Dear Mary,
I am hoping to explain a situation to you concerning abuse of Power of Attorney. I will try to keep it short.
In 2013 my sister moved my mom from her seniors’ residence to my sister’s apartment that was 800 kilometers away. She manages to cut off all contact between the rest of the family, sons, daughters and my mom brothers and sisters. 2 years later we receive a call from the PGT and they tell us they are investigating our sister for financial abuse. My wife and I traveled to Chilliwack and were able to meet with the branch manager where our mom’s accounts are, and she was able to divulge some information. Not a lot of course but enough to let us know that our sister was taking large sums of money from our mother’s accounts and transferring it to another account under a different name. The bank manager had called the PGT to report what RBC’s legal branch felt was theft by a power of attorney.
After a lengthy process, which our sister fought every inch of the way, the PGT was granted a certificate of incapacity by the Fraser Health Authority. So the PGT has Committee of Estate and our mom’s finances are safe. We as a family would like to see a criminal investigation into this matter as we believe there is enough proof to proceed. Under the Criminal Code of Canada there is a section that deals with these types of crime. In your opinion what is the best way to get the RCMP to investigate this as a criminal matter and not a civil matter. My fear is that they will not want to be bothered with it and say it is a civil matter and that way they do not have to investigate. Any advice or comments you have would be greatly appreciated.
Thank You
David
Hi David:
I am so sorry to hear of your troubles. Sometimes families are just exhausting.
Here are a couple of ideas:
- Meet with the RCMP to have a general conversation to better understand their decision making processes to investigating criminal and civil issues. Ask them about what proof you need to give them. Ask them how often they investigate these types of issues at the criminal level, how long they take, etc. Get a better idea of how they think.
- Meet with an estate litigation lawyer. It will of course cost you a bit of money, but you will learn a lot and it will give you peace of mind, knowing your best options on how to actually proceed with the RCMP.
I am glad your Mom’s money is now safe. What a nasty journey, your sister sounds evil.
Mary
