Estate and inheritance (possibly stolen) - What to do?

A long story that I will try and summarise as short as possible.

Father-in-law was diagnosed with dementia around 3 years ago. He is still compos mentis but of course over time, his condition will only deterioate. He has quite a sizeable estate that consists of a mixture of a running business, multiple properties, a huge shares portfolio and sizeable cash reserves.

During Covid my wife found out that her only sibling (brother) had taken a lasting power of attorney and took over everything - the business and the income that is generated from it, the investment properties and the income that is generated from that, he had (in her father's own words) liquidated the shares (we are talking about a very substantial sum) and between him and his wife, has access to all of the father's bank accounts.

My wife - who lives an hour away from both the parents and brother - has not been given a penny. Wife has approached the parents but they feel vulnerable - they go quiet when she raises the subject - usually the mother says "I just don't want no trouble". Father is a bit more animated and feels things he has just been stripped of everything. When we ask him what he will do, he goes quiet.

To my knowledge there is a will but it is old and needs renewing. However that to me is not the immediate problem.

The problem is the brother is now buying VERY expensive cars for both him and his wife, high-end designer clothes which they never wore before, going on 4-5 holidays a year, buying further investment properties in the wifes name, the wife has stopped working her normal job and they have brought in staff to run the family business (they provide some oversight and cover as and when). In addition, their personalities have completely changed. They are ignoring my wife, they barely even call (let alone visit our kids), when we go to visit the parents they stay away. They were never like that 3-4 years ago - it seems to me the greed and money have consumed them, sadly.

We get bits of information but being away from it all, we don't get to see what happens day to day and certainly how they are spending the estate. The assets above are what we know - there is almost certainly more - my wife had very little direct involvement in any of the financial affairs over the years, so knows very little.

Of course they can buy whatever they like and spend their share of the estate however they feel - however I fundamentally believe in fairness. I see how much it has affected my wife. Fairness in how her parents are looked after and fairness when it comes to distributing the estate. The father also agrees that the estate needs to be divided equally but feels powerless now to do anything.

Clearly we need to seek legal advice on this but I am just wondering if anyone has gone through anything similar and can offer any advice? We have never sought legal help for anything in our life so that in itself is quite daunting. Any recommendations for a good family law firm?

Terrible situation.

Clearly legal advice needed asap.

Likely the lasting power of attorney will aid here as it imposes obligations of acting in his best interests that aren't there and just receiving gifts.

Best of luck.

Similar thing happened to someone I know. Don't knot all the details but one of the relatives was stealing money from the elderly parent because they had the POA and other family members weren't aware.

All ended up in court and I believe the she got a jail sentence, although possibly suspended.

This.

It's theft.

Gifts are allowable but they need to be consistent with the wishes and feelings of the donor.

You were clearly operating under close supervision of the Court. LPAs are like the wild west with virtually no oversight

I can almost guarantee that this situation has not been overseen and that this elderly couple have been groomed. The reason the brother's attitude has changed and can't look the OP and his wife in the eye is not becuase the money has turned him into someone else, it's becuase of what he had to say and do to get the money.

What is really distressing for elderly people being abused in this way is the manipualtion and stress they are placed under to hand over control and the guilt they feel when the mess is uncovered.

It would be helpful to have as much information before referring to the OPG but on the strength of what he's posted I think they would investigate.

In re the advice that the OP gets father in law to rescind the LPA. and the hint that OP trying to get the will changed to redress the balance.

The difficulty with this approach is that it is likely to cause further stress for your in laws and suggests you are more interested in restoring 'fairness' as you put it than the welfare and wishes and feelings of the in laws.

I would advise very strongly against fighting fire with fire. By all means get independent legal advice. Involve the OPG but don't try and settle this with a botch.

Moral high ground - let the professionals do your fighting for you.

Agreed, per the link posted by oddman above I'd be logging 'concern' as that page puts it that LPA is being abused. I wouldn't give the guy and his wife a heads-up that they might be getting investigated lest they try and alter or hide things.

Just completing the online form that Oddman helpfully supplied the link too ( I would also email separately the OPG with a cut and paste version just in case ) should suffice without alerting the brother to enthusiastic taking of photographs from the bushes.
In any event photos of cars on a drive prove nothing in terms of taking money not entitled to - once the OPG starts to investigate the brother will need to prove the source of any spending which could be interesting !

Just quickly googled and this might demonstrate the potential downside...

A lasting power of attorney or enduring power of attorney is legal document used to protect the maker (“the donor”) whereby they entrust a third party to act on their behalf in the event that they lose mental capacity. Cases where there has been abuse of a power of attorney sometimes don’t come to light until the donor passes away and will sometimes be considered in the context of a contentious probate dispute. In some cases, abuse of a power of attorney will also result in criminal prosecution.

In a recent case reported in the press, it was found that a daughter had stolen over £80,000 from her mother who suffered with dementia over a period of 10 years. The daughter had a lasting power of attorney over her mother which meant she was in charge of her mother’s financial and property matters. She attempted to argue that it was not a case of coercion and that her mother had allowed her to take the money.

The court disagreed and sentenced her to 2 years in prison for her dishonesty. Judge Bate concluded that the daughter had “perpetuated over a number of years a sustained, dishonest breach of trust and treated her mother’s bank account as [her] own to spend on [herself]”.

And that is also part of the issue here. Emotional attachment (naturally) for a sister towards her brother. I know it isn't two way in this case - it feels like the brother has almost erased her by ignoring her and the kids. But she still loves him despite every thing and criminal prosecution is a line that will need a LOT of thought - although we have discussed it and see it as an eventuality.