Be aware – financial abuse of the elderly

These days we are increasingly aware of issues of child abuse and domestic violence: topics that have received huge amounts of press attention, and rightly so, in turn generating awareness, campaigns and support.

The issue of elderly abuse, however, particularly in a financial context, remains a little-spoken-about area that has only begun to be highlighted in the past few years.

In 2006, a report by Action on Elder Abuse found that out of 471 calls to their helpline during 2006:

£2,108,236 was reported as stolen, defrauded, or coerced from elderly victims;
18 houses were sold or taken without consent (equivalent to £3,328,632 worth of property); and,
An additional 13 houses were given away under pressure, including blackmail, or without full awareness (equivalent to £2,404,012 worth of property).

It defined financial abuse as involving:

The direct theft of money and/or other possessions from an older person;
The withholding of benefits belonging to the older person;
The misuse of powers of attorney and enduring powers of attorney, and other systems giving power to a third party to act financially on behalf of an older person;
Older people being forced to sell their homes, having their homes sold against their wishes, or significant assets from the value of the property removed without their consent or knowledge; and,
Older people being tricked into scams or rogue investments.

In August 2007, a government-funded report, The UK study into the abuse and neglect of older people, found that the second most common form of abuse affecting the elderly population was financial.

In April 2008, Help the Aged warned that the number of elderly people at risk of financial abuse was higher than ever before. Help the Aged head of policy, David Sinclair, said: “One of the problems is that this form of abuse is ill-defined and poorly understood. Financial abuse can range from family members forcing individuals to accept lower quality care services in order to preserve funds they expect to inherit, or accessing an older person’s bank account without their permission, to overcharging for simple work around the home. Numerous reports and investigations have called for greater action to combat financial abuse, but little has been done.”

At the beginning of this month, Daniel Blake, policy manager at the charity Action on Elder Abuse, told the BBC: “What we know is that this affects hundreds of thousands of older people […] The amounts of money are in the tens of millions of pounds being taken, stolen or defrauded from older people. We are not saying this happens in every family, but this is a wide-scale problem involving massive amounts of money that actually mean a lot to older people and has a severe impact on their quality of life.”

Private-client solicitors dealing with elderly clients should make themselves aware, if they have not already, of the issue of financial abuse, what they should be looking out for and how to protect their client. Helen Freely from Ambrose Appelbe solicitors, who specialises in working with elderly clients, says: “This is an issue which is becoming more prevalent. We have to appreciate that most carers or family members are acting in the best interests of their elderly relative, but there are a considerable number who are stealing money or assets from the vulnerable. The sorts of thing to look out for are situations where the elderly client has signed cheques payable to one person, or given someone their pin number; a common situation is where an elderly client has been pressurised into re-making their will. If you suspect someone is being financially abused, there are a number of things that can be done to ensure that it does not happen again, even if the client has lost mental capacity to manage their own affairs.”

Helen will be dealing with this topic in an article in the January/February issue of Elderly Client Adviser.