This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/bestofredditorupdates by /u/Direct-Caterpillar77 on 2024-11-16 05:00:18+00:00.

I am not The OOP, OOP is u/stolenpoa

Ex has power of attorney and is trying to sell off everything I own.

Originally posted to r/legaladvice

TRIGGER WARNING: fraud and criminal victimization

Original Post  July 23, 2017

(NY) Ex has power of attorney and is trying to sell off everything I own

I have gone from terrified to white hot anger to just cold in my stomach and all sorts of other feelings and it is taking me some time to write this so I apologize for anything which is unclear.

Background: I was just out of the country for over two months while I was being treated by specialists for medical problems I have. During that time I had my personal valuables kept at a storage company which was supposed to be good for security since I don’t have close family and didn’t want to leave things like my computers sitting around in my apartment for that long. I also have some payments I get which I made sure would automatically go to an account because I have renters in my old house and want to make sure certain bills get paid without me having to think about it. I thought it was all set up good enough that I could be out of the country and focus on what I needed to focus on then come back to everything as I left it.

A while ago when I was in a lot of pain and on a lot of medication I had a lawyer help me make sure my (now) ex could make decisions for me if I was incapacitated. Honestly I had totally forgotten about this because at the time I was very foggy, I barely remember anything about it.

The night before my flight my ex told me they could not be with me any more because of my health problems, saying I was going to die and they did not want to be with me for that. My issues are pretty bad and yes my life will maybe not be as long as it might have been but I really could not deal with that at the time mentally so just said ok and went on my trip. We had been together for sixteen months but not strictly living together.

Now: I came back to learn somehow my ex has started taking and maybe selling everything! They have paperwork saying I was incapacitated plus the power of attorney I granted them! I was not incapacitated at any time during my treatment. I don’t know what doctor could have signed such a thing.

During the time I was gone my ex has used this to check my belongings out of storage and I have no idea where my things are, I am worried it has all been sold. Stuff has also been taken out of my apartment.

The tenants in my house were told by my ex that I was bedridden and they would have to move so my house could be sold. They are month to month and took this at face value and already moved out before I got back. They informed me that a realtor had been showing the house to people.

I managed to get in touch with the realtor and when I got him to understand the situation he freaked out. There is already a buyer because my house was listed very far under market value. Stuff was already signed, some money has already been paid, THE BUYERS ARE ALREADY GETTING READY TO MOVE IN. I told him to cancel everything and that this was not authorized in any way. He said the paperwork my ex had was legit and he needs to figure out how to handle this. I am waiting for more details.

The account I set up before I left is cleaned out down to pennies and I missed an important payment because of this. The bank says yes my ex accessed my account and everything was in order because I was incapacitated! My ex knew I was setting this account up and what it was for, they probably got details about it from my apartment.

I have talked to my ex and the police.

My ex barely responds but when I stood at their door and screamed they finally told me that I was in a coma (NOT TRUE) so they had to sell my things for me. I think I heard them saying “you won’t need it anyway” through the door.

The police are telling me a few things. I tried to report my ex for theft for stealing my things from storage and was told it is a civil issue. I told them the rest of the story and it’s like they don’t even know how to respond to me. Sitting at the police station seems to just be wasting my time because no one there seems to be able to do anything, they say come back tomorrow when someone else will be there. Supposedly officers went to my ex’s place and were shown the paperwork.

Tomorrow I am going to see a lawyer who advertises help with elder abuse power of attorney fraud which is the closest thing I could find. If they can’t help me then where do I go next? Is there some key thing I can say to the police to get them to arrest my ex right this second and stop this? I have to believe this will all be fixed eventually but how screwed am I?

RELEVANT COMMENTS

[deleted]

Did you ever actually give a POA? You need to revoke that ASAP.

OOP

It is possible. I signed documents giving them the ability to use my money for me to pay bills and do other things a while ago because I was unable to leave the hospital.

I will be able to take care of that with the lawyer tomorrow I hope.

&

I know I seem like an idiot. I did not really understand what I was doing at the time, I was in a lot of pain and did not have an exact diagnosis yet and I must have thought it was the right thing to do but I don’t even remember exactly when it happened because parts of that time are all a blur.

Update  July 27, 2017 (4 days later)

My original post:

I was being a bit paranoid when making my original post because I did not want to get condescending responses. I’m a woman in my early thirties and my ex is a man around the same age. It has been a strange few days.

I met with my lawyer Monday morning and she was very supportive. Even though she usually deals with elder abuse she said my situation was very much within her expertise and seemed excited to have me as a client. She was also very angry! After last Saturday I have not had a lot of emotional energy so it was nice to see someone be like that on my behalf.

I spent a while in my lawyer’s office and later in the day my ex called me but my lawyer had told me not to talk to him for now so I did not answer. We listened to a message together though and my ex said he was selling things for my benefit and was investing it for me to help with any bills I have to pay. My ex also said they were interested in getting back together since I came back safely from my trip. My lawyer laughed and it was a very surreal moment.

After just a day my lawyer found out that my ex had done something like this before! He had been with a person who was very sick for a while then took off with the contents of a joint account and their car right before they died. The person’s estate got into a legal battle with my ex and got the car back but not the money in the end. She thinks this is basically what my ex was doing to me and that they probably did it other times too but was not always sued over it or it was in other states. The whole relationship we had was just fake I guess and he misread the situation when I was leaving to go see specialists, thinking I was probably not coming back. That also explains why he never had a job if he just makes money off people like me.

My lawyer sent a lot of letters out to lots of places on Monday including one to my ex. They were all about revoking the power of attorney I had granted and the one to my ex had a bunch of demands in it telling him to produce my money and belongings as well as copies of the power of attorney and the other documents my ex had about me. She spoke with the realtor and some other people about my house and the unfortunate reality is I should probably let the sale happen and take the money. That is not really what I wanted to hear but it’s not the end of the world. She also had me get someone to change the locks on my apartment.

Wednesday was a weird day because my ex showed up at my lawyer’s office with some of my stuff. I wasn’t there so I don’t know exactly what that was like but I do have my computer back! My ex also produced the access codes for online investments made with my money which seems to have pissed off my lawyer because it’s going to be a headache making sure I get all my money back. She has dealt with this before and is going to help me recover as much of it as possible. She also says we will almost definitely be going after my ex for money because there are a lot of problems with what he did and the power of attorney itself is very suspect, but she needs to talk to the hospital and some other people first. My lawyer says it’s a big deal that the paperwork my ex was using to say I was incapacitated is from when I was hospitalized around the time the power of attorney actually happened.

To sum it all up: Now I have my computers back but my money is in online investments and it may be difficult to get the full value back. It is also likely that the rest of the money from the sale of my house is coming directly to me. My lawyer is super awesome and she …

Content cut off. Read original on https://old.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/1gsfy1g/ex_has_power_of_attorney_and_is_trying_to_sell/