I cared for my mother with Alzheimer’s until her death — now my brother says I misused her money and deserve no inheritance. What can I do?

Brian has questioned expenses Sharon made from their mother’s account, including money spent on groceries, medical costs, and transportation. He has also raised questions about other purchases Sharon says were made for their mother’s benefit. Now, he wants Sharon to get nothing from their mother’s estate.

It’s a difficult situation, but not an unusual one. When one adult child becomes the primary caregiver, that person can end up handling everything from medications to money — sometimes with little-to-no help from other family members.

So what happens when siblings later question those financial decisions?

Using a parent’s money isn’t automatically financial abuse

When an adult child becomes a parent’s primary caregiver, handling money can quickly become part of the job.

Sharon may have used her mother’s account to pay for groceries, prescriptions, rides to medical appointments, or a repair around the house. She may even have paid some bills herself and reimbursed herself later. After years of that, her mother’s bank statements probably don’t look anything like they did before Sharon took on her care.

“The test is easy to state and hard to fake: the money has to be spent for the parent, not for the child,” Michael Hackard, author and founder of Hackard Law, a California trust, estate and elder financial abuse litigation firm, told Moneywise. Hackard’s firm deals with trust, estate, and elder financial abuse litigation.

“Rent or mortgage, property taxes, insurance, utilities, groceries, medications, physicians, in-home aides, adult daycare, incontinence supplies, grab bars and a ramp, the car that gets her to the neurologist — all of it ordinary, all of it legitimate.”

But legitimate caregiving expenses are only part of the picture. What matters is whether the money was actually being used for the parent’s care.

Financial exploitation is a serious concern when an older person has dementia or Alzheimer’s and can no longer keep track of their finances. A 2025 analysis of 30 studies found a pooled prevalence of 28.3% for financial abuse among community-dwelling older adults with dementia.

So if Brian is questioning what happened to his mother’s money, the details matter. Was Sharon authorized to manage the account? What was the money spent on? Did her mother know about the arrangement or previously agree to it? And can Sharon show where the money went?

There’s a big difference between using a parent’s money to pay for that parent’s care and quietly moving funds into your own account for personal expenses.

“What raises flags is a pattern, not a line item,” Hackard said. “Cash withdrawals with no stated purpose. Commingling — the parent’s money moving into the child’s account and losing its identity [or] the child’s own bills paid from the parent’s funds.”

There’s also a bigger picture here that can get lost when siblings start arguing over an estate.

Of course, not every family disagreement over money means someone has done something wrong. Caregiving can make a parent’s finances look very different from what they did before — and that can create plenty of room for suspicion once the parent dies.

Nearly 13 million Americans provided unpaid care to people living with Alzheimer’s or other dementias in 2025, according to the Alzheimer’s Association. Together, they provided an estimated 19.6 billion hours of care, valued at $446.3 billion.

That’s a lot of unpaid work, and many caregivers are doing it while trying to keep up with their own jobs, households, and bills.

It doesn’t mean a caregiver gets free rein over a parent’s finances. But when one child is the person buying the groceries, arranging appointments, paying bills, and keeping track of medications, the line between caregiving and managing money can get blurry. That’s one reason keeping good records can matter so much if questions come up later.

What to do if siblings challenge your inheritance

A fight over a parent’s money can turn ugly quickly. That’s especially true when one sibling did most of the caregiving and another starts wondering where the money went.

There are a few things Sharon can do now that could make the situation easier to sort out later.

Preserve the financial paper trail

Sharon shouldn’t try to reconstruct years of spending from memory. If Brian has questions about his mother’s finances, she’ll want the records to speak for themselves.

That means holding on to bank statements, receipts, medical bills, invoices, and tax records. Emails and text messages about her mother’s care could be useful, too.

“One thing families rarely know [is that] an agent under a power of attorney has a legal duty to keep records of every transaction and to keep the parent’s property separate from her own,” Hackard told Moneywise. “The absence of records is itself a problem.”

That’s why it’s so important for caregivers to keep whatever records they can, especially when they’re regularly using a parent’s money.

Sharon can also go through the larger expenses and make notes about what they were for. Maybe $500 went toward a medical bill. Maybe there was a series of grocery purchases because her mother could no longer shop for herself. Maybe Sharon paid a bill herself and later reimbursed herself from her mother’s account.

Having that information in one place is much better than trying to explain it months later. It also gives a lawyer something concrete to work with if Brian takes the dispute further.

Don’t try to settle the dispute on your own

Sharon may be tempted to give Brian some money just to end the argument. Or she might agree to something in writing because she wants the family fight to be over. That could be a mistake.

If a sibling is accusing you of misusing a parent’s money, it’s worth getting legal advice before handing over assets or signing an agreement. An estate or elder-law attorney can look at the will, financial records, power of attorney, and other documents and explain what the caregiver’s options are.

The rules also vary by state, so there isn’t one answer that applies to every family.

“Understand what the accusation is and what it isn’t,” Hackard said. “A sibling cannot cut anyone out of anything. The accusation is not evidence.”