Best Practice Guide for Legal Practitioners in Relation to Elder Financial Abuse

Published on 15 June 2023 Through the Best Practice Guide for Legal Practitioners in Relation to Financial Elder Abuse, the Law Council of Australia suggests best practice measures to be adopted by legal practitioners to mitigate risks of elder financial abuse, and to identify and respond to clients who are potentially subject to such abuse.

Legal practitioners have a crucial role to play in the prevention of financial abuse of older persons. Older persons can be assisted in protecting themselves against current and future abuse and lawyers can also be alert to the potentially abusive nature of transactions which are commonly agitated before courts and tribunals.

Elder abuse can take many forms, such as physical, psychological, social and domestic, sexual, financial and neglect. Financial elder abuse can happen to an older person in conjunction with other types of abuse, such as social abuse. Financial abuse can range from minor incidents (such as borrowing small amounts of money and not repaying the loan, having money, possessions or property taken without permission, or the perpetrator not contributing to household expenses such as rent, food or aged care/home service fees where it was previously agreed) through to serious incidents (such as misusing an Enduring Power of Attorney (for financial matters)).