PROVIDENCE — The legal battle between two sisters over who should be in charge of their mother’s affairs now that she is incompetent to care for herself is officially over.

Francine Ardito, of Reston, Va., has repaid the $16,000 she owed her 91-year-old mother, Laurette Borduas Eifrig, to purge herself of contempt. Now, all of Eifrig’s money has now been put in a brokerage account to be used for her care in an assisted-living facility here on Smith Street.

But the fight between Ardito and Suzette Gebhard, of Warren, over where their mother should live and who should control her finances has permanently fractured the sisters’ relationship. And it has cost their mother — who is now blind and suffers from dementia — about $200,000 of her savings in lawyers’ and guardian’s fees.

Their legal battle has also affected the sisters’ relationship with their mother at a time in her life when she most needs their support.

Ardito is currently barred by Superior Court Judge Alice B. Gibney from seeing her mother. The court found that she had made unauthorized transfers of more than $300,000 of her mother’s trust funds and then used some of that money to sue her mother and her mother’s court-appointed guardian in Virginia.

Ardito has now returned $267,183.27 to her mother — everything she was ordered by the Rhode Island Superior Court to pay back. But all of this year, she’s seen her mother just twice — and not at all since May. (Prior to May 2006, when her sister took their mother to Rhode Island to live, Ardito was her major caregiver.)

Gebhard, former president of the Rhode Island League of Women Voters, also has court-imposed restrictions on visits with her mother. She’s allowed to take her mother out of Capitol Ridge only once a week and for no more than four hours at a time. She must take a cell phone with her to stay in contact with her mother’s guardian whenever she takes Eifrig out. And if she wants to cross state lines into Massachusetts to dine with her mom, she needs prior court permission to do that, too.

Next Wednesday, Gibney will be asked to approve Gebhard’s plan to take her mother, who was born in Canada and enjoys conversing in French, to a French Christmas party in Seekonk.

Even if the judge approves that request, the situation may prove sticky. Eifrig’s sister, who lives in Canada, plans to arrive that day for a two-day visit with Laurette. While Gebhard and her mother’s sister used to enjoy a close relationship, the sisters’ fight has fractured that also. The aunt sided with Ardito in her bid to become her mother’s permanent guardian and move her back to Virginia — so Gebhard doesn’t want anything to do with her, according to Eifrig’s court-appointed guardian, lawyer Paula M. Cuculo.

THE CASE THAT has played out in the Rhode Island Superior Court over the last year and a half illustrates what can happen to a family and an incapacitated elder’s assets if relatives can’t agree on what is in the best interest of the person in need.

Court battles are expensive. The warring factions must each hire a lawyer. If a judge decides that family friction is too great, he or she can appoint an outside party to act as guardian. Then the guardian — not family members — makes all the important decisions regarding the elder. Often the person under guardianship must not only pay the guardian’s fees but also fees charged by a separate lawyer who’s brought in to represent his or her interests. And sometimes, as Gibney ordered in Eifrig’s case, the ward must also pay the legal fees incurred by a family member — in this case, Ardito — who lost her bid to become her mother’s permanent guardian.

Sometimes, there are other costs as well. Gebhard, who has a doctorate in social work from Bryn Mawr College and once ran for Congress here, spent a night in the Adult Correctional Institutions in January after the police stormed her Warren home and removed her mother — whom she was secreting inside, prohibiting access to Cuculo and Ardito. She was eventually acquitted of the obstruction of justice charge but had to spend about $10,000 in lawyer’s fees to clear her name.

Eifrig, a retired schoolteacher who receives $1,400 a month in Social Security and pension, has been living at Capitol Ridge since February 2007. She has told the court that she wishes to remain there.

She saved nearly $750,000 for retirement, according to an accounting recently submitted in court here. But she’s had to spend more than a quarter of that just to be rid of the case her younger daughter brought in the Superior Court to try to reassert the power she once held under a power of attorney and as co-trustee of her mother’s trust.

The bills from Eifrig’s guardian and lawyer are still coming in.

Now that Ardito has returned all of the money she was ordered to repay to her mother’s trust, she’s told Cuculo she wants to see her mom.

Cuculo says she and Richard A. Boren, Eifrig’s lawyer, are now “OK” with that, as long as Ardito’s visits are supervised. But before Ardito can come, the lawyers will have to run that by Gibney, who still has an order in place barring such get-togethers.

Ultimately, says Cuculo, it’s up to Eifrig which relatives she chooses to spend time with.

In recent weeks, Eifrig has changed her trust. Ardito — formerly the major beneficiary of her assets — will now get a lesser amount. Gebhard and Ardito’s daughter, Alicea Ardito, now stand to get the lion’s share — if there is any money left when Laurette Borduas Eifrig dies.

tbreton@projo.com