Mental anguish can leave a person vulnerable to bad actors who are quick to take advantage of them. Despite having only known the older man for the span of a few weeks, the sugar baby managed to convince him to amend his trust which contained almost all of his assets to name him as the sole beneficiary and trustee. The decedent had left the assets in his trust to our clients, despite them not being his heirs, because he did not have any close family members.
A trust may be contest because the creator of the trust called the settlor, grantor or trustor lacked the mental capacity to execute a trust when they did; however, this was not your run-of-the-mill trust contest. In this case, the decedent had not only been competent but he had been a successful attorney before retiring. Additionally, his estate plan had been drafted by a premier estate planning firm in Los Angeles. They carried out a far-reaching investigation into the facts surrounding the case and were able to gain insight into the broken mental state of the decedent at the time he signed the trust.
In the end, Keystone helped invalidate the new version of the trust by arguing that the decedent had been a victim of elder financial abuse.
Elder financial abuse is a crime that deprives elderly and dependent adults of their resources and, ultimately, their financial independence. It is not uncommon for elders to begin losing competence toward the end of their lives, which leaves them especially vulnerable to financial exploitation through undue influence or fraud. Our probate attorneys routinely handle cases in which the financial abuse perpetrated against an elderly or dependent adult has led the adult to surrender some or all of their assets to their abuser or drastically alter their estate plans to favor them.
Taylor , a Partner at Keystone who supervised the case. It had been a tough year for the year-old man. His longtime partner had filed for divorce. The prestigious job he had held for a number of years no longer needed his services. And he was terrified of being alone. As he sunk into the depths of depression, this once-cautious man began acting impulsively and erratically. Just a few months after meeting the decedent, the young man demanded that the decedent change his trust to make him the sole beneficiary and trustee.
