[gertef]

But really, what's wrong with that?

Why is someone entitled to control accumulated wealth after they lose their faculty?

Most parents live for their children. If a parent doesn't want to give wealth to their children, that's fine; the parent can give wealth to their grandchildren in trust, or anyone on the world they choose.

[pc86]

This is disgusting. It's their assets and it should be handled in the way(s) they determined when they had full control of their faculties. Anything short of that is fraud, theft, and saying "what's wrong with that?" to someone just stealing money from a parent is horrible.

[blackbagboys]

This is ridiculous property-rights absolutism. Obviously it would wrong to leave them completely bereft and unable to support themselves, but people with compromised mental faculties lose plenty of other rights; there's no reason they get to sit like a senile dragon on a hoard of accumulated wealth.

[kbos87]

Are you serious? That wealth belongs to them until they make a sound decision to part with it. If that means they’ve decided to purchase something and haven’t been deceived, great. If that means they pass it on to someone of their choosing when they die, that’s their right too. When someone takes advantage of their weakened mental state, that is just plain reprehensible.

[Geekette]

"This is ridiculous property-rights absolutism. ... there's no reason they get to sit like a senile dragon on a hoard of accumulated wealth."

WTF. It isn't ridiculous to respect the fact that unless explicitly given to you, other people’s property is NOT yours and this applies to your parents too. It’s amazing that this has to be disputed at all but it explains why one sees some people with families going beyond will-making to planning for divestiture of their wealth to occur while alive later on.

[fspeech]

People can feel aversion to the idea out of love or respect for their parents instead of pure legalism.

[caseysoftware]

Try this reasoning:

Giving a gift is great. Taking something that doesn't belong to you is theft.

[Thrymr]

What's wrong with one sibling stealing a parent's accumulated wealth while they are still alive and not leaving it for the other siblings? Quite a lot.

[pc86]

Uh, it's less about "leaving it for the other siblings" and more that it's the parent's money. It doesn't belong to any of the children until the parents are deceased and it's actually given to them.

The number of otherwise good people I've heard refer to "their money" when actually referring to their parents' assets is heartbreaking.

[literallycancer]

Maybe they simply think of the assets as "family assets" regardless of who actually owns them? Why assume they are malicious?

[rmrm]

because the people that actually own the assets need to agree for this to be ok.

[literallycancer]

His issue was that people talk about assets as if they were theirs, not that they using them as if they were. It's quite possible that they simply don't have a dysfunctional family and can agree on what's to be done with them, hence it doesn't matter who actually owns them, and not making the distinction in conversation isn't an issue.

[rmrm]

"agree"

Exactly my point. I understand what you are saying - but in conversation, my reaction is much more like the parent comment, it sounds like an entitled POV. Many people who say such things, in my anecdotal experience, feel they have a right to the wealth, and may not have agreement.

[mindslight]

> Why is someone entitled to control accumulated wealth after they lose their faculty?

Not directly answering why they're "entitled to", but why they'd want to - they will (likely) still be alive for quite some time, and their quality of life will depend heavily on the resources they have available.

[fspeech]

I agree with your sentiment. As reported people who lose their faculties do not control their assets. The appointed guardians are supposed to jealously protect the assets from the family because this is supposedly in the best interests of the incapacitated. Sadly people do not make their intent clear when they are still capable. I think people down vote you because without express consent it can be construed as theft even if the incapacitated would have made the same choice if they were still capable. To avoid this tragedy we need to discuss with our loved ones and make our intent clear (and with legal power) while we are still lucid.