We recently dealt with a shocking case of elder abuse. While dealing with a claim for Continuing Health Care, we discovered there had been attempts to defraud a vulnerable person of his life savings – totalling £1.6 million. The fraud was prevented after the team at Steene Law became suspicious that something was not quite right.
We have changed some of the details to protect the identity of our client but the facts are true:
- We visited the family member in a care home. The gentleman had suffered a stroke and as a result was unable to communicate.
- The family were able to tell us that he had come to the UK many years ago and had worked extraordinarily hard, was very frugal, always saving his money and had never discussed what he owned with his family.
- After a lifetime of working and living in England, he decided to go on a long holiday and reacquaint himself with members of his extended family who still lived in the country of his birth.
- By the time the elderly gentleman returned home, his health had worsened. His cognitive impairment had increased as a result of a stroke and as a result he went into a care home. Our client then applied to the Court of Protection to obtain a Deputyship Order.
- When we visited the gentleman in the care home we were concerned that he appeared to be displaying many of the tell-tale signs that indicated financial abuse – he was of an advanced age, had cognitive impairment due to the stroke, he was also socially isolated, frail and appeared depressed. Something did not add up. We asked the client if we could make enquiries about his recent trip abroad and our client agreed.
- We used local contacts outside the UK and discovered that on arriving back at the town of his birth, he was instantly ‘befriended’ by many long-lost relatives. One in particular became very friendly, deciding the elderly gentleman needed to be escorted everywhere – even insisting that he should stay in their home and sleep on the floor so that they could be near him 24/7.
- We then asked the client to obtain copies of bank statements (going back as far as possible) using their Deputyship order to compel banks to provide the information.
- When we saw the extent of the gentleman’s assetsthat were spread across different continents we were sufficiently concerned as to what might have happened while this person had been on his extended holiday. There were reports that the long lost relatives had taken the elderly gentleman to a local lawyer which seemed very suspicious. We later discovered that he had been encouraged to make a new Will.
- We suggested to our client that appropriate measures would be needed to frustrate any fraudulent activity that might have happened outside of the UK.
- Very sadly, the elderly gentleman passed away in the care home and we were able to act swiftly to ensure his estate was protected. With the help of Counsel, we secured worldwide Freezing Orders on banks and other financial institutions and within weeks we had discovered that there were many accounts with substantial amounts of assets. As a result, we recovered £1.55 million pounds for our client.
Whilst we were instructed to fight for Continuing Health Care, our knowledge of Elder Care Law, together with many years of experience in recognising and identifying the characteristics of financial abuse, meant that we were able to protect the client’s assets.
We not only obtained Continuing Health Care, saving weekly care home costs of more than £1,000 per week, we also managed to recover almost all the family member’s savings – £1.55 million in total – which was very nearly lost due to financial elder abuse.