Who’s Pulling Your Strings? What are the Warning Signs of Undue Influence?

[Music] By those Keith Davidson with Albertson and Davidson in this video I want to talk about some of the warning signs that you should be aware of to clue you in that undue influence might be taking place with one of your parents as lawyers when we get undue influence cases we typically get them after everything's been done and we're looking at the facts in hindsight but as a child there's times when things happen and you might be suspicious of what's happening but you're not sure if it's something bad or not and that's what I want to talk about those are the warning signs that really should be on your radar and start raising red flags when you see them so for example let's say you have a parent and you can tell that they're kind of slowing down and you notice that somebody like a neighbor a caregiver or a stranger who you don't even know starts spending a lot of time with that parent at their house and then they start helping the parent write checks or go to medical appointments that could be a real red flag of somebody who's trying to cozy into the parent and slowly take control typically the way undue influence works is somebody starts off by being just a friend and then a helper and then they start taking over everything check-writing finances medications doctor visits even communications and that's another warning sign so let's say that you are finding it difficult to talk to your parent you try calling them and somebody else answers the phone it won't let you speak or when you talk to your parent there's somebody else who's always on the other line listening in that's a huge red flag that's somebody who is probably trying to control the flow of information to the parent and that could be a real problem so that's another big warning sign one of the elements of undue influence is that somebody controls the necessities of life food medication all those sorts of things so if you see somebody who you don't aren't that familiar with and they're doing all the grocery shopping for your parent they're making meals for the parent they might be doing something that's really nice and maybe there's nothing wrong with that or they might be doing something where they're controlling the flow of food to the parent which is one way to manipulate somebody who is old and not able to resist undue influence but doesn't mean that every time you see one of these things that it's bad but it definitely should raise your attention and you should look into it so those are some of the warning signs that you should be on the lookout for for possible undue influence against one of your loved ones [Music] [Applause] you.