When a sibling holding power of attorney (POA) cuts you out of your mother's care, you generally have no automatic legal right to override that sibling's decisions — a POA agent's fiduciary duty runs to the parent, not to siblings, so a sibling has no built-in veto a sibling dispute guide from ElderLawAnswers. What you can do depends on which type of POA your sibling holds, whether your mother is still mentally competent, and whether this looks like an access dispute or something closer to abuse. The path forward is different in each of those situations. A competent parent can simply revoke the document; an incapacitated parent's situation usually requires a court; and suspected abuse has its own reporting channel entirely.
Medical information disclaimer: This article is for general educational purposes only and does not provide medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always consult a physician or other qualified health professional about symptoms, medications, tests, or treatment decisions.
Table of Contents
- Why a POA Sibling Can Legally Limit Your Access
- If Your Mother Is Still Mentally Competent
- If Your Mother No Longer Has Capacity to Act
- Requesting an Accounting Before You Go to Court
- When It's Abuse, Not Just a Family Dispute
- Frequently Asked Questions
Why a POA Sibling Can Legally Limit Your Access
A power of attorney is a legal document that lets one person, the agent, act on behalf of another, the principal, who in this case is your mother. The agent's legal obligation is to act in the principal's best interest — not to keep every family member satisfied ElderLawAnswers' overview of sibling POA disputes. That duty shapes what your sibling can and cannot restrict. A financial power of attorney gives an agent authority over money and property, not over who gets to visit.
An agent holding only a financial POA generally should not have the power to bar you from seeing your mother. A healthcare power of attorney is different: an agent holding that document may restrict visits if they believe contact with a specific person would harm the parent's health, which is the legal hook some siblings use to justify cutting others out the same ElderLawAnswers guide. So the first practical question is which document your sibling is actually relying on. If it's a financial POA being used to control visitation, that's outside the agent's authority. If it's a healthcare POA and your sibling cites a health concern, the legal footing is stronger, even if you disagree with the judgment behind it.
If Your Mother Is Still Mentally Competent
If your mother can still understand and communicate her own wishes, she holds the most direct remedy available. As long as the principal remains mentally competent, she can revoke the power of attorney at any time and for any reason. Revocation should be done in writing, and the former agent must be notified ElderLawAnswers on revoking a POA. This means the decision is ultimately hers to make, not yours or your sibling's.
If she wants to see you and is being prevented from doing so by an agent who is exceeding their authority, pointing her toward a written revocation — ideally drafted with an elder law attorney — is often the most direct fix. A revocation doesn't require proving wrongdoing; your mother needs only to decide she wants a different arrangement. If she's willing but unable to manage the paperwork herself because of physical limits rather than cognitive ones, an attorney can still prepare the revocation for her signature. The key test is capacity, not convenience: she needs to understand what she's signing, not necessarily be able to do it unassisted.
If Your Mother No Longer Has Capacity to Act
Once a parent lacks the capacity to revoke the document herself, the remedy shifts from her hands to the court's. A family member can file a petition challenging the agent's conduct, and a court that finds the agent isn't acting in the principal's best interest can revoke the power of attorney and appoint a guardian instead ElderLawAnswers on court challenges to an agent. State law determines exactly who can file and what the court can order, so it's worth checking your state's specific statute. Virginia's enactment of the Uniform Power of Attorney Act, for example, lets the principal, the agent, a court-appointed fiduciary, a healthcare decision-maker, and specified family members petition a court to review the agent's conduct Virginia Code § 64.2-1614.
For petitions filed on or after July 1, 2019, a Virginia court that finds a breach of fiduciary duty can also order the agent to pay the petitioner's legal costs and attorney fees, though punitive damages aren't available under the statute a Virginia Lawyers Weekly case summary. Other states follow similar patterns with their own specifics. New Hampshire's RSA 506:7 allows the agent, the principal, a spouse, child or parent, a presumptive heir, or certain government agencies to petition a court to determine whether an agent violated fiduciary duties; the court can terminate the power of attorney or determine which transactions were authorized Elder Law Report, citing New Hampshire RSA 506:7. New York treats the agent as a fiduciary required to keep records of every transaction; in a 2025 case, Matter of Sawkins, an appellate court affirmed an order requiring an agent to render a full account of her tenure New York Appellate Division, Fourth Department. An attorney in your mother's state can tell you which family members qualify to file and what evidence the court will want.
Requesting an Accounting Before You Go to Court
Before filing anything, you can ask the agent directly for a record of the decisions and transactions they've made under the POA. Because an agent is a fiduciary, they're generally required to keep records of receipts, disbursements, and other transactions carried out on your mother's behalf, and a court can order that accounting produced if the agent won't provide it voluntarily, as happened in the 2025 Sawkins case New York Appellate Division, Fourth Department. A request for records serves two purposes.
It can resolve the dispute without litigation if the agent simply hasn't been transparent, and if a court case does become necessary, your written request and the response (or lack of one) becomes part of the record showing whether the agent has been forthcoming. Put the request in writing and keep a copy. Ask specifically for financial records if a financial POA is involved, or for the medical reasoning behind any visitation restriction if a healthcare POA is being cited.
When It's Abuse, Not Just a Family Dispute
Not every sibling conflict over a parent's care is a pure access dispute — sometimes the exclusion is a symptom of financial or physical abuse. If you suspect abuse or neglect rather than a disagreement over judgment calls, you can contact your local Adult Protective Services agency, which typically sends a caseworker to interview the parent directly as part of its investigation a Caring.com attorney Q&A. This distinction matters because the remedies are different tracks. A court petition to review an agent's conduct addresses whether the agent is managing the POA properly; an Adult Protective Services report addresses whether your mother is safe right now.
The two can run at the same time. The pattern is more common than many families expect. A 2019 study by the USC Keck School of Medicine, reviewing nearly 2,000 calls to a National Center on Elder Abuse resource line, found relatives were the most frequently named alleged abusers, identified in about 47 to 48 percent of cases where the relationship was known. Financial abuse was the most common type reported in those family-member cases, at 61.8 percent, ahead of emotional abuse, neglect, and physical abuse the USC Keck School of Medicine study. Because an Adult Protective Services caseworker interviews the parent directly, a visit can surface whether your mother's isolation reflects her own wishes or something she can't currently report on her own.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I sue my sibling just for not letting me visit our mother?
A pure visitation dispute is hard to win in court unless the agent is misusing a healthcare POA to restrict contact without a health justification; a Caring.com attorney Q&A notes that courts are reluctant to referee family visitation absent abuse or neglect concerns, which is why an Adult Protective Services report is the more direct route when abuse is suspected (Caring.com).
Does a healthcare POA automatically let my sibling block all contact with our mother?
No — the agent must believe the contact would harm the parent's health; it isn't an open-ended authority to exclude family members for personal reasons (ElderLawAnswers).
What if our mother wants to see me but says she's afraid to go against her POA agent?
Since she retains the right to revoke the document while competent, an elder law attorney can help her put that revocation in writing and notify the former agent directly, without her having to confront the agent informally first (ElderLawAnswers).
