How can legal professionals have such power over the life of a person, to the point that even family has no voice?
It’s called probate court, which can open the door for high-priced professionals to swallow a person’s life savings and the family’s future inheritance.
An investigation by the Southern California News Group reveals that conservators, guardians, fiduciaries, their attorneys and judges become almost cliquish in running people’s lives.
“Often there is a little buddy-buddy system going on … sometimes a judge has friends who are attorneys,” said Thomas Coleman, a Palm Springs lawyer who specializes in representing the disabled.
It’s a sticky situation that can become a strain on the limited resources of the client, who is billed for the salaries and legal fees of the professionals involved in probate cases. Critics say these professionals often play one side of the family against the other.
Here are some real life stories:
-1- In Santa Ana, California, court-appointed officials drained a retired judge’s savings and then forced her into a jumbo reverse mortgage on her $1.8 million house in Newport Beach to keep the money flowing.
-2- Again in Santa Ana, California, a conservator sold part of an elderly woman’s real estate to the owner of a land brokerage where he worked. The conservator then tried to collect a $9,800 commission on the sale.
-3- In Las Vegas, Nevada, a guardian was indicted in 2017 on charges of stealing $559,205 from 150 clients from 2011 to 2016. April Parks allegedly over billed for such things as grocery trips and making bank deposits, according to the 125-page indictment prosecuted by the Clark County District Attorney’s Office.
-4- In Berkeley, California, the husband of an elderly woman defied court instructions and removed his wife from what he considered to be a substandard board-and-care home where she had been placed by her conservator. The judge took no action against the husband, whose family said he could no longer sit idly by while his wife suffered.
“It’s happening again and again. It’s like a plague on our senior citizens,” said Berkeley Vice Mayor Ben Bartlett, who is among those calling for reform.
“We need to turn the operation upside down. What you see is an incentive to work up attorney fees,” Bartlett said. “There is no incentive to preserve the liberty of the person. We need greater oversight with more opportunity to challenge.”
