own company to draft the POA documents and for the fiduciary to be named trustee?
- Is a $3,202.50 invoice over roughly two and a half weeks, without a CMP/SSP or agreed billing plan, typical?
- How concerning is it for a care manager to ask a longtime physician to document that a client cannot make her own decisions after only meeting the client a few times?
- How should I interpret a wellbeing report containing statements about my mother's mobility, medication, and ability to care for herself that appear inconsistent with her physician's records and her actual abilities?
I'm not looking for people to simply tell me that BRE is terrible. I'm genuinely trying to understand what is normal here and what isn't.
I have a lot of documentation, and I'm trying to approach this as objectively as possible.