The elderly population is, unfortunately, often the target of a variety of romance and other financial scams. But when a wealthy widow remarries an old flame and begins to feel pressured to make out-of-character financial decisions with the family fortune, the situation can be even further complicated.
The Problem
Our client, a member of a high-net-worth family, expressed concern about his mother-in-law’s future financial security. Her first husband, our client’s father-in-law, had died a few years earlier, leaving her in control of a large estate. She had since remarried, and her second husband—her high school sweetheart, whom our client didn’t know very well—was pressuring her to sell the family’s historic, seven-bedroom home for an even larger, more extravagant property despite having spent the past 10+ years renting a small apartment.
Our Solution
To help our client better understand the new husband’s background and financial situation, we began digging into the subject’s litigation history, financial status, professional background and family history. Although he had been retired for many years, a picture started to emerge as we dug through online and archived records, including property records, newspaper articles and legal case files. Research identified a marriage certificate that confirmed the subject’s first marriage in the late 1960s, but also a post-nuptial agreement signed by him and his first wife 20 years after they married and had multiple children together. The agreement established the couple’s property, debts, and income as separate from one another, and included a statement of separate property indicating the subject’s wife owned the home the couple resided in as well as numerous pieces of furniture, works of fine art, business interests and other assets. On the contrary, our subject had negligible assets and nearly $200,000 worth of liabilities.
In the years that followed, our subject was repeatedly sued by investors over failed business deals, encumbered by tax liens owed to state and federal governments, and filed not one but two bankruptcy proceedings. His first wife, who we learned came from a wealthy family and eventually died in 2010, remained financially secure throughout their marriage, thanks to the post-nuptial agreement they put in place.
The Outcome
Because of our research and analysis, our client was aware of the subject’s poor history of financial decisionmaking and lack of assets to contribute to the acquisition of a new luxury property. With this intelligence, our client was able to ensure his mother-in-law retained sole control of the family’s assets, protecting the family’s financial security and well-being for generations to come.