Was cleanning for a elderly gentleman and he wanted to leave me $300,000 dollars. He wrote three checks totaling this amount, but the money wasnt spent and the daughter found out. She contacted me and I told her that I would return the money that he gave to me, but she contacted adult protective services. Will they close the case after money is returned to the elderly person? I havn't talked to them yet. I will on Monday. The money will be returned to the gentlemen on Friday July 7th at 9 am.
Why did you accept the money? Did he have all of his facilities? Were you romantically involved with him? It doesn’t sound like an ordinary working relationship. Did you form a personal bond?
Did he discuss this with his daughter?
Who gives their housekeeper a $300,000 bonus? Is he super wealthy? Is he estranged from his daughter? How did she find out?
Your situation opens up a can of worms! You have some explaining to do.
Good luck.
You’re in trouble. It’s an ENORMOUS amount of money. Even after you return it, you might have consequences for having taken it. I don’t think APS will close the case. APS will also want to check what other things you may have taken.
In addition, you didn’t openly tell the daughter about 300,000. You did it secretly. The daughter happened to find out.
OP, I hope you didn’t get the elderly man to sign any documents.
The daughter also probably contacted APS not just to help her dad, but because she doesn’t want you to do this to other people’s elderly parents.
Imagine an elderly man is a millionaire. Giving 300,000 is still a lot of money, and you would still be investigated by APS.
But now imagine, the elderly man isn’t a millionaire, and after giving you 300,000, he has almost nothing left. NOW, you’re in a lot of trouble OP, because you weren’t thinking of his best interests. In this hypothetical example, you took the money and left him poor, too poor for him to pay for his future care.
If he’s mentally competent, he’s allowed to give money to whomever he likes. BUT APS will check if there was undue influence.
If he’s mentally incompetent, and you knew that (or could have easily figured that out)…you’re in a lot of trouble.
He knew that his family would fight her from receiving any property and money, so he came up with the idea of marrying her.
He didn’t expect anything from her other than caregiving. He told her that he didn’t expect her to move in with him. He had all of his faculties. When he died, she got everything! It was what he wanted.
key words: “He had all of his faculties.”
He wasn’t unduly influenced. And he left it all to her, AFTER he died, after he used his money for his necessary care, expenses.
But OP received a huge sum while the man is alive. It doesn’t look good for OP.
If you have the money in your bank account (checking) "simply" write a check for the amount that was given to you.
Never put yourself in a position like this again. If a person you are caring for wishes to gift you money they can add a note (codicil) to the Will the entire Will does not need to be changed.
The other comment that I had made was that you may indeed need an attorney or at least a good CPA simply because I imagine you will owe tax on $300,000. The fact that it was given to you but you no longer have it is of no concern to the IRS
(Gifting out of a trust is entirely different and another matter, not relevant here).
On the face of it--it looks as if you scammed this man of the money. The fact you TOOK the checks and deposited them somewhere look pretty bad.
I'll be honest--this isn't going to end well for you-esp if you don't return all the money, like, yesterday!
I'm curious to your mindset that made a $300,000 'gift' is an appropriate thing for a person to give their house cleaner.
You say the money wasn't 'spent' but if that was true, you'd have had no trouble returning it, ASAP. It is..where?
APS does not look gently on people taking large sums of money from elderly folks. I hope this works out OK for you, but you are in for a bumpy ride.
Since this OP hasn't been back here to say a thing I believe this may be a post we can't take very seriously for veracity, but that's a guess.
If you knowingly took the money from a person with dementia and deposited it in your own account, you can be facing a Felony, Class 3, big time problem.