WELLINGTON - Some elderly and incapacitated people are being ripped off by people to whom they give their power of attorney - in many cases their own children.
So says the Law Commission, which is appealing for victims to speak out.
It said yesterday that there were no effective safeguards to prevent people with powers of attorney from abusing those powers.
Cases of abuse uncovered by an Auckland barrister included children helping themselves to their elderly parents' possessions to get in before other siblings.
In other cases, children failed to put parents into proper care because the costs would reduce the size of the estate they stood to inherit.
Law commissioner Donald Dugdale said no one knew how widespread such abuse was.
While the Auckland branch of Age Concern discovered 40 cases over a two-year period, national figures were not collected.
Age Concern employed Auckland barrister Sue Martin to investigate cases brought to the organisation's elder abuse service.
Auckland secretary-manager Grant Withers said that in many cases the abuse was triggered by unmitigated family greed.
There were cases where parents were shunted off to council flats so offspring could benefit from the use of their parents' home.
In other cases, according to the commission, there was outright embezzlement, often rationalised as borrowing - "I am sure if mum could understand she wouldn't mind."
Mr Dugdale said the commission wanted to know the extent of the problem before deciding whether to recommend law changes.
Submissions close on July 31.
- NZPA
Children 'ripping off aged parents'
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