Vulnerable adult with learning difficulties, legal and will issues

[WelliesandPyjamas]

I'm hoping you can help with this as it's hard to know on a Friday evening where to start :)

We have a relative in her late sixties who has learning difficulties and over time has become more and more 'removed from reality'. She lived all her life with her mother who when she died, left her the house they lived in of course, and the remaining belongings to be shared in time between her and two siblings.

Trying to keep a long story short, and it isn't easy!

She has suddenly become aggressively reclusive, unwilling to interact with anyone in the family, and has decided to change her will and leave the house to a young man who has been visiting her a lot, taking her for coffee and theatre, and has now arranged to take her to a solicitor to make the will changes. Anyone who meets her would be able to tell that she has learning difficulties and lives in her own reality, however is it possible for a solicitor to allow these changes to be made by a vulnerable adult? She has never been diagnosed, just protected away from the world, whether rightly or wrongly.

Any thoughts on whether anything can be done to protect her? This isn't about anyone's inheritance by the way - her current will leaves everything to a vet who wants to buy a machine to ressucitate cats, which, although it sounds funny (to some!) it is clearly an issue close to her heart. This is about finding out whether she can be protected from a very uncomfortable, and maybe dangerous, situation.

For a will to be legally binding she must be in a sound state of mind at the time of changing the will. The solicitor should check such things through careful questioning, etc.

How did she meet the man, how is he linked to her? Has anyone in the family spoken to him?

Have you contacted Social services?

you have a number of options

If you feel she may be being financially abused you can contact your local social services departments and raise a safeguarding adults alert. They will conduct a mental capacity assessment to determine if they feel she is able to make these kind of decisions.

Alternatively you can contact the court of protection and ask for advice around the management of her finances and affairs. You can apply for power of attorney with her agreement if it is felt she has capacity. If it is felt that she lacks capacity the COP may still be able to help out.

As Hulababy says the solicitor would be the one having to make the judgment about if she had capacity to change her will at the time she was requesting to do so.

That's good about the careful questioning. Would it be expected that this man could go to the appointment with her? We don't know whether he is just driving her or going in too, but we know he has made the arrangements.

He is the 'odd job man' and has been around more and more since her mother died, maybe because she is smitten (this fits with her personality). Someone in the family has met him once but she has not let anyone else meet him or even come in to the house any more. It's possible that as far as this chap is concerned, she is alone with no relatives.

Rumbamama - yes, in the past, but very little response. They seemed more concerned about the welfare of the chickens living in the house rather than the fact she had chickens everywhere and poo on every surface! We could try again, for sure.

Hatgirl, that's fantastic advice, and the nice clear info I'd been seeking! Contacting social services again, like rumbamama mentioned, sounds like it may be a good idea. I'm guessing that it could take time though. Obviously, the courts option sounds cold and could scare auntie off, but it would certainly mean action could be taken sooner. Hmm. I know it sounds very Miss Marple but as soon as the property is left to him, we would obviously be more scared of her being even more vulnerable.

Found the direct line number for reporting abuse of vulnerable adults on the council website. Thank you so much for that steer :)

Talking to all the relatives tonight, it seems from letters she has written that she might be hearing voices now or at least believes that her dead mother talks to her and her dead father is alive but away in a WW2 battle :(

if you raise it as a safeguarding vulnerable adults alert you should have a response within a week... and thats being generous, they really should make a decision about it within 24 hrs but over a weekend if its not life or death it will be left until Monday.

It may be that this chap has no ill intentions towards your sister, essentially if she is choosing to make this decision and she has the mental capacity to do so then that is up to her (which you have accepted) if she hasn't it may still not be an abusive situation, but it may be one that needs to be looked into and her 'best interests' agreed by everyone involved in her life. If you look up the Mental Capacity Act code of practice its fairly comprehensive and offers the legal framework about what the process is in these situations. I have linked it here

And this link also offers other links to managing money etc for people who lack capacity and will direct you through to COP.

uhhh don't know where I got sister from! sorry!

I just wanted to add that if her mental capacity is assessed, they will make a judgement based on whether she is able to make this particular decision, not all decisions.
It is also worth bearing in mind that just because the decision seems to be a poor one doesn't necessarily mean that she isn't capable of making it. People make poor decisions all the time.
With that in mind, it is definitely best to contact social services, especially if you feel that she is being taken advantage of. They will be able to advise you properly.
The fact that she has had no formal diagnosis should not have any bearing on this.
Good luck op.

Hatgirl, do you mean that it might be worth trying to call them before Monday? Would it be considered emergency? Thanks for those links, very good, amd have passed them on to family.

Aturtle - thanks. I had assumed that because she has never been formally diagnosed that it would be more difficult to explain how vulnerable she is iykwim?

no this would not usually be deemed as requiring an urgent response (i.e. within 24 hrs) if you do raise a safeguarding adults alert though expect to hear back within the week whether you do it tomorrow or monday.

Not having a diagnosis isn't an issue. You would be surprised at the amount of people who don't receive a diagnosis until all of the family members that were previously shielding them from the 'gaze' of authority have passed away/ are unable to care for them. Even at this point she may not receive a diagnosis, it may just be taken as given that she has an undiagnosed learning disability. I would have thought though that if it goes as far as the COP then she will have to have a diagnosis.

Applying to the COP can just be a form filling exercise. It doesn't necessarily mean that anyone will actually have to go to court.

Just to update you after your kind help last night. We did end up calling social services safeguarding today after auntie finally answered the phone to one of us and she said:

• that he would be moving in!!
• that this chap had told her to remove her siblings from the will (they would have inherited the family belongings like furniture, ornaments, pictures etc) as well as leave the house to him
• that he had told her that her missing money was because her sister had sneaked in and taken it even though she has no access

Social services were great, took it very seriously, will be putting a plan of action together, and finding a way of assessing her. It was definitely the right move so many thanks to those of you who pointed me in that direction last night :)

The whole situation seems so dramatic, like something you read about in the papers, an elderly vulnerable person being taken advantage of like that! But in this case it's actually happening to our family. So odd and so horrible.

oh no, i'm so sorry to hear that. I'm appalled that there are people who take such horrible advantage of people who are more vulnerable than then.
On the positive side, your auntie has a family who obviously love her and care about her wellbeing and who have taken positive action to stop her vulnerability from being exploited.
I hope this all works out for you. I think that when this parasite catches wind that you've involved the authorities you won't see him for dust.

Thank you. It's a fearful feeling, worrying about what this chap could do (and obviously hoping it is simply the very worst case scenario). We of course gave him the benefit of the doubt to start with because of course we only had auntie's snippets of info to go on, but it's becoming sadly more obvious he is up to no good.

We have informed the police as well now, on the advice of the safeguarding team and a solicitor.

Hatgirl. you have done completely the right thing. It sounds as though your aunt doesn't have capacity in which case you can apply to the Court of Protection to have a deputy appointed to manage her finances etc. The deputy can be a family member or a professional such as a solicitor. If she doesn't have capacity to make a will then then an application can be made to court for a statutory will.
Court of Protection
Statutory Wills
You may these links useful

Sorry meant Wellies rather than Hatgirl

Many thanks for those, poshfrock, very useful. We're waiting now for the mental health team to make an assessment. Don't know how long these things take to arrange of how they do it ) especially with uncooperative clients, but we're on the right path at least. There's been a very disturbing letter from her during this week talking about her funeral, all the dogs must attend, and for no one to be surprised ir upset when it happens. Sigh :(

NB she hasn't any dogs, only dog ornaments, we wnder if that is what she means, or just dogs from her past.