One of the growing types of “crimes” that often goes
unnoticed is elder abuse/fraud. If you
have a family member, a family friend, or anyone you know that is older,
perhaps lives alone, single and especially if he/she does not have any
children, please take the time to check
in on them every so often. They are
often the more vulnerable to being victims of this crime. I recently was at a meeting with a client and
her financial advisor. The advisor told
us the story of another client who is elderly and whose caregiver was taking
financial advantage of her. The
caregiver was continuing to request more and more additional “funds” from the
client. The advisor asked to see her estate planning documents that were 20
years old, and the client named two similarly aged people to act on her behalf,
and who were not in the position to take care of her financial and medical
decisions. The advisor is now working to
make sure her client is protected from further financial influence and abuse.
I have also encountered some of these types of
stories with my own clients. For
example:
(1) 73
year old business man (“Tom”) was diagnosed with dementia for two years. He lived on his own during the two years, but
his son was starting to get phone calls about Tom wandering the neighborhood. His son put Tom in independent living at a
large residential home for seniors with various types of care. Within a month of moving in, his next door
neighbor, a single woman (“Jane”), was befriending him. Jane continued to spend a lot of time with
him. After three months, Tom called his
son and said that he wants to marry Jane and get a two bedroom place for them
to live in together. Jane went to the
effort of writing a letter to the senior living facility stating that she and
Tom were getting married and want to look at other 2 bedroom units. The facility administrator called the son and
the red flags were up. Son eventually
started a court process called a guardianship to take over Tom’s affairs. I represented Tom, who is a very lovely
man. He is an immigrant who came to
America and started a company that still exists today. He has a decent amount of assets. Jane on the other hand, did not have much
money. At the end of the long
guardianship process, son became the guardian, and three months later, Tom and
Jane “broke up” and she moved out. I
wonder why.
(2) Another
client of mine is “Jake”. He and his
wife, “Carol,” updated their estate plan with me in 2005. Unfortunately, Carol died in 2007. In 2011, one of their sons (“Joe”), contacted
me to let me know that Jake met a woman in the grocery store. Joe said that this woman just started
talking to Jake and all of a sudden within a week, she is over at his house
with a bag of groceries wanting to make dinner for him. This would have not been a big deal, however,
Jake at the time was age 87, and this woman was age 52. So I called Jake to just check in, see how he
was doing. He told me about the woman
and said she was very nice. He seemed to
really enjoy the attention. Once again
the facts were similar to the first story in that Jake has a sizeable estate,
and the woman was a single mom with a minimal size estate. I recently met with Joe and he told me that
the relationship went “sour” after a few months, and she is no longer in the
picture. Luckily, Jake was of sound mind
and was able to see through her intentions.
As much as I am a romantic at heart and would love
to see my clients meet nice people and enjoy the companionship, I am also very
protective over my clients so that the intentions of any new relationship is
truly for love, and not for finances.
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