Financial abuse—detection and prevention

Produced in partnership with Helen Freely
Practice notes

Financial abuse—detection and prevention

Produced in partnership with Helen Freely

Practice notes
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Financial abuse of the elderly by carers or members of their own family sadly seems to be on the increase. This can take the form of:

  1. people pilfering money or assets from vulnerable members of society

  2. getting online access to the victim’s bank account and taking money that is not for the benefit of the victim,

  3. an elderly person giving someone they trust their PIN number because they have difficulty getting to a cash point, and then that person abuses their trust and takes some cash for themselves

  4. vulnerable adults being encouraged or pressurised into changing their Wills

  5. situations where people are pressurised into signing over thousands of pounds worth of land or property to relatives who are not genuinely thinking of the elderly person’s best interests but their own

  6. losing money to telephone scammer who claim a bank account has been compromised and claim money needs to urgently be moved to a new account or other telephone scams such as taking control of the person’s telephone to gain access to banking applications

Helen Freely
Helen Freely


Helen Freely is a Partner in the Private Client team. Her background encompasses a broad range of private client work incorporating Wills, probate (contentious and non-contentious, UK and foreign domiciliary estates), trusts, court of protection work, lasting powers of attorney, tax planning and charity law.

Her practise currently is made up predominantly of the following sort of work: contentious trusts and probate, including acting as interim independent administrator; capacity issues, incorporating trusts for people with physical and learning disabilities and court of protection work; and smaller and start up charities.

Helen is recommended in the 2013 edition of Legal 500 for Charities and Not-for-Profit.

Memberships include Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners, Solicitors for the Elderly, Mencap, The Thomas More Society, and the British German Jurists Association. She speaks fluent German and is happy to take on cases with a German or Austrian element. Publications of note include articles written for the Financial Times, Daily Telegraph, LexisNexis, the Private Client Adviser and appearing on BBC Breakfast Television and BBC Radio Solent discussing a range of private client subjects. In her spare time, Helen enjoys the theatre, arranging charity fundraising events, tennis and scrabble.

  • Author of Financial Abuse - it's detection and prevention
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    Jurisdiction(s):
    United Kingdom
    Key definition:
    Money definition
    What does Money mean?

    Money may be defined as a medium of exchange and is generally accepted in the final discharge of debts and the payment of goods and services.

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