You may wonder what elder abuse has to do with real estate, but I want to share a story with you about my friend’s grandfather.  About two weeks ago, M. told her friends in the online community that her grandfather was missing.  You can read about what happened at this link, but this is what M. said after her grandfather was found,

We are hoping that with the right legal intervention, we can get my 87 year old grandfather out of his current situation and into a more loving and stable environment. My mother spoke to one of his long time friends yesterday who said he would call to check on Ervin Tucker and the wife would tell him that it was not any of his business.

Besides physical abuse that elderly people suffer at the hands of some caregivers, they also suffer from financial abuse.

M. and her mother learned that Mr. Tucker’s wife has placed his 320-acre farm on the market for a little more than $220,000.  While I don’t have market statistics for the area, that price seems outrageously inexpensive to me.  For example, my parents just sold a 40-acre farm in the middle of nowhere for $100,000, so you’d think 320-acres in the middle-of-nowhere should go for at least a half million.  They are researching whether Mr. Tucker’s wife has the legal right to sell the property through a power-of-attorney that specifies she can make decisions regarding his real property.

Elder abuse takes many forms and is defined as "any form of mistreatment that results in harm or loss to an older person" by the National Center on Elder Abuse (NCEA). My mother-in-law’s mother suffered elder abuse when her stepchildren cashed in her life insurance policy without her knowledge.  When she did pass away, we didn’t have the money to bury her because the insurance company said it had been cashed in 20 years prior. 

The National Association to Stop Guardian Abuse blog reports,

Recently, the conservator hired a safe cracker to break into Mom’s jewelry safe and remove it all without notification to the family, let alone having a witness from the family present or asking for the combination.

What would I say to real estate agents?  Be careful of the listings you accept.  Make sure that you use due diligence before offering a property and that the actual owner is of sound mind to make the decision to sell.  That the owner is not being threatended to sell. Finally, be sure that the seller is the actual owner of record through legal channels.

Thanks to Amy Peterson of ReVision Properties, LLC, Nashville, TN for her input in this post.