Has my mate got a leg to stand on - abuse of authority?

seven-day-weekend

stclair wrote: »

Do people not check there accounts on a monthly basis anymore? or is that a thing of the past lol

I check mine on a daily basis!

missile

Originally Posted by stclair
Do people not check there accounts on a monthly basis anymore? or is that a thing of the past lol

People who have gone paperless, may not monitor their accounts as closely as they once did.

mgdavid

missile wrote: »

People who have gone paperless, may not monitor their accounts as closely as they once did.

or (as in my case) monitor accounts far more often now it's so easy

Agricolae

Nukumai wrote: »

OP - your friend needs to take a copy of the banking mandate to his solicitor. Whether or not a crime has been committed will depend upon the scope of the letter of authority/mandate.

This is the soundest advice given on this thread. At this stage we don't know if this is Power of Attorney (very unlikely) or some sort of mandate for a third party to operate the account. The scope of the authority is key, as are:
1. The circumstances under which it was signed.
2. Whether your friend's health and family circumstances made it difficult in some way to monitor his accounts.

Paul_01

Not quite.

He needs to go to the Police first. If he gets little or no joy from them, then he should go to the personal expense of seeking legal advice.

Why would you go to a Solicitor first if you feel that a criminal offence has been committed?

Agricolae

Paul_01 wrote: »

Not quite.

He needs to go to the Police first. If he gets little or no joy from them, then he should go to the personal expense of seeking legal advice.

Why would you go to a Solicitor first if you feel that a criminal offence has been committed?

He can certainly report this to the police (and there is no harm in doing this, I agree) but my feeling is that they will refer him to a solicitor anyway as this is hardly a clear-cut case. I'm not even sure this could be reported as a criminal offence. It's possible the friend will need to pursue this through civil courts (making a solicitor a good call).

Honestly speaking though, he needs to go to a branch of his bank, explain the situation and get the ex taken off the account ASAP if it hasn't been done already.

Yorkie1

Technically, theft can be committed even where the victim provided some consent. But I agree that this is not straightforward and will turn, in the main, on the particular scope of the initial authority. i.e. the relationship between the parties at the time, the anticipated duration of the authority, whether it was for certain matters only (i.e. to benefit the OP, or pay joint bills etc) as opposed to the ex-'s own stuff, and whether it can be taken to have been revoked once the relationship had ended (which I'd argue strongly would be implied if not more).