How Do You Recover for Financial Abuse in Florida?

Are you or a family member the victim of financial abuse in Florida? Has someone mis-used a power of attorney in Florida or taken a bank account in Boynton Beach from your elderly relative or grandparent? Is your friend’s daughter or step child abusing the trust & confidence placed in them? What do I do if I suspect that my elderly friend or parent is being financially exploited? What is financial exploitation? Ask any Florida estate lawyer and they will tell you that financial abuse of the elderly in Florida is a serious concern.

Florida Probate Litigation and Financial Exploitation

• If you are concerned that a relative or friend is being financially exploited, you should know that there are criminal laws in Florida that punish a person for financially exploiting the elderly.
• Financial exploitation is frowned upon to a great degree in Florida.
• In fact, the State Attorney’s Office and law enforcement have special economic crime units that can help discover and combat these crimes.
• A trust litigation attorney in West Palm Beach can tell you that there are also civil remedies under Florida Law that can be used to recover damages or properties that have been through financial exploitation.
• But the problem for some estate lawyers is that, sometimes, a family member is the financial predator.
• Probate attorneys from Miami to Palm Beach Gardens do their best to understand a client’s needs and, as they age, how their estate plan may or may not be changed or altered over time.
• Changing who inherits from your estate is just one way a financial abuser or predator can try to get your money.
• Sometimes, it is the financial abuser or financial predator who really caused the elderly client Florida senior citizen to go to a new Palm Beach estate lawyer and change his or her estate plan: in favor of the one who is doing the financial exploitation.

Franke v. State of Florida

• If you are involved in a case where there was misuse of an estate plan or misuse of durable power of attorney, you may want to read the Franke case. This was an appeal from Judge Levenson in Broward County, Florida and it went up to the Fourth DCA.
• The Fourth DCA is located in West Palm Beach, FL.
• Click here to learn more about financial exploitation as it relates to wills, trusts, and estates in Florida.