#3 Why a Solo Retired American Woman is Moving to Thailand for the Rest of Her Life
Part Three: The Alarming Epidemic of Fraudulent Involuntary Conservatorships of American Seniors (and Our Lack of Protection Against Them)
In America, it's alarmingly easy for someone to get a court to agree that an elderly person can't take care of themself or their money any longer -- even if they actually can -- and then put them into a nursing home, throw away the key and steal all of their money and property. And, even if there are laws in their state that say doing this is illegal, they usually still get away with it. And even if the elder has someone who will fight for them on the outside, using the laws that say they can't do this, and the bad guys lose, they are usually still allowed to keep all of the money they stole, and get the elder to pay all of their legal fees, too, out of their estate. Legally.
There is a lot of money at stake here. And where there is money, there are bad guys trying to steal it. And, unfortunately, sometimes the bad guys are our own children who don't want to wait for their inheritance.
So, Reason #3 as to why I want to leave America and move to Thailand is The Alarming Epidemic of Fraudulent Involuntary Conservatorships of American Seniors (and Our Lack of Protection Against Them)
Let's start out by understanding why this problem is becoming an epidemic. As I say, it's all to do with money. It's been all over the news that the baby boomers in America, like me, (those born between 1946 and 1964) are expected to transfer enormous sums of money to their kids. The media is calling it the Great Transfer of Wealth, and a study by Coldwell Banker estimates that we have about $68 trillion dollars that our kids are expected to inherit.
Baby boomers are the largest generation ever in America, and they happened to be born in great economic times that followed the war. The stock market was doing great, jobs were secure and paid pensions, real estate was cheap and then soared in value. And, we inherited money from our parents, too.
The house my folks bought in the San Francisco Bay Area was in a modest blue-collar housing development that was promoted to Korean War vets, like my dad, where they could use special benefits for vets to buy affordable houses, under what was called the GI bill. The little house my folks bought in the early 1960’s cost them $16,000. That little house today is estimated on Zillow to be worth about $874,000.
Now, granted, all baby boomers aren't rolling in the dough. But, my point here is to explain to you why involuntary guardianships and conservatorships -- different terms are used in different states -- are a growing epidemic. And, as we know, people are very clever at figuring out how to steal money. And, as you can imagine, it's pretty easy to steal from an old person. The scary thing, though, is that in America, it's really easy to do so, legally.
There is a book that all seniors need to read. You can order it on Amazon. The title is The Retirement Nightmare: How to Save Yourself from Your Heirs and Protector: Involuntary Conservatorships and Guardianships by Diane G. Armstrong Ph.D., written in 2000.
What Dr. Armstrong explains in her book, is that the laws that were put into place with good intentions, many years ago, for situations where a loved elder was unable to care for themselves anymore, are now being used as a means to separate them from their money and property even while they're still actually completely independent and capable of taking care of themselves and their money.
Dr. Armstrong's own siblings attempted to steal their mother's money in this way. Dr. Armstrong fought on her mother's behalf, but by the time they won, her mother's estate had been diminished by a million dollars.
Now, you might be thinking that this book was written in 2000, so surely things are better now. Unfortunately, the laws haven't really changed much, if at all. And, even in states with great new laws, such as in Florida, where they have made it a felony to even attempt to steal money from an elder, the laws don’t stop someone from trying. And, if you don't have anyone on the outside fighting for you, you're screwed. And, even if you do, and even if you win, you will still lose a great chunk of your nest egg, if not your entire estate.
Plus, after a court has appointed someone as your guardian, they have the legal right to charge you fees as your guardian, make all decisions for you and take over your money and property, even while you're fighting them. And, the law requires that you prove actual intent to steal from you.
Intent is extremely difficult to prove and in a criminal case, you must prove intent beyond a reasonable doubt. How do you prove beyond a reasonable doubt that someone really wasn't concerned that you, as an old person, couldn't take care of yourself or your money anymore?
There was case in California recently, where an elder woman's tax preparers got a conservatorship over her, without sending her any type of notice. They showed up at her home and when she wouldn't let them in, they actually broke the door down, kidnapped her, put her into a nursing home and refused to let her daughter speak to her or allow her to get an attorney. And, it was legal.
By the time the daughter was able to free her mother, there was evidence that her mother had been physically abused and likely also raped in the nursing home.
The daughter in that case's name is Linda Kincaid. She co-founded an advocacy group in California called CEDAR, the Coalition for Elder and Disability Rights, and she created an award-winning documentary that you need to watch. You can find it for free on YouTube. It aired on ABC and is titled The Price of Care: Investigating California Conservatorships.
You may be thinking that all you need to do is get your will and trust and advance healthcare directive in order. What you probably don't know, though, is that a corrupt judge can simply throw out whatever you had drawn up, including your written instructions as to whom you wanted to name as a guardian, if you should ever be found to need one.
And, unfortunately, corruption is not unheard of. An investigative report by ABC7 in New York in January of this year, 2023, found that guardianships had been increasing every year in the tri-state area of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, and that judges in those states have been giving away guardianship appointments to campaign donors who profit from guardianships.
In 2018 in Palm Beach County, Florida, a ring of judges, lawyers and a professional fiduciary who were all profiting from very questionable guardianships was exposed. The professional fiduciary who was consistently named as a guardian, was married to one of the judges. The most upsetting thing about this story is that none of them appear to have been charged with any crimes even after being exposed and are still handling guardianships in that county.
What upset me the most about this story, is that Florida has the best elder protection laws on the books that I could find in America.
You see the thing is, no law will stop people from trying to steal your money. The laws themselves do not protect you from it happening. And, in fact, in most states, including California, it's not even a crime to try. It's only a crime if you actually succeed. And get caught.
My mother was a victim of relatives who tried to steal her estate. She was estranged from all of her kids and grandkids, which made her an easy target. These relatives got my mother, who was starting to suffer from dementia, to sign a power of attorney. They took her to her bank and tried to get her money, but the bank apparently saw red flags, and at the same time a friend of hers saw what was going on and called Adult Protective Services. They were able to stop everything. That's when I found out, though, that they actually hadn't committed a crime, because they were not actually successful at getting their hands on her money, even though they were caught red-handed trying to do so.
They also apparently destroyed my mother's will and trust, as they were nowhere to be found, but that couldn't be proved either, and so my mother's estate went through probate hell. This is another law that is glaringly missing that would help protect some of us. Most states have no way for us to record our wills and trusts for safe keeping with a court or recorder's office. Washington State is one exception. But, my mother lived in California, where we have nowhere to keep our wills and trusts safe from bad actors who might want to alter or destroy them.
But, back to our conservatorship dilemma, as I say, even if you have someone on the outside fighting for you, the law says that if the court has appointed a guardian over you, if you do want to use the court to complain about them or have them removed as your guardian, your estate must pay their attorneys fees. And, you still need to pay them their guardian fees, too, while you're fighting them. All of their costs to defend against your efforts to stop them come out of your estate.
As I mentioned in the first episode in this series, I am very low income, living on Social Security retirement benefits of only $880 per month. In order to survive, I rely on many government benefits for affordable housing, food, help with my electric bills, healthcare and more.
But, one of the downsides to taking government benefits, which I discussed at length in that episode, is that you have to let the government know about all of your assets. You have to provide them with actual savings and investment statements and even your vehicle registrations. If you own your house, you also have to let them know that and it's value. And, you have to provide all of this information to several different government departments, with a high turnover rate of government workers.
I also have to provide this information to my landlord, because I live in government-subsidized housing and they also need to know whether or not I qualify.
This exposes me to a great number of people who may want to steal my inheritance, and who also have everything they need to steal my identity. In fact, in Orange County, California, just last year in 2022, a corrupt social worker was caught stealing identities he had access to, and conspiring with two tax preparers to use those identities to fraudulently obtain tax refunds, welfare benefits and credit cards.
I don't have anyone in my life I can trust to fight for me if some relative or even a corrupt social worker places me under a conservatorship in California, intending to lock me away forever and steal the money my mother left me.
All it would take for someone to get me placed under a conservatorship is for one corrupt person or one well-meaning do-gooder to call Adult Protective Services. As an old person, we are assumed to be feeble minded. In fact, many laws still define incapacity by including simply being old as enough proof of being incapacitated.
In Texas, for instance, you can be placed under guardianship once you reach the age of just 65, if someone says you can't take care of yourself anymore and a judge agrees. So much for enjoying your retirement years.
As elders, we are basically considered guilty until proven innocent. It's far too easy to place us under a conservatorship and stick us in a nursing home and take away all of our rights, including our right to an attorney, plus everything we built or the inheritance our parents were kind enough to leave us. These laws are absolutely unconstitutional.
Another worry I have, is that as I get older and more feeble, my landlord might contact Adult Protective Services, so I don't die in my apartment. I have personally seen the management where I live in a senior apartment building for poor old folk, interfere with tenants who are getting old and feeble, and the next thing you know, Adult Protective Services shows up and they are removed from their apartment before they can die here.
When a tenant dies in a HUD subsidized apartment, like mine, meaning the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, the landlord can no longer charge rent, and under California law they can't remove the tenants belongings for about 2 months. They might also have to pay for biohazard cleanup. At minimum, the cost to the landlord will be a couple months lost rent and they hope your deposit will cover the difference or that they can somehow go after your estate. In my apartment full of poor old people, they don't usually expect to be successful at that. And, they probably wouldn't want to pay a lawyer to try and collect from an estate, anyway.
So, they'd much rather just call Adult Protective Services and get you placed under a conservatorship before you die in your apartment.
And here is where we talk about why I'll be better off in Southeast Asia, specifically, Thailand.
Between Thailand and the Philippines, which I have also been considering as a better place for me to live, Thailand is better with regards to nobody being likely to get control of your estate, if you live there. Thailand does not acknowledge court orders from another country.
The Philippines does honor court orders from other countries, or at least their law does allow it. And this is another reason why Thailand is my first choice over the Philippines.
I spoke to an American attorney who lives in Thailand and is the managing director of a Thai law firm. I asked him if someone in the states could be successful at getting me placed under a conservatorship in Thailand and haul me back to the US. He actually laughed and said, "Good luck with that."
Since Thailand does not recognize foreign court orders, if anyone in the US wanted to try and get me placed under a conservatorship while I'm living under Thai law, they would have to come and start a new proceeding in Thailand, using Thai law. And, as the lawyer I spoke with said, "Good luck with that."
Thai society feels strongly about respecting elders and having their elders live at home with them until they die. They really frown on their own citizens putting their elders in nursing homes. Also, in Thailand, there aren't social workers lurking around every corner, ready to butt into your life.
My goal is to die in Thailand. If I end up needing to go into a nursing home in Thailand, I'll be quite happy with that. The nursing homes are wonderful. If I had the money to move into one now for active adults, I'd do it in a heartbeat. I covered Thai nursing homes in my last episode.
So, there you have it. My 3rd reason for wanting to leave America and move to Thailand is to escape the very real possibility of being placed under a conservatorship and stuck into a nursing home from hell, while someone steals my life and my retirement nest egg.
I'm Kelly Portola. In the next episode of Her Expat Retirement, I'll cover the 4th and final reason I'm leaving America: Safety: How The Government Is Putting It's Low Income Seniors At Risk in Subsidized Senior Apartment Buildings By Using Them As Housing For the Homeless.
You can always find everything I do on HerExpatRetirement.com, where I post articles, videos and podcasts. The letters spell "her," H.E.R., Her Expat Retirement.
I hope to see you again real soon.
References:
Coldwell Banker Study on Great Transfer of Wealth (of $68 trillion from baby boomers to their kids)
https://blog.coldwellbankerluxury.com/a-look-at-wealth-millennial-millionaires/
The Retirement Nightmare: How to Save Yourself from Your Heirs and Protectors : Involuntary Conservatorships and Guardianships (Golden Age) Paperback – May 1, 2000 by Diane G. Armstrong Ph.D.
Florida Criminal Jury Instructions, Chapter 14.9 includes "intent" for financial exploitation of elder, under § 825.103(1)(a), Fla. Stat.: https://www.floridabar.org/rules/florida-standard-jury-instructions/criminal-jury-instructions-home/criminal-jury-instructions/sji-criminal-chapter-14/
The Price of Care: Investigating California Conservatorships, an investigative series aired on ABC: Article: https://www.abc10.com/article/news/local/abc10-originals/investigating-california-conservatorships-the-price-of-care-series/103-a0593dd2-f00c-4fc6-93e8-7e0f6912b4bb
YouTube video of The Price of Care: Investigating California Conservatorships:
Linda Kincaid, co-founder of CEDAR: https://www.madinamerica.com/author/lkincaid/
How to prove intent in court: https://www.shouselaw.com/ca/blog/how-to-prove-intent-in-court/
Palm Beach County, FL guardianship fraud ring including judges, lawyers and professional fiduciaries exposed: https://www.palmbeachpost.com/story/news/2018/09/09/report-savitt-involved-with-corruption-collusion-of-judges/6766634007/
New York investigative report: judges gave guardianships to campaign donors: https://abc7ny.com/guardianship-judges-nyc-court-system-7-on-your-side-investigates/12714062/
California social worker steals clients' identities: https://www.justice.gov/usao-cdca/pr/two-orange-county-tax-preparers-charged-long-running-tax-and-benefit-fraud-scheme
In Texas, you just have to be 65 years old to be placed under a guardianship: https://www.hhs.texas.gov/regulations/legal-information/guardianship#:~:text=For%20adults%20to%20be%20referred,self%2Dneglect)%20or%20exploitation.
What to Do When Your Tenant Dies (in California): https://davewassermansf.com/articles/what-do-you-do-when-your-tenant-dies/
HUD Section 8 tenants contract ends upon tenant's death: https://www.haca.net/landlords/landlord-questions/my-section-8-tenant-just-died-what-happens-to-the-hap-contract/
Thailand guardianship law: http://www.thailand-lawyer.com/legal-guardianship-thailand.html
Thailand does not recognize or enforce foreign court decisions, nor does it have a bilateral agreement with the US: https://thelawreviews.co.uk/title/the-dispute-resolution-review/thailand