Use Estate Planning To Avoid Conservatorships and Protect Against Elder Abuse – Part 2 of 2

As our senior population continues to expand, an increasing number of elder abuse cases involving professional guardians have made headlines. The New Yorker exposed one of the most shocking accounts of elder abuse by professional guardians, which took place in Nevada and saw more than 150 seniors swindled out of their life savings by a corrupt Las Vegas guardianship agency.

The Las Vegas case and others like it have shed light on a disturbing new phenomenon — individuals who seek conservatorship to take control of the lives of vulnerable seniors and use their money and other assets for personal gain. Perhaps the most frightening aspect of such abuse is that many seniors who fall prey to these unscrupulous guardians have loving and caring family members who are unable to protect them.

In the first part of this series, we detailed how criminally minded individuals can take advantage of an overloaded court system and seize total control of seniors’ lives and financial assets by gaining court-ordered conservatorship. Here we’ll discuss how seniors and their adult children can use proactive estate planning to prevent this from happening.

Use Estate Planning To Avoid Conservatorships and Protect Against Elder Abuse – Part 1 of 2

Elder abuse can take a wide variety of forms, but we think the worst of the worst is caused by unscrupulous conservators or adult guardians appointed by a court to care for seniors who are no longer able to care for themselves. And though you may not want to believe such a thing could happen, you need to know that without the right planning in place, even your loved ones in your own family who are seniors could be at risk.

In fact, there are currently 1.5 million American adults under conservatorship (or adult guardianship, depending on the state), with an estimated 85% of them over age 65. All total, these conservators control nearly $273 billion in assets. And a 2010 report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found hundreds of cases where conservators were involved in the abuse, exploitation, and neglect of seniors placed under their supervision.

ConservatorshipsStephen PennerJuly 20, 2023Elder Abuse, Conservatorships

One of the Greatest Gifts to Your Family Is Your Plan for Incapacity

When it comes to estate planning, most people automatically think about taking legal steps to ensure the right people inherit their stuff when they die. Although that is not wrong, it also leaves out a very important piece of planning for life, and perhaps the most critical part of legal planning.

Planning that’s focused solely on who gets what when you die is ignoring the fact that death isn’t the only thing you must prepare for. Rather, consider that at some point before your eventual death, you could be incapacitated by accident or illness.

Like death, each of us is at constant risk of experiencing a devastating accident or disease that renders us incapable of caring for ourselves or our loved ones. But unlike death, which is by definition a final outcome, incapacity comes with an uncertain outcome and timeframe. And yet, statistically, over 80% of us will be incapacitated at some period during our lifetimes.

Legal Gangsters: Netflix's I Care A Lot Uncovers the Dark Side of Conservatorship & Guardianship - Part 2

Yesterday, in part one, we offered a brief synopsis of the movie, which revolves around Marla Grayson, a crooked professional fiduciary who makes her living by preying on vulnerable seniors, and we then outlined the true events that inspired the fictional account. The film’s writer and director, J. Blakeson, came up with the idea after reading news stories of a similar scam involving a corrupt professional guardianship agency in Las Vegas.

In that case, a real-life Marla Grayson named April Parks, who owned a company called A Private Professional Guardian, was sentenced up to 40 years in prison in 2018 after being indicted on more than 200 felonies for using her guardianship status to swindle more than 150 seniors out of their life savings. While I Care a Lot is fictional, the Parks case also inspired the 2018 documentary, The Guardians, directed by award-winning filmmaker Billie Mintz, and his film details the true events that ravaged the Nevada guardianship industry.

In a Facebook post, Mintz praises I Care a Lot as “a perfect introduction to guardianship,” but worries that because of the movie’s heavy focus on violence and Russian mobsters, “people won’t believe it’s real.” However, as Mintz points out, “I assure you that everything you see about guardianship is true.”

Indeed, while the Parks case is the most famous, similar cases of senior abuse by conservators and guardians are on the rise across the country. A2010 report by the Government Accountability Office found hundreds of cases where conservators were involved in the abuse, exploitation, and neglect of seniors placed under their supervision. And given the country’s exploding elderly population and our overloaded court system, such abuse will almost certainly become more common.

ConservatorshipsStephen PennerFebruary 15, 2023Professional Fiduciaries, Elder Abuse, I Care a Lot

Legal Gangsters: Netflix's I Care A Lot Uncovers the Dark Side of Conservatorship & Guardianship - Part 1

The Netflix movie I Care a Lot provides a dark, violent, and somewhat comedic take on the real life and not-at-all funny dangers of the legal (and sometimes corrupt) guardianship system. While the film’s twisting plot may seem far-fetched, it sheds light on a tragic phenomenon — the abuse of seniors at the hands of crooked “professional” conservators or guardians.

In this two-part series, we’ll discuss how the movie depicts such abuse, how this can occur in real life, and what you can do to prevent something similar from happening to you or your loved ones by using proactive estate planning and our Family Wealth Planning process. For support in putting airtight, protective planning vehicles in place, meet with our Personal Family Lawyer®.

ConservatorshipsStephen PennerFebruary 14, 2023Professional Fiduciaries, I Care a Lot, Elder Abuse

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