The Wisconsin Attorney General has created a task force to look at the problem of elder financial abuse. That’s the good news. The bad news, from the perspective of myself as an Elder Law Attorney, is that the task force proposes defining anyone over the age of 60 as “elderly”. More importantly, that label would allow banks, and other financial institutions, the ability to presume that anyone over the age of 60 is vulnerable to elder financial abuse, and can therefore hold their accounts, or transactions in their accounts for 5-10 days, or in some cases, for a period of up to 60 days. Further, the financial institutions would have the ability to either delay, or even prohibit certain gifting transactions.
The proposed law (not yet passed) would also give banks and financial institutions immunity if they refuse to honor a Financial Power of Attorney; this is contrary to a law passed about 8 years ago which required banks and financial institutions to honor all Powers of Attorney unless they had some legitimate reason not to.
In my opinion, what may have started as a well-meaning protection, has evolved into protectionism at its worst, which will cause a problem for anyone over the age of 60, doing routine transactions, routine gifting, routine estate planning, and the like.
If you agree, I urge you to contact your legislators to tell them that you oppose this law and urge that it not be passed.Respectfully submitted by: Attorney Peter E. Grosskopf