Selling a Home When the Seller Has Dementia

The laws are clear about home selling when a seller has dementia.

Part of my Sacramento real estate business involves working with older sellers such as those who hold title in family trusts, but every so often I run across a situation in which the seller has dementia. I closed a sale a few months ago for a seller with dementia. She died in the middle of escrow, too, and it was terribly hard on her family. Fortunately, she had named a successor trustee in her trust so her daughter could handle the sale of the home from beginning to end.

It was almost as though once she knew the home would be sold, she decided to give up. I got to meet her when I completed my agent visual inspection and spoke to her daughter about selling. She seemed vaguely aware I was there and at times did answer questions. However, her daughter said after we put the home on the market, she was no longer responsive. I hate to think that selling the home could have been the factor but when you live in a home for dozens of years, well, I’ll probably be that way at the end, too.

When they take your home away, what else do you have left? Your independence is gone. When the seller has dementia, home selling becomes complicated. In this case, the daughter had originally signed all of the paperwork as an attorney-in-fact, because she had a notarized power of attorney. We did not initially know the home was in a trust. The public records I had did not reflect it. However, a power of attorney is not valid for a home that is included in a family trust. Only the trustee or successor trustee can sign to sell the home.

I was thinking about this because another client’s son called me yesterday about listing his mother’s home. The problem is his mother is on title with her husband as joint tenants, and her husband, also a seller, has dementia. She does not have a power of attorney and the home is not placed in her family trust. Without a court order, she cannot sell the home. Her husband is very ill. This is a woman who gave me a framed, signed autograph of Paul McCartney from the 1960s because I showed her a video I shot with my cellphone of the Paul McCartney concert at Golden 1 Center.

I had sold another home for the family that was in the family trust. But this home, we cannot sell. Because the seller has dementia. His wife could use the money but she has to wait. For the inevitable. The inevitable is likely to be faster (and less expensive) than going to court. After one party dies in a joint tenancy arrangement, title passes to the survivor.

Sometimes I wish I didn’t know such things.