Financial elder abuse is the new breed of elder abuse. Before now, lawmakers were concerned with emotional, or physical harm done to seniors who become frail in both mind, and body, in their old age. The stories of once-proud and hard-working seniors being berated and suffering other forms of abuse from the very children they worked their fingers to the bone to raise and give a start in life, are legion. So too, are the tales of physical and emotional abuse seen in nursing homes, and chronic care facilities in America.However, financial elder abuse is the latest frontier, as children in desperate financial straits are driven to take advantage of the financial resources available from an elderly parent, or other relative.
The potential for financial elder abuse has always been an issue—especially in situations where children compete, at times in ruthless measure, for the favor of the elderly parent who controls the purse strings of the family inheritance. One sibling will scheme with an eye to increasing favor with an aging parent, while alienating or freezing out the others. By gaining control of the reins, by being named to head a living trust or to serve as the executor of the estate, an adult child may gain exclusive access to not only the contents and structure of the estate, but also an influence over the thoughts and wishes of the parent in an effort to gain more favor—or complete favor—with regard to the eventual dispersement of assets upon death.
Yes, the problem has always been a part of the family dynamic—but no more so than today, given the grievous financial pressures families are facing today. The credit crisis has cost thousands of families their homes, and many small businesses are failing due to an inability to acquire continued financing from banks skittish about lending anybody anything in this current economy. Others have lost jobs while working for blue-chip firms before now thought to be shielded from such fluctuations in the market, and the economy.
But this is a new day. All of a sudden the house you expected to live in forever, or at the very least expected to form the lion's share of your retirement nest egg, is gone. Your investments in this historically bear market; have contracted to the point that you can no longer bear to look. Meantime you have record credit card debt and other liabilities, and your financial health—intact just a few months ago—is suddenly going to hell in a hand basket.
In California, one of the areas of the country that saw some of the largest surges in the real estate markets followed by some of the most dramatic declines, this is especially true.
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It's easy to see how financial elder abuse can happen, at the best of times. But especially now. And in California financial elder abuse is just as prevalent, or more so as it is in the rest of the country. Thank goodness for financial elder abuse law, which can be brought to bear and stop such abuse in its tracks. However, it takes a good friend, or a sympathetic sibling unafraid of the potential backlash from others, to support the targeted senior and fight such abuse.