Stolen Inheritance

Sailtheworld

notjustamum said:

Thanks for everyone’s input. My Aunty was the eldest child and automatically took it upon herself to be in charge of nans finances when Nan went blind and went into a nursing home when in her 90’s. Due to Nan being blind my Aunty took care of everything. Approx 3 years ago my dad asked my Aunty if he could take a look at nans bank statement and she was very hesitant and kept ‘forgetting’ them until dad insisted. Once she handed over the bank statements, Dad immediately read the transactions listed on it to Nan and she was furious and said my Aunty had wrote cheques without her permission and asked dad to get everything off her and she instructed a change of will and POA. My Nan and dad had a series of explosive rows with Aunty and she said she needed the money and to have access to that amount was just too tempting. The will was changed immediately and the change of POA was underway when it seems another large amount of money disappeared out of nans building society account. I’m not certain of the details of that but it only came to light when Nan died at age 97 a couple of months ago and dad got all nans paperwork together. He applied for insurance policies and share certificates to fund they had all already been cashed-in. Nan was unaware of this as in her will she left the contents of one insurance policy to me, the cash-in value of her shares to my brother and after bills and funeral costs were settled, all other shares, policies and monies in her Building Society Account was to be left to dad. There was literally NOTHING left when he contacted them all. This resulted in a heated phone call to my Aunty and more explosive rows. She says she has spent it all and has nothing left, although she lives in a very nice area in a big house and owns caravans and a Harley Davidson.

If/ when your Aunty is in court then, unless there's a witness to your Aunty admitting her guilt, assume it didn't happen. Your aunty was always the favourite and nan loved spoiling her and buying her Harleys. Just sour grapes on your dad's part etc.

If it was me I wouldn't get involved in any rows. I'd work out how much my sister had stolen and try and assess whether she could afford to repay it. Then I'd contact her and tell her the amount she needs to pay to make this go away quietly.

Per people's posts about your chances of success when going to the police or the OPG aren't guaranteed and it would weaken your chances of recovering anything if the police or OPG had little interest - these are routes to pursue if she chooses the non-quiet option.

In the meantime it's got to be worth spending some money on some legal advice. I'd arrive at any meeting with a solicitor with bullet points of dates of conversations & transfers & changes of will etc. I don't expect there will be any argument about what's happened but you'll need evidence and I suspect you've got very little in reality.

Did you check the will for a memorandum? I'd expect to see one explaining why the unusual step of removing a child from a will had taken place. Your nan might not have wanted to get your aunty into trouble so it's probably too much to hope there's a memorandum stating she'd been disinherited because of suspected theft. Worth a conversation with the solicitor who wrote the will maybe - this must've come up in conversation especially when there's a POA in place and mental capacity might be questioned in the future.

A_T

I know of a case similar to this where a son stole money from his elderly mother - he ended up going to prison. You or your father might have to make some noise for anything to happen - in the case I mention the actions of the son effectively deprived the local authority of money as they had to pay care home fees for the mother when she should have been self-funding. Pressure was brought to bear on the police to take action.

Malthusian

notjustamum said:

She says she has spent it all and has nothing left, although she lives in a very nice area in a big house and owns caravans and a Harley Davidson.

Then it may not matter if she has spent it all, if your Dad wins a civil case against her, she can sell the house and the rest.

Assuming, of course, it's not all been bought with borrowed money, which is perfectly possible and may help to explain the theft. In that case his chances of recovery would be much lower as he would be just another creditor (an unsecured one at that).

Your Aunt is not very good at this, your Dad had no legal grounds to see Nan's bank statements until he became executor (assuming he has).

Given that she has already given ground in the past, hopefully if she does still have assets, she will pony up and save both herself and your Dad a lot of money in legal fees. And potentially a short compulsory networking opportunity in an open women's prison. But he needs to see a solicitor.

kinger101

elsien said:

Bravepants said:

This is theft...end of...call the police. I would not stand for this!

The person it was allegedly stolen from is neither around to press charges, or to rebut any points the sister may make about having been gifted the money. Any prosecution has to have a reasonable chance of succeeding and to be in the public interest. It is unlikely to get that far. There was a thread on here some years ago where a family member stole his father's life savings. The father was still alive at that point, but the person was not prosecuted despite the posters best efforts to make the authorities act. It's really not as simple as "theft....end of."

The fact the the person is no longer around isn't a barrier to pressing charges.  As many convicted murderers have found out.  You're right about the difficulties with it making prosecution more difficult, but I wouldn't let that stop me reporting the crime.  Leave it up to police and CPS to determine what's possible from there.

Bravepants

elsien said:

Bravepants said:

This is theft...end of...call the police. I would not stand for this!

The person it was allegedly stolen from is neither around to press charges, or to rebut any points the sister may make about having been gifted the money. Any prosecution has to have a reasonable chance of succeeding and to be in the public interest. It is unlikely to get that far. There was a thread on here some years ago where a family member stole his father's life savings. The father was still alive at that point, but the person was not prosecuted despite the posters best efforts to make the authorities act. It's really not as simple as "theft....end of."

So if I see a hate crime being committed I shouldn't report it? Is that what you are saying? After all, I'm not the victim, I have nothing to do with the victim, and the victim might decide not to press charges, or might die of natural causes before going to court. So I should just walk on by and leave them to it?

I would STILL report it to the police. If nothing else, they can offer support services and provide links to advice. I'm shocked to think that reporting an out and out crime won't at least draw some attention from the authorities.

A_T

In court I guess Auntie would say that she did all the spending with Mum's blessing - depends if the court believes her

Sea_Shell

Mickey666 said:

All the comments about the authorities not being keen to pursue such a blatent case of fraudulent behaviour because the victim is now deceased are rather disturbing.  Imagine if that were to apply to other areas of the law.  I'd like to believe it's not the case and I'd certainly be prepared to pursue a legal action if the perpetrator wouldn;t repay the money voluntarily.

That the victim is deceased does not make it a victimless crime because the beneficiaries are now the victims.

Also, the idea that the victim didn;t need the money or gave permission seems fanciful in the extreme as anyone with POA knows that their actions must be for the benefit of the person over whom they have POA.  It's difficult to imagine how expensive holidays etc for the the perpetrator could be construed as being for the benefit of the victim.

What would really be "disturbing" would be that the case is now reported to all the relevant authorities and they decide to take no action!!!

Hopefully OP will come back later with an update on what they've decided to do.

colsten

A_T said:

In court I guess Auntie would say that she did all the spending with Mum's blessing - depends if the court believes her

Auntie might even say so on here if she was aware that this is being discussed here. She would almost certainly have a different account to that of the OP, and none of us here would have any means of conclusively making sense of it as it would be case of 'he says she says'. If OP / their father are serious about the issue, they will take guidance from a decent solicitor.

Sailtheworld

Bravepants said:

elsien said:

Bravepants said:

This is theft...end of...call the police. I would not stand for this!

The person it was allegedly stolen from is neither around to press charges, or to rebut any points the sister may make about having been gifted the money. Any prosecution has to have a reasonable chance of succeeding and to be in the public interest. It is unlikely to get that far. There was a thread on here some years ago where a family member stole his father's life savings. The father was still alive at that point, but the person was not prosecuted despite the posters best efforts to make the authorities act. It's really not as simple as "theft....end of."

So if I see a hate crime being committed I shouldn't report it? Is that what you are saying? After all, I'm not the victim, I have nothing to do with the victim, and the victim might decide not to press charges, or might die of natural causes before going to court. So I should just walk on by and leave them to it?

I would STILL report it to the police. If nothing else, they can offer support services and provide links to advice. I'm shocked to think that reporting an out and out crime won't at least draw some attention from the authorities.

A decision has to be made as to whether it's in the public interest to take it further and weigh up the chances of a prosecution.

A hate crime with a live victim and decent witnesses is different to someone dipping into their dead mother's purse who will say it was a gift.

I bet most things like this are resolved (if at all) well away from criminal courts.

Bravepants

Sailtheworld said:

Bravepants said:

elsien said:

Bravepants said:

This is theft...end of...call the police. I would not stand for this!

The person it was allegedly stolen from is neither around to press charges, or to rebut any points the sister may make about having been gifted the money. Any prosecution has to have a reasonable chance of succeeding and to be in the public interest. It is unlikely to get that far. There was a thread on here some years ago where a family member stole his father's life savings. The father was still alive at that point, but the person was not prosecuted despite the posters best efforts to make the authorities act. It's really not as simple as "theft....end of."

So if I see a hate crime being committed I shouldn't report it? Is that what you are saying? After all, I'm not the victim, I have nothing to do with the victim, and the victim might decide not to press charges, or might die of natural causes before going to court. So I should just walk on by and leave them to it?

I would STILL report it to the police. If nothing else, they can offer support services and provide links to advice. I'm shocked to think that reporting an out and out crime won't at least draw some attention from the authorities.

A decision has to be made as to whether it's in the public interest to take it further and weigh up the chances of a prosecution.

A hate crime with a live victim and decent witnesses is different to someone dipping into their dead mother's purse who will say it was a gift.

I bet most things like this are resolved (if at all) well away from criminal courts.

I would certainly hope that making an example of someone who has been trusted to be a POA, but who has failed dismally to demonstrate the standard level of trustworthiness required, would be in the public interest. A case of "Don't do this people, or else!"