Brother has swindled DM out of over £100k- desperate advice please

[Unicornfairysoap]

Sorry I’m posting in aibu for traffic.

this is long, you may remember such threads as brother Pretended to dying DF to be in the navy to get money, pretend to be in mi6, threatened me with a multi billion £ law suit for saying he doesn’t have a PhD (he literally doesn’t, so it’s a stupid lie)

well DF died a few years ago and it’s been just dm, she lives 2/3 hrs away from my, brother lives closer. She works part time (20hrs a week) and gets my dads old pension and hers, which I’ve totalled as around £3.5k per month (no mortgage just bills). She’s been frequently crying to me she’s not got any money, I thought she was having me on a bit, but I had suspicions brother had claws in. Well she was visiting yesterday and broke down from not being able to pay her bills, she just kept repeating she’s not earning enough now, which she clearly is. The bills were only a few hundred too and she’s not the type to ask for money. I got quite concerned, and I noticed constant phone calls and texts coming in from brother. Now he’s the type that doesn’t contact unless he needs or wants something.

she went to the loo, and I snooped. I know it’s a total break of trust but I was genuinely concerned. I saw a list she’d wrote to him when he was telling her she was dead to him because she couldn’t give him £4k at the drop of a hat. The list went from 2019-2022 (so not even the last 18 months) and it detailed how she’d given him £120k over that time. He’s been going on luxurious holidays in that time. In a legal dispute with his ex. But he’s taking her to the cleaners and im genuinely worried. I looks like pure coercive control and an abusive relationship.

thing is i can’t tell her I looked and saw what I saw. She won’t take kindly to me calling social services or the police to talk with her, it will likely push her further to him.

shes 73 and he’s taken probably £150k at least

I've already posted on here, but just thought I'd add - want to echo trying to get POA in place. I know mum may be reluctant but perhaps have a conversation with someone qualified with her there about what it means, the benefits etc.

She could quite honestly end up bankrupt and homeless.

If you haven’t done it already, I would suggest raising a safeguarding concern. Last week I found out that family members have been siphoning money from a 94year old bank account for the past 10 years. Approximately £30,000.00 gone out of his account. I reported it to the police but they didn’t do that much other than visit him and asked him to sign to say he won’t press charges. They said he has mental capacity so he can do what he wants. He didn’t know they were helping themselves to his money on a daily basis. The police cannot do assessments to determine who has capacity or not. This should be done by a social worker.

I also reported it to the local authority safeguarding team. They said a social worker will visit him and carry out a financial capacity assessment.

https://cumbria.gov.uk/elibrary/Content/Internet/327/949/38389/44757115554.pdf

You don’t pay for security clearance- it doesn’t work like that. It should all be done through his company. UKSV are very strict

May I suggest you set up notifications from land registry to notify of any searches done on your Mum’s address? There have been instances where people have sold the house out from under the person who actually owns it and there’s nothing that can be done.

I know this sounds absolutely ridiculous but it is true! I’m just imagining your brother doing something this vile and he will have access to your Mim’s personal information.

OP I agree that this is financial coercion and the police should be involved. In the mean time contact the Inland Revenue regarding the payments as undeclared income. You can be anonymous and tell them amount over the time frame.
Also just make sure that your brother hasn’t taken out any mortgages or loans on your mums property. Age Concern will provide excellent assistance.
For what it’s worth I think your brother has a gambling addiction.

It’s awful isn’t it. Nan’s husband lived less than a year after my nan died, so he wasn’t at the care home very long- my mom got on well with his granddaughter (not the daughter of the scumbag son!) and told her everything, and I think she put a stop to it for her granddad at least. She was utterly ashamed. At his funeral the thieving son was in one of the speeches he’d written to be read by the vicar, ‘remembered lovingly by his adoring son [name]’ made me feel sick honestly! My mom confronted them but from what I remember they just deafed her out and left nan’s house really fast 😬 Unfortunately we were all mourning and didn’t have the energy to pursue it as we could have, if I could go back I’d have been a lot more involved, possibly named them online (probably best I didn’t cause trouble but it would have been deserved!). Appalling how people treat the elderly. They never used to lock their door as they trusted their neighbours, and towards the end of their lives there were random people coming in and stealing cash and valuables from the house as nan’s husband was hard of hearing and nan could see them but not move to do anything or alert her husband. Makes me sick.

Honestly I would print out the power of attorney forms and ask her to sign them. This gives her a total way out, but saying she can’t give him money because you have control now. If she refuses, I would report to the bank, police and social services and let them deal with this. It’s a massive safeguarding concern, so despite her wishes you can’t just not act here.

Tell her you know.
Tell her she's not to blame and to help her you'll sort out her finances and will be a co signatory on all her accounts.

Tell her you will support her and help her. She's totally embarrassed at what has happened and knows exactly why ahead can't pay her bills.

Be kind and give her love and suooory and tell her that from now and going forward she need not worry

Everyone keeps mentioning a financial POA, but in order to use it, OP's mum would need to be incapacitated surely.

I don’t think that’s a lie though. If she has given her child more than €3000 a year as a gift, then the child (her brother) would be in trouble for not declaring it and paying tax (in this country anyway)

Not sure about the UK gift tax amount.

My dad wasn't incapacitated, but his POA was put in place as soon as he signed and it was processed. Not sure how it works - Dad was fully compos mentis, but couldn't cope with financial matters and Mum had dementia. (I was his POA. The solicitor had a choice of leaving the 'trigger' - can't remember the correct term - until later or putting it in place straight away.)

In the UK, he'd get into trouble if his mother passed within 7 years of getting money (over 3K a year) and not declaring it when the estate was confirmed/went through probate, assuming that there was inheritance tax to pay.

Thanks for that info.

So he has received a LOT more than 3k, should he have declared that he has received this ‘gift’ ?

POA's are taking around 4 to 5 months to put into place at the moment, so they're not really going to help OP in the short term. I applied for one for my Dad but it was too late (cancer).

OP, I know you don't want to, but I really think you need to involve SS over this. It's financial abuse.

Yes, @WearyAuldWumman , the individual can choose whether the financial POA becomes active immediately or only when they lose capacity. My Dad chose the second option as he’s still fine handling his finances.

As the OP’s Mum feels so pressured by her son, having a POA that becomes active immediately (once it’s officially registered, of course) might be good protection and relieve her stress. She could honestly tell him that she can’t transfer large sums to him anymore and refer him to her attorney.

You don't need to be incapacitated for someone to use your POA. My DH has POA for his mum who has no mental decline but just wanted an extra hand with her finances after my FIL died. My DH was then able to set up online banking and manage her accounts on her behalf. The POA gives him permission to do this. It did take 5 months to get back from the office of the public guardian though.

How would POA make a difference if the mother has mental capacity?

Sorry I just saw the post above. I can’t remember being told this when I took out POA for my mum.

I would tell her that it's she's really worried about money, she could go to your brother for help because he must be rolling in it given the amount of wonderful holidays that he's been having?

Then i would take her to the bank as they often have financial advisers that you can see for free there and I would accompany her to any meetings.

You could also apply for power of attorney. It wouldn't help her now because she is clearly in charge of her own faculties, but it would help reassure her that, if she struggled at a later stage, you could step in and act in her best interests to look after her finances.

I think it's the case that he doesn't have to declare it unless his mother passes within 7 years.

On the HMRC website, there's a table which states the percentage of tax you have to pay.

I looked at it the other day, because I'm thinking of sending money to my late husband's grandchild. She wasn't mentioned in his will, so wasn't legally entitled to anything when he died, but I gave her 3k then. (He asked me to give her 'a couple of thousand' - his will was written before she was born and she's now an adult.)

The following tax year, I gave one relative 2k on his behalf, and another 500, for gifts for specific events. (These gifts weren't mentioned in the will, but I knew he'd want them to get something.)

Apparently, I can give her up to 6k this tax year because I didn't use any of my gift allowance last tax year. It sounds to me as though the OP's brother has got much more than that and would need to declare it if his mother passed.

The Inheritance Tax threshold is - ISTR - 325k (though there's some rule that means that the deceased's spouse's threshold can be added to that).

If the OP's mum has a big house and money in the bank, she could easily be above the threshold.

I'm comfortable rather than wealthy, but (if my house hasn't been sold to pay for care) my estate might be a bit above the threshold when I die.

Thank you for clarifying that for me. I couldn't remember the specifics - it's been a while now: my dad died 13 years ago.

The one thing that dad did was asked what would happen if anything happened to me. (A sensible question.) The solicitor asked him to give the name of someone as back-up POA and he named my mum's niece. (The niece is an accountant and was POA for her mother and our aunt, so knew what she was doing.)

OP, you have done the right thing by “snooping” - you were worried for your mother. You need to save copies of those messages securely (if you possibly can) and get the police involved ASAP. Your mother is being abused.

As an aside, i worked in amd recruited for the civil service and there were never any costs in getting security clearance to applicants in my sector.

I would tell you mother clearly that you strongly suspect him of lying and that she should ask him to provide proof as her new financial manager would like to see the invoice. If he then forges one, make sure that she calls up the department to ask them specifically, saying that she believes that she might be a victim of a scam.

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/united-kingdom-security-vetting-applicant

Correct, I have POA for my mum in a similar vein, but it just gives me permission to access her accounts, sign on her behalf etc. it doesn't cancel her right to also make decisions, do her own transactions etc. that only happens with loss of capacity.

Just to say I have had something similar with a relative who is unwell but does have capacity; the police were called but relative refused to speak to them and just made excuses. The police said they could see what was happening and would log it with adult social care and another agency did too but they were honest that this wouldn’t really do much except be a bit of background evidence if anything big happened later.