Today is Elder Abuse Day in Canada as Sharon Singleton points out in her article, Seniors should focus on estate planning.

Canada will mark Elder Abuse Day on Tuesday, with concern about retirement and pension planning mounting as the population ages. Nearly half of all Canadians from the baby boomer generation have not saved enough for their needs, according to a poll carried out for the Canadian Institute of Actuaries.

As lawyer Les Kotzer of Fish & Associates suggests that’s a recipe for exploitation of their elders. In his book, Where There’s an Inheritance, he collates about 80 anecdotes on how a lack of estate planning, or mistakes in working out a will, have led to abuses.

Longer lives and reducing financial resources give a double whammy to those who have done insufficient retirement planning. That can affect both the boomers and their parents. The boomers are hoping to inherit from their recession-era parents who are in turn dependant on over-indebted kids.

Kotzer points out that some of the most common problems come from giving up control to the children, without having proper protection in place. He cites a number of examples:

Children who had convinced their mother that she could save them money on taxes when she died by transferring her assets to them. They then paid her an allowance, though when she overspent one month, her daughter yelled at her.

An 80-year old woman was pressured by her son to put the house in his name to avoid probate taxes. What he didn’t tell her was that his business was going bankrupt and his creditors sent her a letter laying claim to the house.

A 75-year-old woman worked two jobs. She had loaned her daughter $100,000 and her son $150,000 and when her husband died asked for the money back. Her daughter didn’t have the cash and her son claimed it was never intended as a loan and she’d have to go to court and sue him for it.

It is important to keep good records and these documents need reviewing on a regular basis to reflect changes in life. Wills should be drawn up and kept up to date as grandchildren are born, or children get divorced. Putting such documents away and forgetting them is a recipe for a family disaster.

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