Currently taking care of my 87 yo father in law who is smitten with 75 yo lady who along with her now deceased husband have a history of preying on elder people who have $ or properties and are on or near death.
Since my FIL is having difficulties with his thinking we can’t convince him she is not gonna be good for him. Everything we have learned is that we cannot do anything unless he is found incompetent to make decisions that directly affect his care or lack there of. Seems he is free to just continue to make bad choices in this lady’s favor and that unless a crime is committed there isn’t anything we can do. We both quit or jobs and closed a business to take care of him and are facing financial hardships because of this. His will is made out and we knew it was the right thing to do and eventually would be reimbursed. But now it looks like this lady can just move right in and take everything. Wondering if there is any case out there and what you did to get rid of such a person?
Thanks
A woman my age entered the picture after his mom died. We believe she found him via the obituary in the local paper. She called my dad and convinced him she knew his mother and had visited her in the nursing home. He took her out to dinner and they began dating.
Concerned, my brother and I hired a private investigator. The PI indicated she had been married 5 times before. She married her last husband while he was in hospice care. After his death, she moved all over the state and eventually moved back in with one of her ex-husbands.
I called APS and make a police report. After the APS social worker paid him a visit, he cut all ties with family members, sold his home and has moved to an apartment with her. Her son is a drug dealer and I found my mother's things for sale on his Facebook page.
He married her in November. We have had no further contact with him and don't know where he is living.
He is suffering from TIA secondary to atrial fib and is on coumadin. I fear she will push him down the stairs and that will be the end.
are dropping everything to care for him, that he'll be grateful and want to watch
out for your interests as well as his. Don't count on it.
Another thing is that with quality care, people can easily outlive their savings and investments. I've seen it happen over and over. People are now living well into their 100's and need special care 24/7. Special care 24/7 for decades. Consider also that selfish drama prone people are absolute magnets for grifters. It's possible that you may be dealing with this type of thing for another decade or even two.
Sometimes the very best you can do for all involved is find a quality assisted care
facility and have outside people, such as elder care attorney, financial adviser and
accountant, be involved to make sure grifters can't siphon off his funds.
Good luck!!!
Unless your grandfather is diagnosed with a health issue that makes him incapable of making competent decisions, and unless you use that diagnosis to bring to a court to have you grandpa declared incompetent, you are right......., there is nothing you can do.
If a court will not declare your grandpa incompetent, he can make his own decisions and your actions may be deemed financial elder abuse of your grandpa.
There are ways to override a will. If those methods are used it could render the will meaningless.
I suggest you talk to an elder care attorney.
But again, be cautious about getting into it with this person.
She is an elder, and you can be charged with emotional abuse of an elder.
You say this woman is savvy.....well than I am sure she is aware of what is deemed elder abuse or harassment.
If your grandfather is deemed competent and does not support your complaint you could be in legal trouble for elder abuse, either criminally or civilly.
If she files even just a civil suit, she may win, if she has no criminal record.
You say this woman has done this type of thing before. But unless she was convicted of elder abuse or fraud herself, there will be nothing you can do.
Has this woman actually been convicted of a crime or is it just hearsay?
My experience with multiple similar (but not identical) situations is this: you can talk to your foolish parent 'till you're blue in the face, but whatever you say will go in one ear and out the other. Still, you do have a moral and ethical responsibility to warn.
The best way is to confront the bad girlfriend with all the information you have on her. Tell her that you know that she's pulled the 'girlfriend' scam on other elderly men and you strongly suspect that she is taking advantage of your father. Whenever I've had to do this, confronting someone who I strongly believed was scamming my parents (or giving my parents potentially deadly advise), the person in question beat a hasty retreat.
I would also consider talking to the social worker at the Counsel for Aging in the town / city / region your father lives in. They are very familiar with 'girlfriend' and 'boyfriend' scams that prey upon lonely elders. In your situation, you can talk to this social worker for free. This social worker will know what resources are available (to him and to you) and strategize with you.
If you decide to hold a family meeting about this, I would strongly consider hiring an Elder Care Coordinator as a mediator. Most elder care coordinators are either very experienced, advanced practice nurses (such as Nurse Practitioners) or licensed, independent social workers (MSW + years of experience) who work exclusively with elders and their families. You probably want someone who has mental health experience as well (most elder care coordinators who are MSWs do). The elder care coordinator will want to meet with you (and anyone else in your family) who is concerned about your father's new love interest, for a 'lay of the land' and help you plan a family meeting.
Good Luck!
They will only intervene once a crime has been committed.
Once you are on their radar it may be easier, I didn't have any luck getting my dad help but you may be lucky.
Predators have no age limit, a snake in the grass at 17 or 75 is still a snake.
I hope that she finds another victim before she harms your family.
Have you anyone that could be competition for her? Maybe get her out of the picture with a hired 65 year old,? Just a thought.
You agreed to take care of your dad hoping to inherit his money.
This is the wrong reason to agree to caregiving. If your only reason is an inheritance, you would probably be better off using his money to put him in an assisted living facility.
If he was in a facility, this predator lady would not easily be able to get his money.
I deal with this issue a lot with clients. Unfortunately, if your dad has not been deemed INCOMPETENT by a court of law, he can make his own decisions.
I had one client who bought his new girlfriend a $50,000 engagement ring and was spending a fortune on traveling with her. Still, there was nothing the family could do.
Then, too, there was one a family that considered the father's girlfriend a predator but she turned out to be a lovely lady who was taking good care of him, and made him happy.
It is very difficult to have someone declared incompetent by a court, even people with dementia may be deemed capable of making life choices on their own.
There is a good reason for that.
Your dad is not a child, and if he has not been legally declared incompetent, you can not dictate his choices.
Also how are you "taking care of him" .....is he living in your home? Are you living in his? Are you simply stopping by to ensure bills are paid or driving him to the doctor?
Lastly as for getting elder protective services involved....do not forget this 75 year old lady is an elder, too.
If she took him to a neurologist as you state, then unless the neurologist will state that he is incompetent and you go to court with this to have him declared incompetent by the court, there is nothing you can do.
Also, if the neurologist says he is competent, the court may start to become concerned that you are engaging in financial exploitation of your FIL.
2) We are not hoping to inherit, as the will is already made out.
3) We are trying and will do whatever it takes to keep him out of a care facility. However if this lady gets her hooks in him, you can bet that’s where he will go.
4) You didn’t read the part about the neurologist correctly! She didn’t take him. We scheduled the visit per his family physician, as he is making poor judgement calls. She convinced him we are trying to get him committed so we can take over his $. Not true! We are just trying to protect him from what we know , but can’t prove is a predator.
5) Yes she is an elder too. But don’t know what that has to do with it. She is very good at what she is doing. She and her deceased husband have gotten away with twice before and possibly more. What qualifies a person as being “elder”?
6) He is living alone, but it is getting scary. He is 90 % blind. We stay on our property we purchased next door in order to be close enough if he needs us.
On the flip side, if he is of sound mind, then he has a right to be as selfish as he likes. He has spent his life working to achieve the monetary means he now has and he is free to blow it all away on a "last hurrah" if he so chooses. If he is of sound mind, you have no right to control his social life or decide how or who he spends his money on. He has a right to choose any companionship for himself that he likes and give that companion what he wants to give them. What you see as a bad choice, he may see as a last chance to have a good time of life before he exits life. Who you see as a predator, he may see as fun caring person who enjoys his company and knows how to have a good time. From his point of view she may simply be a good investment in making the last years of his life fun ones.
Assuming he is of sound mind, any conversations that make it seem as if you feel he is too stupid to make his own choices probably won't go well. No one likes to be treated like a child when they are grown. It's probably time to get your situation resolved with him as one adult to another and do so legally and on paper. Sorry you're going through this. I hope you can work out a solution that allows all involved to feel a fair agreement has been made.
These folks will have seen EVERYTHING possible and will probably be able to tell you how other caregivers in your area have dealt with a predatory person.
Then, stay as warm and friendly as possible with the the predator and your dad so you can collect evidence and make it obvious you are collecting evidence of the predatory behavior and accidentally leave the law center business card out.
I was so glad to make the acquaintance of the staff at our relevant elder law center, the people were cut and dry and extremely effective. Ours is not politically correct and openly worked to help us fix a bad situation. They laid out several different legal options, one of which involved Family Court, which would not be public record if pursued so no names in the newspaper. That option was used as enough of a threat to stop the predatory situation before it turned out of control.
A successful predator knows when they prey is too powerful to deal with and slinks away to find another victim.
Thanks for your response
You best be cautious with APS.
They may end up investigating you for possible financial exploitation.
Don't forget this 75 year old is an elder too. Your behavior may be deemed elder abuse or harrassment.
If she took him to a certified neurologist and he was deemed competent, you could open a can of worms.
You say she did this before? Well was she actually CONVICTED of this or is it simply local rumors from disgruntled family members.
Even if she was convicted of such an event before, unless your FIL is deemed incompetent by a court of law, there is nothing you can do.
If you can tie his money up in assisted living, then this lady will not be able to get that money.
Of course, he will have to agree to spend the money on assisted living, first.
I sort of agree with MargaretMcKen, there is probably nothing you can do if he is enamored with her. She could even be having sex with him.
You are in a hard situation and my heart goes out to you. Sometimes people can be such fools. As the saying goes, "No fool like an old fool".
She had to help him make these changes as he could not read nor write and could not have contacted the attorney or the insurance people on his own.
A lesson learned.
Being as she is 75 years old, she may file a complaint against the man's children for harrassment and/or elder abuse.
These types of things can backfire, so proceed with caution.
Being as this woman is an elder herself, it will be difficult to get "ammunition", particularly if her boyfriend has not been deemed incompetent.
Check the will, if you are a beneficiary, you should be able to get a copy and see if he has changed it. Then get poa or guardianship. Good luck.
But you and your husband do have control over your own decisions. If your FIL will not give you the authorities you need to support the responsibilities you have been willing to take on towards him, you can reverse the decision you made to quit your jobs and close down your business. I should do that.
The thing is. You made the decisions you made based on an understanding that you would be compensated for the care you gave him. But an understanding isn't even a verbal contract, and famously a verbal contract is not worth the paper it's not written on.
Give your FIL a further opportunity to sort out this mess and reach a firm agreement with you about how you are to be reimbursed, and what authority he will give you to safeguard his financial wellbeing. If he won't take it, if he chooses differently, accept it and get back to your own lives.
If I may say so delicately, and this may be especially difficult for your husband, it may be that this lady's flattery and attention are worth every penny from your FIL's point of view. I'm sure I wouldn't like it either, if it were my loved one, but isn't that up to him?
As for the lady herself, the alleged villainess of the piece, do you have any direct contact with her at all?
Unless you can get somewhere with a civil case or a criminal case for fraud, the law or any other agency isn’t going to fix your problem. Your only option is to make it ‘nice’ for your father. You can say (and it’s true) that if he won’t make your financial situation a bit safer for you, you will probably have to quit care and get back to earning money for your own retirement. Perhaps that will help. This is about money risks, not whether you disapprove of his new girlfriend.
I have written this approach out as a script for a meeting with FIL, and I think it is self-explanatory. See what you think:
Dad, we need to have a very difficult conversation. Please let us explain, and see if we can work out a solution with you. You probably know that we more or less broke ourselves to come and look after you. We wanted to do it, but we didn’t realise just how vulnerable we had made our own financial position. We certainly didn’t do all this because of any inheritance from you, that wasn’t the point at all, but we did expect that eventually you would leave us enough to make up for the way we affected our own finances by quitting work and closing the business.
We have been really worried by the rumours we have heard about X and a history of moving in on people at the end of their lives and ending up with things working in their favour financially. We don’t know if this is all true, and to some extent it doesn’t matter. It does happen, and it could happen with someone else anyway – we have heard some really frightening stories. We would be happy if you found someone whose company you enjoyed, but we are worried about the financial side of things from our own point of view. We are too old ourselves to start again to build up our own finances for our own retirement. We didn’t realise how vulnerable we had made ourselves. Now we are getting told that we should have done all sorts of things to make sure that we were protected – set up a family trust or whatever – but it never occurred to us that it would be necessary.
Can we talk about how we can solve this? We know that you have needed us, and that you wouldn’t want to hurt us, but we need to feel more secure that we feel at the moment. What can we do? Have you got any ideas? …..Could we visit your lawyer again, the one who prepared your will, and see if there is any way that this can be sorted out?
PS the irrevocable family trust is a good idea