Is a wedding ring considered personal property or financial property? Guardianship Law Question...?

Question

My Grandmother has Alzheimer's. She lives in an assisted living facility in Florida. I am her legal personal guardian and my mother is her legal financial guardian. We have split guardianship.

My mother is one of the most money hungry people that I have ever known. On my Grandmother's birthday, she took my Grandmother's wedding rings from her. My mother's excuse for doing this was "I don't wear my rings, so I told Mom that I would take her's and put them in a safe deposit box". These are not family heirloom rings. They were given to my Grandmother by her third husband. My mother did not even know him. They are not even that expensive, but as I said, my mother is very money hungry.

My grandmother is very distressed about her rings being gone. I really want to see them back on her finger. It is the weekend and my lawyer is not available. I hope someone here can tell me if this is a personal or a financial guardian issue.

Any information will be greatly appreciated.

My Grandmother has never taken her rings off and they were not at risk of being stolen or lost. She is still quite lucid and understands things that are happening in the moment. Only her short term memory is affected. She knows that her rings are missing, but she can't remember where they are. She keeps asking her caregivers to find them for her.

The rings were old and were missing a couple of stones. They were not expensive rings. My Grandmother has a great deal of money, so she does not need the rings to support her financially. I would rather see them stolen by a stranger than by her own daughter.

Answer 1

Personal, in my view. "Financial property" implies purchase with the intent of acquiring a financial asset, which is not the case here.

Answer 2

Care givers stole my grandmother’s big diamond because we did not want to take it from her. It just depends on how much the ring is worth and how much grief it would cause to take it. I probably should have had the diamond replaced with a fake one. She could have stood to be without it for a day or two at the jewelers and would not have known the difference in the stone so long as the metal was the same and the stone looked reasonably the same. If she were sharp enough to notice the stone was different then she would be sharp enough to hang on to the ring. Perhaps you could save your relationship with both your mom and your grandmother by getting the valuable stones replaced with less valuable ones and giving her the rings back. If the rings are not valuable enough to bother doing this with then I agree that your mom is being horrible by taking them - get them back for grandma! Making the lady suffer the loss of the rings and worrying about them is cruel.