Exploitation of the Elderly – a big problem, a big way to invalidate a will?

Fla. Stat. 415.1111 provides a civil cause of action (meaning you can start a law suit) against a caregiver or person who stands to gain through abuse of trust or through neglect, deception, or intimidation in order to defraud an elderly victim for money, assets or property. This is a great remedy in Florida for families who fear a caretaker is taking advantage of their loved ones because they cannot challenge a will prior to the death of the loved one. 

• Caregiver is an extremely broad definition under this law, including basically any person that is entrusted with resposibility frequently, so if you are regularly taking care of someone odds are you will fall into this group.
• Importantly the law recognizes that the elderly may not be in a position to files these documents on their own and allows them to be filed on their behalf. That may not sound important unless its your parents who are being taken advantage of and now you need to file without them.
• This is a great alternative to a will challenge for several reasons:

1. The elderly person is still alive and even if they do not think personally that they were being taken advantage of, at least you can get them into an evidentiary hearing and let a judge decide.
2. When you have a valid will that is executed with the formalities the burden is placed on the person challenging the will to show why the will should be set aside and how it does not reflect the true intent of the testator.
3. Maybe this goes without saying but sometimes just showing someone you are on to them can get them out of the picture. What’s going on with the recent case involving Mr. Cub Ernie Banks and his caretaker ?  What’s true and not true?   Could litigation have been avoided if the family had investigated and taken action previously?
4. Can you stop gifts of money ??  Are they fraudulent transfers ?

So remember, you can challenge a person’s will once they are dead, but if you think that somone is exerting undue influence, duress or fraud to get their assets you can do something about it now by showing that the caretaker is exploiting the elderly.