Protect yourself from elder abuse and fraud. An elderly woman 92 years old is being looked after by a man 40 years her junior with no visible means of support. As she loses her competency, she relies on this man and turns over her checkbook. She has no asset protection mechanisms in place. She begins signing large checks and endorsing checks to his order. An unplanned emergency room visit gets the attention of the local Social Services Agency that contacts a lawyer on her behalf. Further investigation reveals no estate plan in place. The lawyer files an action to force an accounting from the man to make him disclose the asset transfers that benefit him and deplete the senior’s estate. The accounting reveals hundreds of thousands in various transfers over a period of 4 years to this individual. Criminal proceedings are being started against this confidence man.

A senior citizen of 73 years refuses to do a living will, power of attorney, health care proxy and designation of Conservatorship because he believes “it could never happen to me”. He has minor stroke followed by a major stroke and is now paralysed on left side, cannnot speak, walk, feed or toilet himself. His cognitive functions are permanently impaired. Stroke requires immediate treatment and it is important someone be in a position of authority to act and assist the medical team in making the right decisions.

I get the emergency call from the banker who happens to know I do estate planning, health care law and elder law, among other areas of practice, in the Fairfield County and Westchester county community.Now I must move for emergency Conservatorship to appoint a trusted friend to act for him because there are no estate planning documents in place. The emergency application to the Probate Court is granted and the friend is in place to make all required decisions pertaining to assets and medical care.

If the senior had the basic set of estate planning documents including a designation of conservatorship, a health care proxy, durable power of attorney and living will, filing in Probate Court to declare him incable in order to secure access to assets to pay bills, and to secure a medical agent by Court Order would have been unnecessary. The Conservatorship law in Connecticut, effective revisions October 1, 2007 require the courts seek the “least restrictive alternative”.

As applied to my example, if the client had the necessary estate planning documents in place, the Probate Court would be required to honor them and would not intervene and formally separate the client from his affairs in order to get the client the necessary help. The lesson is to do the estate planning while you are healthy and not while you are seriously ill and at a disadvantage.