aid and attendance approved but a minor question on retroactive

[johnblagg]

  WE applied last november for my mother and just this week recieved the fisr and only letter from the va.
 
  This is a letter stating she is approved starting on Nov 9 2009....then it says death pension granted aid and attendance witheld effective Dec 1 2009 below then below this it  says payments start effective date  august 1 2010  and that a check will be mailed within 15 days......

   she has alz and they propose incompentencey which is ok and I will be going to se vso next week to discuss this and fiduciary appointment ....

   My question is will the first check be for retroactive as well as monthly benifit ... or just the monthly untill a fiduciary is appointed?
   No reason is given for the retroactive witheld in December at all

[vetadmin]

John,

It may be that the ruling changed during the time you made application to the actual award.  If that is the case, then the check should be for the accrued and the 1st month's pension amount.  The VA used to withhold any payments until the Fiduciary process had been completed.  Now they release the award and then do the Fiduciary process.

Please keep us posted as to how this plays out and what you learn from your meeting.

[AngelaManz]

They should not withhold the monthly check unless they have reason to believe that her funds are being mismanaged - this is actually in the VA manual.  However, they may withhold the retroactive lump sum until the fiduciary process has been finalized.  This has happened with some of my clients, but at least the monthly check will still come in.  Also, make sure to have mom waive a competency hearing and agree to a finding of incompetency, as this will speed up the process of appointing a fiduciary.

[johnblagg]

  They are not withholding the regular check it is due Sept 1st .....They withheld the check for for November of 2009 and did not state why and then stated that payments would start on Aug 1st 2010 just under this we recieved this letter on the 18th of this month

   we applied in Oct of 2009 and they evidently did not recieve it untill November 9th ...dont ask why dont know that one.It took so long to get approved in part because they cross referenced her records with some one elses and had mom listed as the other clients wife and I dont know how but the other people somehow got this info and our phone number and actually called us asking what was up?
 I then went to the vso and aksed him to check this out and he could not get a answer to it either about once a month after I went to check on the status of the claim and keep on top of getting this resolved.
We never once recieved any correspondence from the va during this untill this week when we got the letter stating she was approved...I assume they sent it all to the wrong address and never bothered to try again.

  I actually have no issues at this time to complain about since even with all the mix up it was done pretty much within a normal time frame from what I have read.