Fraud and Elder Abuse Are Hitting Closer to Home – Thompson Von Tungeln

Imagine waking up to discover your home has been sold without your knowledge. Or that your elderly mother, placed in what looked like a caring residential facility, has been
quietly neglected for months. These are not hypotheticals. They are headlines from the past few weeks across Southern California.
In March, Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies in Carson rescued ten elderly residents from unlicensed care homes where a husband-and-wife operation now stands accused of fraud and elder abuse. Investigators reported finding residents malnourished and ignored. Weeks earlier, federal agents arrested eleven defendants in a $17 million
identity theft and real estate loan scheme that targeted elderly homeowners in Santa
Monica, Westwood, and Hollywood. Counterfeit IDs, fabricated bank statements, forged death certificates, and bogus notarizations were used to drain equity from properties
whose true owners had no idea. And in Burbank, a home changed hands without either the actual owner or the actual buyer ever knowing it had happened.
Our seniors are being targeted with increasing sophistication. Phishing emails impersonating county agencies, fake Medicare and Medi-Cal billing schemes, deed and title theft, and predatory caregivers have all surged. Santa Clarita is not immune.
The most effective protection is preparation done before a crisis hits and taking steps to avoid being a target in the first place. A properly drafted estate plan, with durable powers of attorney, a funded living trust, recorded homeowner alerts at the County
Recorder, and clear successor trustee instructions, can shut down most of these schemes before they start. Recovering after the fact is far harder, far slower, and far more expensive.
If you have questions, or you suspect a loved one is being exploited, please call Thompson Von Tungeln at 661-945-5868 to schedule a free consultation.