FINANCIAL ELDER ABUSE

SENIOR CITIZENS ARE AT RISK FOR FINANCIAL ABUSE

California’s elders, ages 65 and older, are especially financially vulnerable to people they trust and to schemes perpetrated by others designed to take their money. California has enacted strong laws that give attorneys powerful tools to protect their elders and allows elders, or their representatives, to recover financially from the abusers and punish them under certain circumstances.

WHAT IS FINANCIAL ELDER ABUSE?

Financial Elder Abuse happens when any person or entity takes or retains real or personal property of an elder for a wrongful use or with intent to defraud. This includes includes assisting in taking of any property of someone 65 or older.

WHAT IS WRONGFUL USE?

Wrongful use defined as when the person who took advantage of the elder knew their actions would have a harmful effect on the victim. Under the California law, if the elder can demonstrate that the abuser was guilty of “recklessness, oppression, fraud or malice,” the elder can also recover punitive damages.

WHO WOULD DO SUCH A THING?

Many of these scams are committed by people the victims don’t know. They happen in the form of telemarketing calls, predatory lending practices, and home improvement “contractors.” But we have often found that much of the significant financial elder abuse is perpetrated by those closest to the elder – their own family and caretakers.

TRUSTED PEOPLE TAKE ADVANTAGE OF ELDER VICTIMS

As parents grow older, they often place one or more adult children in charge of their family finances, or the family trust, either informally, or formally, by making the adult child a trustee or through a durable power of attorney. These potentially confer broad powers to the holder. Some adult children intentionally, or through their own incompetence, breach their elder’s trust and take or improperly use the elder’s assets. Sometimes the elder’s caretakers put themselves into a position of trust so that they may accomplish a theft of the elder’s assets.

UNTRUSTWORTHY FAMILY MEMBERS CAN CAUSE SERIOUS DAMAGE

Akay Law has has handled a variety of financial elder abuse cases. In one matter, a daughter-in- law in charge of a senile elder’s finances, secretly went on extravagant shopping sprees. She spent $20,000 to $30,000 per month.

In another matter, an adult child trustee took unaccounted for cash out of the parents’ estate bank accounts and made other purchases for herself in breach of the trust originally reposed to her by her parents.

SOMETIMES OFFENDERS GET PROFESSIONAL HELP WITH THEIR SCAMS

In yet another matter, an unscrupulous attorney, without ever meeting the severely incapacitated elder, assisted the elder’s brother take her home by creating a trust instrument transferring the elder’s home to the abusing brother – in this instance, the brother was liable for

financial elder abuse because he wrongfully took under the statute, and the attorney was liable for assisting the wrongful taking, and in neglecting his legal duties to his client, the abused elder.

WHAT TO DO IF YOU SUSPECT FINANCIAL ELDER ABUSE

If you suspect that an elder is a victim of Financial Elder Abuse, you should notify the Adult Protective Services in your area, and contact a financial elder abuse attorney to discuss your options. Akay Law understands these cases can be difficult, because they often are perpetrated by those you love or have entrusted to do the right thing. Attorney Doug Akay doesn't take these cases as a matter of vengeance but as a necessary measure to protect those who were unable to defend themselves.