Embezzlement via Power of Attorney

[loucard]

My father-in-law has early stages of dementia. He has 4 children however the oldest son who lives within walking distance of his home has coerced him into signing a power of attorney and has began moving large sums of money totalling about $750k into accounts payable to him on the death of my father-in-law. The other 3 children all live out of state. The way it's going now, the other 3 children will get nothing. Can this be considered embezzlement?

 

[lwpat]

Not really since they are joint accounts. The other three children need to assert their rights now or they will get nothing. Since he is in the early stages, I assume that he still has capacity at certain times. What needs to happen is the current POA needs to be revoked and the accounts changed. You can assume that he also has a revised will tucked away somewhere.

Typically this is a problem because family members tend to refuse to believe that one of their siblings would do such a thing and they want to avoid a confrontation. After he dies or loses all capacity it will be too late unless you want to go through a long and expensive court battle.