Sadly, people who are supposed to love or care for family members or be responsible for infirmity or old age, can and do commit terrible acts toward their parents and those they care about. A child or trusted caregiver can successfully defraud an older person of money and property through the mental, physical and/or financial abuse of the parent. Parental abuse is accomplished by coercion and undue influence coupled with the parents’ fear of being alone and unassisted. Parents often succumb to physical threats that caregivers will leave them alone, spank them, or not take them to the bathroom. Elders are particularly vulnerable to emotional threats or fears that family members will not love them or continue to visit them.
The following is a list of some of the dangers I have seen in my years of practicing elder law. If you read the list and identify what people might be trying to do to you, you may be better able to resist their influence or call someone to help you resist it. Some people to contact are listed at the end of this article. You can get their local phone number at the front of your phone book or online.
Children and caregivers can and do:
- Try to put their own name on the title of the house, either alone or as co-tenants with survival rights. This cuts off the other siblings from inheriting the house.
- Try to gain authority to write checks in your bank account. This means that all of the elder’s money can be used by the sitter. One of my client’s carers put $45,000 out of her liability bank account. A conservator I know took $300,000 from the conservator’s account.
- Take the elder to the bank to withdraw the funds they control. Frequent bank visits can quickly deplete an elder’s resources.
- Get co-tenants from a bank account. This means anything in the account at the death of the principal automatically goes to the surviving co-tenants. The other children get nothing.
- Try to get an annuity or retirement benefit in their name. This allows them to cash out the full amount and leave the elder without a monthly salary. Of course, the older ones have to pay the tax consequences.
- Try to save elders to gain control of all assets. This makes elders completely dependent on conservators for everything and it dehumanizes elders as their expressed wants and needs go unnoticed.
- Write a new will for the elders and persuade them to sign it without the elders understanding its terms. New wills are often done as a result of coercion, such as threats to never come to visit them. Sometimes an elder will agree to this request out of fear of alienating the child or caregiver. This type of will is often disputed, which costs a lot of money in the probate probate process.
- Get cars and other property titled in their name. It’s amazing how many scams and scams one has to go through to get hold of an old car that isn’t worth a lot of money. If the car is newer and more valuable, they work faster and harder to get it in their name.
- Get rid of older people’s driver’s license or ID, credit and debit cards, and checkbooks. This left the elder completely helpless and dependent on the generosity of the person taking their card and money.
- Take control of money and credit cards. After gaining control, they gave the elders a small amount of money each month, keeping the rest for themselves. In one family, children used online grocery delivery services to order unnecessary and inappropriate expensive meals regardless of the parents’ preferences and needs.
- Failing to get older people to see a doctor or give them their medicines. One conservator denied her mother prescribed daily medication for 8 weeks.
- Get the name of the health care agent. In this way, agents can influence medical staff negatively about the parents in order to have the parents preserved or treated improperly so that they will die more quickly. I saw a woman who was perfectly healthy preserved, far from depression and malnutrition, taken off medication she didn’t need, and died six months later.
If something like this happens to you or someone you know who is over 65 years old, it is parental abuse. The elder shouldn’t just take it and be silent. Contact someone who can stop the abuse. Here is a suggested list of who to contact. If they can’t help you, they’ll give you the number of someone who can.
- Older attorney
- HELP LINK 1.800.273.6222
- Your Local Council on Aging
- Your county’s Adult Protective Service
- Seniors at Home
- Don’t Borrow Problems
- CANHR 1.800.474.1116
Before any of the hazards listed above happen to you, you should establish a relationship with an Estate Planning Counsel and an Elder at Law who will provide legal documents that will keep you well cared for should you become ill or lose the mental or physical ability to care for yourself. . You can exercise Perpetual Power of Attorney for finances, Continuing Health Care Directives or Living Testament for health care decisions, and even Care Contracts with caregivers.
Remember, the only person you can trust to plan efficiently to keep your interests in check is yourself. Make sure you have knowledge of available power of attorneys for financial and medical decisions and plan ahead of time what to do if you are unable to manage your own financial and health affairs.
