Is this wrong?

[Decisiontomake]

Will try to make this as brief as possible

A friend of mine has a brother 26 who lives with his parents. Although he is autistic he works full time and gets disability allowance.

He pays rent and helps out with other house expenses, pays for the 3 of them to go on holiday every year and buys alot of his own food.

Here's where it gets tricky. His parents have access to his bank account. His mum has a bit of a spending addiction and regularly uses his account to make purchases for herself/others, meals out, takeaways etc. Uses the excuse that she puts money into his account so it's her money.

We don't believe this to be true but don't want to challenge her on it and cause drama.

What can we do? He will never be able to learn to drive/buy a car as his money is being drained by his parents. If he was able he wouldn't be able to save a deposit to move out or just save money in general.

There may be more going on behind the scenes and we could be totally wrong.

Where do we go? What do we do?

Any advice?

I’d report this to social services, as an adult safeguarding referral. It could be classed as financial abuse. I presume there’s nothing formal in place to give his parents control of his money, but even if there is, I don’t think that includes his mum buying herself things!

This definitely needs reporting to social services but will probably have to be done by his sister. Awful situation.

Can you offer to take over and help him sort his finances?

Maybe in the guise of financial overall - so he can set goals and save etc?

He may not be able to say no.

How do they have access - are they signatories or do they use his debit card and/or have online access with his password?

If your friend can find out which bank it is, she might be able to approach them and let them know of her concerns. They won't be able to tell her anything, but if she tells them he is autistic and vulnerable and that family members might be accessing his money unauthorised, then they should be able to do their own checks.

I would phone the Autistic Society for advice, they'll tell you the best way to approach this.