Is Texas’ population growth a “stimulus” for estate looting, probate abuse? (Part 4)
Lou Ann Anderson
August 3, 2009
www.EstateofDenial.com
Population booms can bring more than an increase of people. While such an influx fosters residential and commercial development that spawns economic growth and much coveted tax revenue increases, on the downside, growth can also incite business or activities that exploit or are otherwise harmful to prospering communities. As home to four of the nation’s 10 fastest-growing cities, Texas is especially ripe for these type actions.
Today’s seniors with their accumulation of wealth are an especially attractive population segment, but probate exploitation and estate thefts increasingly impact Americans of all ages. These Involuntary Redistribution of Assets (IRA) actions use wills, trusts, guardianships and sometimes powers of attorney to loot assets of the dead, disabled or incapacitated.
With guardianships, a person loses control of their individual liberty as well as their property. While guardianships are often associated with the elderly, the mentally or physically disabled or anyone incapacitated via illness or injury can also be subjected to this status. Family members may serve as guardians, but a new industry has evolved and been in a growth mode as courts increasingly elect to use professional guardians.
Probate disputes happen quietly. North Texas is home to cases similar to those seen in central and south Texas. And again, while few of these cases receive media attention, here are some that have.
The case of Kathie Seidel and her adopted daughter Katia highlights many issues and perspectives of how guardianships are used with regard to special needs children. In addition to being a committed parent, Seidel’s knowledge of the issue, willingness to confront a governmental system and access to financial resources are the only reasons she and her daughter might someday be reunited. This is a complicated situation and many other Katias are rightly or wrongly – but certainly quietly – being moved through the Texas probate system.
On the other side of guardianship cases, WFAA recently reported how Sharon Richards was replaced as guardian to her elderly mother, Earnestine Starks, without prior knowledge and after making “allegations of abuse” against a nursing home as per a letter filed in a Tarrant County court. Per the report, the family is now working with the court-appointed guardian and can appeal the judge’s decision yet the expense, time, availability of competent legal counsel and likelihood of bureaucratic obstacles could easily make this a prolonged and challenging process.
Activities surrounding Denton County’s probate court received attention starting May 2005 when The Dallas Morning News published a story about a group of lawyers and other professionals viewed as significantly profiting off probate court appointments handed out by Judge Don Windle. Another article suggested the potential of Windle “playing favorites” with a special Denton County panel that oversees real estate price determinations for eminent domain cases.
In September 2006, after a 10-month investigation by the State Commission on Judicial Conduct, Judge Windle received a public reprimand which is reported to be the highest sanction the commission can issue against a judge. Windle’s use of a guardian services company operated by his then ex-wife was particularly noted in the newspaper articles and by the Judicial Conduct Commission. Upon Windle’s reprimand, Denton County officials sought a replacement guardianship company.
In November 2006, The Morning News then published a piece that told of Windle placing two sisters in their 90s under guardianships and how upon the second sister’s death, Windle along with several of his associates (including his ex-wife) were beneficiaries to the womens’ joint estate. At that point, both the Denton Record-Chronicle and The Dallas Morning News called for Judge Windle to resign. He did not and could seek re-election in November 2010.
To their credit, exposing Judge Windle’s activities was not the only time The Dallas Morning News addressed the issue of probate. In 2006, the paper also published a special report entitled Mary Ellen’s Will: The Battle for 4949 Swiss. This series detailed the history of Mary Ellen Bendtsen, a colorful Dallas socialite who spent the most of her adult life occupying a once-beautiful mansion located in an exclusive enclave just east of downtown Dallas. Staff writer Lee Hancock sets the stage:
Her crumbling mansion is now a battleground for her relatives and two art-deco antique dealers with a history of befriending elderly Dallasites — and ending up with their homes and money.
It’s a legal drama playing out in four criminal, civil and appellate courts. And it’s not just some family’s private tragedy. What happened to Mrs. Bendtsen and 4949 Swiss raises the kinds of questions that the Texas courts have a hard time answering quickly or well, a problem that is only growing as the largest collection of wealth ever is handed down from parents to children: Who decides when an old person can no longer handle her affairs? What rights do families have? What separates friendship from abuse?
In Crime and little punishment, Hancock astutely reported:
Families who go to probate court to try to address elder crises through the civil system are often frustrated by the slowness and expense of a system that sometimes seems designed more to accommodate a clubby set of lawyers than to help people in need.
In August 2008, the Texas Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal over ownership of the Swiss Avenue house and in doing so, effectively upheld previous court decisions that Bendtsen’s daughter, Frances Ann Giron, is in fact her mother’s rightful heir.
People who experience an IRA action usually do so in some degree of isolation. Their friends and associates assume “something” must have been done wrong. Law enforcement is routinely not interested, the courts aren’t necessarily a venue of justice. Ignorance and arrogance (it can’t happen to me!) commonly generates a dismissiveness which fosters a great degree of frustration for IRA targets. With that, these additional observations from reporter Lee Hancock are not surprising:
Since the 4949 Swiss series was published, I’ve received a steady stream of calls and e-mails from readers with their own gut-wrenching stories. They describe feeling powerless to prevent elderly relatives from being relieved of their bank accounts, homes and other assets. Their stories follow a depressingly similar pattern: relatives or close friends or neighbors didn’t realize or couldn’t bring themselves to confront a problem until too late.
The use of probate venues and legal instruments like wills, trusts or guardianships to confiscate or divert resources is becoming more common. Texas’ growing population is likely to stimulate more of these situations and it’s time to recognize this growing threat. Everything you have may depend upon it.
Lou Ann Anderson is an advocate working to create awareness regarding the Texas probate system and its surrounding culture. She is the Online Producer at www.EstateofDenial.com and a Policy Advisor with Americans for Prosperity – Texas. Lou Ann may be contacted at info@EstateofDenial.com.
Estate of Denial® provides news, analysis and commentary on abusive practices occurring in probate courts and via probate instruments (wills, trusts, guardianships, powers of attorney). We provide original perspective to educate the public regarding this growing threat to both individual freedoms and property rights.
Estate looting, probate abuse “stimulus” (part 4)
Is Texas’ population growth a “stimulus” for estate looting, probate abuse? (Part 4)
Lou Ann Anderson
August 3, 2009
www.EstateofDenial.com
Population booms can bring more than an increase of people. While such an influx fosters residential and commercial development that spawns economic growth and much coveted tax revenue increases, on the downside, growth can also incite business or activities that exploit or are otherwise harmful to prospering communities. As home to four of the nation’s 10 fastest-growing cities, Texas is especially ripe for these type actions.
Today’s seniors with their accumulation of wealth are an especially attractive population segment, but probate exploitation and estate thefts increasingly impact Americans of all ages. These Involuntary Redistribution of Assets (IRA) actions use wills, trusts, guardianships and sometimes powers of attorney to loot assets of the dead, disabled or incapacitated.
With guardianships, a person loses control of their individual liberty as well as their property. While guardianships are often associated with the elderly, the mentally or physically disabled or anyone incapacitated via illness or injury can also be subjected to this status. Family members may serve as guardians, but a new industry has evolved and been in a growth mode as courts increasingly elect to use professional guardians.
Probate disputes happen quietly. North Texas is home to cases similar to those seen in central and south Texas. And again, while few of these cases receive media attention, here are some that have.
The case of Kathie Seidel and her adopted daughter Katia highlights many issues and perspectives of how guardianships are used with regard to special needs children. In addition to being a committed parent, Seidel’s knowledge of the issue, willingness to confront a governmental system and access to financial resources are the only reasons she and her daughter might someday be reunited. This is a complicated situation and many other Katias are rightly or wrongly – but certainly quietly – being moved through the Texas probate system.
On the other side of guardianship cases, WFAA recently reported how Sharon Richards was replaced as guardian to her elderly mother, Earnestine Starks, without prior knowledge and after making “allegations of abuse” against a nursing home as per a letter filed in a Tarrant County court. Per the report, the family is now working with the court-appointed guardian and can appeal the judge’s decision yet the expense, time, availability of competent legal counsel and likelihood of bureaucratic obstacles could easily make this a prolonged and challenging process.
Activities surrounding Denton County’s probate court received attention starting May 2005 when The Dallas Morning News published a story about a group of lawyers and other professionals viewed as significantly profiting off probate court appointments handed out by Judge Don Windle. Another article suggested the potential of Windle “playing favorites” with a special Denton County panel that oversees real estate price determinations for eminent domain cases.
In September 2006, after a 10-month investigation by the State Commission on Judicial Conduct, Judge Windle received a public reprimand which is reported to be the highest sanction the commission can issue against a judge. Windle’s use of a guardian services company operated by his then ex-wife was particularly noted in the newspaper articles and by the Judicial Conduct Commission. Upon Windle’s reprimand, Denton County officials sought a replacement guardianship company.
In November 2006, The Morning News then published a piece that told of Windle placing two sisters in their 90s under guardianships and how upon the second sister’s death, Windle along with several of his associates (including his ex-wife) were beneficiaries to the womens’ joint estate. At that point, both the Denton Record-Chronicle and The Dallas Morning News called for Judge Windle to resign. He did not and could seek re-election in November 2010.
To their credit, exposing Judge Windle’s activities was not the only time The Dallas Morning News addressed the issue of probate. In 2006, the paper also published a special report entitled Mary Ellen’s Will: The Battle for 4949 Swiss. This series detailed the history of Mary Ellen Bendtsen, a colorful Dallas socialite who spent the most of her adult life occupying a once-beautiful mansion located in an exclusive enclave just east of downtown Dallas. Staff writer Lee Hancock sets the stage:
In Crime and little punishment, Hancock astutely reported:
In August 2008, the Texas Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal over ownership of the Swiss Avenue house and in doing so, effectively upheld previous court decisions that Bendtsen’s daughter, Frances Ann Giron, is in fact her mother’s rightful heir.
People who experience an IRA action usually do so in some degree of isolation. Their friends and associates assume “something” must have been done wrong. Law enforcement is routinely not interested, the courts aren’t necessarily a venue of justice. Ignorance and arrogance (it can’t happen to me!) commonly generates a dismissiveness which fosters a great degree of frustration for IRA targets. With that, these additional observations from reporter Lee Hancock are not surprising:
The use of probate venues and legal instruments like wills, trusts or guardianships to confiscate or divert resources is becoming more common. Texas’ growing population is likely to stimulate more of these situations and it’s time to recognize this growing threat. Everything you have may depend upon it.
Lou Ann Anderson is an advocate working to create awareness regarding the Texas probate system and its surrounding culture. She is the Online Producer at www.EstateofDenial.com and a Policy Advisor with Americans for Prosperity – Texas. Lou Ann may be contacted at info@EstateofDenial.com.