The first part of the article is a very thorough and complete narrative about all the ways that probate is used to exploit and steal the assets of old people. I didn't quote it because it is long and has an internal logic that can't be shortened. Read it.....
The completely legal, utterly grotesque system for undermining the rights of the elderly.
“In 2003 in Florida, there were 23 professional guardians,” he said. “Today, there are 670.”
According to Sugar, these guardians are sometimes no more than high-school graduates with little or no experience and are often untrained, uncertified and unlicensed. Yet they can make $85-per-hour-per-ward-per-day. An income potential of $100,000-per-year can be earned simply by opening the daily mail belonging to half-a-dozen wards.
“The stated occupation of one of the most prominent guardians in the State of Florida is ‘dog walker’,” Sugar said. “But she has control over the lives of elderly people and multi-million or billion-dollar estates.”
Speaking generally, and without addressing Munger or any other guardian, Sugar described what he said was a common pattern.
“The first thing the guardian does, within the first 30 days, is to collect every nickel the ward owns. It’s called ‘marshaling the assets’,” he explained. “Then they seize recurring revenue streams. If you’ve ever worked, been in the armed services or had a pension, you represent a tremendous amount of income because the guardian now controls your Medicare or Medicaid. They seize and divert social security payments or veteran’s benefits and change beneficiaries on life insurance policies.”
Sugar added that the power guardians are given concerning a ward’s home or estate can result in “Strawman Sales.”
In a Strawman Sale, a guardian will appraise a home for a low amount for which he will secure court approval to sell. After ransacking it and taking whatever is of value, the guardian will then use a colleague, friend or associate to purchase the home at the court-approved rate. The court will then be sold at its full value allowing the guardian to keep profits never reported to the court.
“There are an endless number of ways for a guardian who is a layer to profit particularly from one ward,” he said.
Meanwhile, the family members who fight in Probate Courts to have their loved ones restored to them are systematically drained both emotionally and financially; punished for daring to oppose a system which is completely out of control and has all but been left unchecked, except by those few who have run afoul of it and fought back through ceaseless activism.
* * *
For eight years, Sugar has made it a life mission to raise awareness about guardianship abuse.
The son of two survivors of Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen, who met in a Swedish refugee camp after liberation, Sugar arrived in the United States with his parents in 1949 and settled in Chicago. After a successful practice in internal medicine and a directorship of medical services at a North Chicago hospital, Sugar retired with his wife to Florida proud to leave the work of continuing the family legacy to their four children and eleven grandchildren.
Prior to eight years ago, Sugar was like many Americans. He was, he said, unaware of a nationwide industry that, in his opinion, was created around hijacking seniors and plundering every last item of value from them.
Sugar’s own family became involved in a legal matter involving guardianship—one he still cannot discuss today because, like the family courts who dispense judgment on the future of minors, those charged with rendering decisions on the elderly routinely issue the same non-disclosure gag orders which, under the auspices of privacy, also serve to shield court employees from accountability from the media or from legislators.
One thing Sugar can talk about was the effect the case had on him.
“It seemed to me that this was a system unbelievable for it to be occurring in the United States,” he said. “It was so off the charts, so unexpected and cruel that I decided to get educated. I had thought we were the only ones but, very quickly, I ran into people who had the exact same thing happen to them.”