Looking into the legal concepts of abuse of the elderly.
The elderly are often the target of abuse in the U.S. as the Huffington Post recently discussed in its article on undue influence in “Undue Influence and Financial Exploitation.”
With an estimated 2 million elderly people financially abused in the U.S. every year, the cost is estimated from $2.9 billion to $36.48 billion a year. Either way, it amounts to a lot of money that is wrongfully taken from the elderly and their families.
A common way the elderly are abused is by someone convincing a senior to change his or her estate plan through undue influence. That basically means either through manipulation, fraud, deception or duress someone has inappropriately acted for his or her own financial benefit in convincing the elderly person to change the estate plan.
Undue influence is the legal term of art to describe these situations.
Unfortunately, undue influence can be very difficult to prove in court. The case normally does not come to attention until after a person passes away and family members learn the estate plan was changed. As the abused person is not able to testify about what happened, the family has a steep hill to climb to prove the case.
Reference: Huffington Post (June 6, 2016) “Undue Influence and Financial Exploitation.”
For more information on elder law and estate planning, please visit my estate planning website.
