Family member exploitation of elderly parents. What should I do?

i feel your pain. i'm so sorry you have to experience this betrayal. i can only echo the advice of the others and encourage you to be at peace with yourself, let go of the hurt your family have caused you and go with your heart in the positive direction of what you believe is the best for you and your parents. stay strong (or at least, give it your best shot!)...

Thank you all for your comments. They are very supportive. I am trying not to be a nervous wreck, but at the end of the day, I am concerned about my parents as they clearly have dementia, and are suffering as well as me. It was not so much the house but about the shicking way they treated me and the secretive way in which they have dealt with things. I think they are frightened about their increasing frailty and are trying to stay in control of their lives! They have lost judgement and empathy and as I have never seen dementia before, I had no idea how such things can turn lives upside down. Perhaps they would have been ok had it not been for devious exploitative manipulaters taking advantage of them! Goodness knows, my father has spent the last ten years saving every penny for his kids, and spending £2 per week doing tge lottery so that he could see his kids alright before he died! He wouldn't even spend £30 now and then for a gardener!

As for me, well I have spoken to Adult Protection at Council SS dept and am awaiting a call back. I have to do something as my parents have been isolated from their daughter (me) deliberately, by my brother, and as I can see, that does not show that he cares much for them? As they have dementia I can't reason with them, as they seem to me to be completely potty! I guess every family has a crisis time, but I sure didn't see this one coming!

There Is No Try - sometimes the inheritance thing is a carrot that allows parents to exploit their children and of course there are situations where simple fairness does come in. It is essential to avoid the "sunk cost" - that is, getting fooled into putting in effort and being unable to write it off and walk away. With toxic families, you have to be realistic about any promises but it sounds like jenny did trust them, whereas she should have seen 20 years ago that she was dealing with skunks and weaklings and wasted no more time.

A good therapist with experience with toxic families would be a great help. One would be able to give you new strategies to deal with these situations which are challenging you so severely. You might want to ask a doc for a prescription product to help you overcome the anxiety that you are showing us, just so you can get by it and your therapist be more effective.

Jennymac, when people look forward to an inheritance, I often wonder why. In the past, rich families did depend on inheritances to live the way they were used to, I guess. Nowadays though, care at the end of life costs so much that I wonder if expected inheritances are becoming a thing of the past. Our parents had pensions when they retired, and most of us will never have that either. We adjust. I hope you can feel better about it. I know it is about the money and yet maybe not about the money, because of the statement made by withholding it. I can see where that may hurt even more than the loss of the money itself. I hope that will make you feel better.

Thank you psteigman. I will bear what you say in mind. I was just answering previous person who commented and I thought was unclear of what happened. I am much better, but still shaky and I take Kalm tablets and am getting on with my life. I didn't want people to think that this was just about money. I will try hard to become more balanced, and just let them get on with it!

You keep repeating things here in great length, a sign of OCD. Get some therapy and medications, focus on getting well.

The Ltd company was set up in 1977 for me and my brother and was not an operating company. The asset of the company was a factory which later sold for £250,000. It was set up to protect us from inheritance tax if they died. In 1993 my brother deviously persuaded my father to remove me as director and hand company to my brother. One year later my Sister in law and brother pushed my father to retire from the business he ran with my brother (after 20 years). It stank then and it stinks now. My parents changed their Wills in 1994 and I was told I would inherit their house. They did everything secretly behind my back, and I was told in an offhand manner by my Dad, and when I expressed shock he verbally attacked me. They have also handed money to my brother, probably alot??? It was all quite vile. No honesty, trust or respect for me. They are old, susceptible and suffering, and the whole family is decimated. It is not about the money. It is the deceipt, betrayal, humiliation and ridicule and they cannot be reasoned with as I believe they have dementia (and my father, possible mental illness). I have researched dementia in detail.

I have forgiven them in my heart. I am concerned for their welfare, but I am cut off, as was intended by my brother. I want them to see a doctor and get checked out, but they are still 'sounding off' to my daughter when she rings to check on them. I am doing as advised on this site, and protecting myself from ending up in a mental ward! They excluded me from their lives, because my brother told them they wouldnt have to sell their house. Today my mother told my daughter they may have to sell the house and go into a nursing home??? Things dont sound goid for them! I always wanted to care for them, and they trampled all over me in their rush to bow and scrape to my brother. That is what hurts! People deserve respect and my parents have been manipulated and exploited! Plenty of it about if you read Adult Protection websites! And it is described as a despicable crime against old vulnerable people by their own family! I will get over it!

I believe that the owner of a Ltd company (your father) would know to give you a deed granting him and his wife a life estate and not the promise of a house in his will which he could change. He would have dealt with enough lawyers and deals to know this. He may have known he could change his will later, and granted you the house in the will to make you stop complaining back then. If you complained back then like you are now, I can see how he would do something reversible just to shut you up. My relative did this purposely to one of his children.

On the other hand, if the Golden Child of brother & sis in law did manipulate him to do this, where were you then? It honestly does sound like it is all about the money. No one deserves anything no matter what abuse you have put up with in your life. Yes, that is a hard one to swallow, but it is better than anger and resentment which can eat you from the inside out.

Skip the lawyer, go to a therapist. Mine changed my life.

Talk to a lawyer

To answer Thereisnotry, first of all thank you for your help. When I received the birthday card and check, I was numb, paralysed with deep depression and shock and I felt nothing. I had imagined they might do this but dismissed it in my mind as utterly preposterous! So when it came I couldn't react. They had made no attempt to speak to me in four and a half months. Maybe I hoped they would feel my pain (by ignoring it). The worst of what my parents did, was that they seemed to criminalise me. My aunt, initially supportive, visited them in June and got a blast of my father's rage. She never ever spoke to me again, and I believe it was because she was so shocked by what they had done to their own daughter that she retreated to her home in Yorkshire and pulled the shutters down and pretended it wasn't happening - that her beloved sister and her husband were slaughtering their own daughter! She must have thought I had done something terrible! I spent 3 months with a knot of fear in my stomach every morning, and every night waking at 3 or 4 sobbing. I thought I must be a murderer or something! They wiped out all my memories over a lifetime, and I felt like my father wanted to knock me to the ground and give me a good kicking while my brother looked on smirking! My inner core was destroyed!

I do not understand it, other than I know my brother manipulated and exploited them, just as he did 20 years ago when he persuaded my father to hand over a Limited Company to him behind the back of one director ie ME. I pulled my father up on this 20 years ago which is why they decided to leave their house to me in their Wills in 1994. In 1995, my SIL and weakling brother forced my father to retire from the company he had run with my brother since 1977,
If brother paid him for the factory it was out of tge £200,000 my father had handed to my brother from that company!

Anyway, the upshot is, if there is nothing fishy going on, then why werent they open and honest with me? Why didn't they explain their need to alter the situation? Why didn't they offer the concession of me also being an Executor of their Wills along with my brother? Why did my father feel such overwhelming guilt that he launched a verbal raging attack on me? It all stinks. My mother has forgotten why they left me the house in the first place, and my father is 'taking it very badly' apparently! My mother told my daughter. I, on the other hand, have regained my mental equilibrium, and have conquered my resentment. But I draw the line at going back into tge war zone, as my mother' words can kill at 60 paces! And I am not yet strong enough to withstand anorher onslaught! What will be will be, but I will get well, and they will get more frail, but my daughter will keep calling to ensure they are not being neglected. So far SIL manages to organise food deliveries! My brother remains a devious nasty slimy crook who had no compunction about praying on a susceptible old couple, knowing that they would suffer at the loss of their daughter, and fully intending my removal from the picture!

You have to laugh, don't you! But I will keep my dignity in tact and I won't retaliate! If they don't want me, so be it! Sorry to waffle on.

To

Thank you

I noticed something in your story, did their parents change their will "in exchange for being able to remain in their own homes."? Does that mean your siblings are doing something in order to help them avoid a NH? If so, there is a valid reason to change a will. The hurtful thing would be for me, that no one offered you that opportunity. Perhaps the siblings thought of it themselves in good or bad motivation, but if there were a benefit from changing the will wouldn't that make you feel better to know that they will benefit somehow from their association with your siblings? I agree that situation sounds questionable but that it is important that you separate your parents' welfare from inheritance issues. If the inheritance is as you feel a debt your parents owe you that was ALREADY bestowed on your brother, be sure you let your brother know what monies are owed to you. Put a dollar value on whatever they got out of your pocket. If you can't quanitfy it you can't collect it. On another note, why would you ignore a birthday card and gift of a check? That sounds very petty. You may want to rebuild your bridges with your parents' affections while they are still on this earth.

I understand your anger and hurt feelings. Seems to me that nothing can be done about a change in a person's will although it seems unfair. Favoritism does exist sometimes for no apparent reason. In reality, one would think that property should be divided equally between all surviving off-spring; but for one reason, or another, "things change" in the minds of parents.
Parents, like us, have fonder feelings of some than others. Would you want to be forced to leave your property to someone you no longer trust or feel warm toward? For whatever reason, they no longer love you as much as others, and they demonstrate it by removing you from their will. You must accept that fact and go on with your life.
In my own family, there are obvious "favorites" and obvious "outcasts". This pecking-order has always existed. (Only God knows why!) I am an outcast and I have accepted it. I help take care of her anyway... and my mother is somewhat ambivalent toward me. Yes, it hurts when I see her treat other siblings more "special", but I do it because she wasn't always that way. Two sisters were taken out of her will because they wanted to leave her in a nursing home which she fears terribly.. and because they verbally attacked her at age 92 because of 50-year-old-hurts. Perhaps she felt terrorized and helpless, knowing that she could not defend herself.
I don't know what it feels like to lose control of everything in my life; to be at the mercy of others nor to have my freedom threatened. I don't know what it feels like to have people exploit me nor manipulate me to take my possessions, under the threat of being "sent away" (as she says it); but I do understand my status inside that family... and even if I don't agree with it, all I can do is accept it and help her as long as I can physically & mentally do it because she IS my mother, who gave me life. If she ever told me, " Don't come back! " ... then I would not come back. I would accept that too. "Acceptance" of the facts in life is the key to survival... not "wishing" life were different.
I hope you are able to come to grips with this bad situation.. I know it hurts to feel "left out"; but it hurts more to resent others.. because resentment will 'eat you alive' and leave whom you resent untouched and justified.

Ferris1, I agree with you completely. I am an only child and should be left my dad's estate. It's possible that my youngest son has persuaded him to sign over his house to him or has given him a lot of money. So be it. I won't worry about what may happen. Like you said, the inheritance is a "gift"..............my life will go on one way or another.

Your parents have every right to change their wills. You either accept the way you are being treated or you risk your own well-being. That is YOUR choice. Having a "nervous breakdown" can be good. If you were in a hospital, then you were being cared for, and if this was just an expression, most of us being caregivers have at some time lost patience, but we go on. My best suggestion is to let the chips fall where they may, you make your own choices in your life, and don't expect anyone else to give you things. An inheritance is simply a "gift" that the giver gives. What was said twenty years prior is null and void. People change. You either change your perception or you do not. Your choice.

I agree with pstiegman but if you feel your parents health and safety are in jeopardy then I would absolutely contact ASP. Their well being is obviously important to you despite what they have done to you.

Thank you pstiegman. That is absolutely right. I am paralyzed by depression and it is hell on earth. To know that my parents have turned into monsters, betrayed me, humiliated and ridiculed me and have no responsibility about it whatsoever. After seven months they have not spoken to me. They are even aware that I have had a nervous breakdown and was suicidal but this all goes over their heads. They have not even made the concession of making me a Trustee of their Wills along with my brother. It is horrific, and there is nothing I can do about it! Anyway, as my counsellor said a few months ago - It is their loss! Thanks again.

You are still paralyzed by depression and cannot bring yourself to do anything. First, cure yourself, get counseling and medication to build your strength. Next, realize that all the money will be eaten up if they go into a nursing home, so it is best forgotten. Do not bring up any money questions when you go to see them, it gives them the impression that is all you care about. This will make them angry and create more distance. When you recover, consider what is important, your health, your parents or a long battle over an inheritance that may evaporate before it comes to pass.