Seniors and Financial Abuse

Lindsay Kenney lawyers often work with older people or their children on situations where a family member or another person has taken advantage of a senior individual. It is not uncommon in a rising real estate market to be retained by seniors who have fallen prey to a “friend” who has apparently given them a great price to buy their home and then flipped the property. There are also cases where a senior has leased an expensive car he or she cannot afford as their competency is deteriorating.

At times, our work in this area is using our powers of persuasion to convince a car dealership or a timeshare company to allow an ill-considered transaction to be rescinded by an elderly person with no financial penalty to our client. We ensure that our elderly clients and their estates are protected by good advice, properly documented transactions, and litigation expertise if necessary.

Our litigators and solicitors work together to obtain sworn evidence from clients documenting their wishes and the rationale behind them, and to obtain expert evidence from doctors as to the individual’s competency. The determination of competence and capacity of the senior to make decisions about gifting their assets by a lawyer is crucial to good estate planning to avoid litigation in the future.

Where a senior has been victimized, we litigate to recover assets or to set aside improvident loan or sale/purchase transactions into which a person may have entered. In our practice at LK Law, we also respond to complaints made to the Public Guardian and Trustee about the management of a senior’s financial affairs by a family member holding a Power of Attorney (given by the senior when they were competent). These complaints often arise between first and second families or between battling children of an older person, and in essence are often premature estate disputes.

You should seek legal assistance if you or someone you know has been subject to any of the aforementioned issues or if you suspect elder financial abuse.