Possible cash grab - can anything be done?
Discussion
The situation:
An elderly couple aged about 90 live in their own house and have a number of savings. The man has never been very interested in managing money and his wife has looks after the finances. Unfortunately she contracts cancer and starts declining rapidly. The couple's daughter, who was previously not in great favour (and I understand not in the will), becomes very attentive and moves in and nurses her mother to the end, a period of about two months. She does this very well and the man is very grateful.
Not surprisingly this brings the daughter back into favour. The man has little or no idea about his financial affairs and now allows his daughter to 'manage' his finances for him.
Normally this should not be a great cause for concern, but the daughter has a grown-up son, a sociopath by nature, who has led a highly dishonest life in property and financial services and been to jail for fraud. The daughter has a record of aquiring money from her parents by various means and giving it to her son, who promptly loses it in various schemes.
With the old man totally uninterested in money and the daughter (and therefore also her son) 'managing' it for him, it is suspected that funds are or will be transferred to them. It will be very easy for her to get his 'permission' to move funds to different/new accounts, even though such action would really be fraudulent. If after his death money is proven to have been moved from the old man's accounts/s, the daughter can simply say 'He gave it to me/us as a gift'.
Apart from having no interest in money and being eternally grateful to his daughter for nursing his late wife, the man is of sound mind. Can anything be done to stop what is suspected, either now or after the man's death?
An elderly couple aged about 90 live in their own house and have a number of savings. The man has never been very interested in managing money and his wife has looks after the finances. Unfortunately she contracts cancer and starts declining rapidly. The couple's daughter, who was previously not in great favour (and I understand not in the will), becomes very attentive and moves in and nurses her mother to the end, a period of about two months. She does this very well and the man is very grateful.
Not surprisingly this brings the daughter back into favour. The man has little or no idea about his financial affairs and now allows his daughter to 'manage' his finances for him.
Normally this should not be a great cause for concern, but the daughter has a grown-up son, a sociopath by nature, who has led a highly dishonest life in property and financial services and been to jail for fraud. The daughter has a record of aquiring money from her parents by various means and giving it to her son, who promptly loses it in various schemes.
With the old man totally uninterested in money and the daughter (and therefore also her son) 'managing' it for him, it is suspected that funds are or will be transferred to them. It will be very easy for her to get his 'permission' to move funds to different/new accounts, even though such action would really be fraudulent. If after his death money is proven to have been moved from the old man's accounts/s, the daughter can simply say 'He gave it to me/us as a gift'.
Apart from having no interest in money and being eternally grateful to his daughter for nursing his late wife, the man is of sound mind. Can anything be done to stop what is suspected, either now or after the man's death?
We need to distinguish between Wills and what happens in-between time. The old man can of course leave whatever he likes to whoever he likes - but that is after his death. The problem is the possible 'smuggling' of funds while he's alive. It will be all too easy for the daughter to say, for example, 'Let's move £10K to a new account so it gets more interest' - and he will agree - and the new account will belong to her son (who has already used the names and addresses of other family members for dodgy dealings).
It seems that the daughter is now so cosy with her father that the son is ignored/not listened to. It may well be that the old man doesn't care if he's being duped - so for the son to go wading in with warnings could be counter-productive.
It seems that the daughter is now so cosy with her father that the son is ignored/not listened to. It may well be that the old man doesn't care if he's being duped - so for the son to go wading in with warnings could be counter-productive.
ToryJosh said:
Surely the son can stop what is going on
This is the question... we can't think how...It seems as though the son should of acted sooner, when the daughter intially started caring for the mother. Obviously he couldn't just stop her caring for the mother, but maybe just spoken to the father that it seems odd that she reappears when it looks like there is something for her.
Maybe you could suggest playing the daughter at her own game. Don't go in all guns blazing about her feeding money out towards her son; but just tell the son to visit his father like normal families do. Once they are close it may be the right situation to bring up what she is doing with accounts etc, it may take a while and she still may be able to 'steal' some money but it could prevent her taking everything
Maybe you could suggest playing the daughter at her own game. Don't go in all guns blazing about her feeding money out towards her son; but just tell the son to visit his father like normal families do. Once they are close it may be the right situation to bring up what she is doing with accounts etc, it may take a while and she still may be able to 'steal' some money but it could prevent her taking everything
If they die within 7 years, cash gifts still count as inheritance/part of their estate as far as I am aware.
e.g. see http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1563730/Cra...
e.g. see http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1563730/Cra...
Deva Link said:
What's your interest in all this?
Fair question. I'm related but not close enough to be a beneficiary. It's not my problem directly, but an interesting exercise to consider what can be done.We may have an answer though; a family solicitor known to all, who would be a trusted independent third party and therefore hopefully able to find out some basic facts gently without taking sides or upsetting applecarts. There is no evidence of any wrongdoing yet, but the potential for it, given the old man's vulnerability/disinterest and certain people's track records (not least serving time for fraud), is wide open.
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