Recovering Stolen Assets from Elder Financial Abuse in California

by Michael A. Hackard

Publication Date April 21, 2026 in Elder Financial Abuse

Elder financial abuse is one of the most widespread and least reported crimes in America, and the numbers behind it are staggering. Research from the National Adult Protective Services Association indicates that one in twenty seniors has reported experiencing financial exploitation, with estimated annual losses ranging from $3 billion to $36 billion nationally.

For the families we represent at Hackard Law, those statistics are never abstractions. They are a father’s retirement savings wired to a stranger over three phone calls. They are a grandmother’s trust rewritten six weeks before her death, with a caregiver named as the primary beneficiary. They are a mother who handed over her debit card to someone she trusted, and by the time the family noticed, the account had been drained over fourteen months of small, unremarkable withdrawals.

If you are reading this because something has already gone wrong — a suspicious transfer, an estate plan altered at the last minute, a new “friend” who seems to have acquired remarkable financial access to your parents’ life — you need to understand two things clearly. California law provides meaningful, powerful tools for recovering stolen assets. And those tools work best when they are deployed before the money moves again, before accounts are closed, and before the perpetrator has time to spend or hide what they took.

How Perpetrators Gain Access: The Pattern Is Not Random

The scams and schemes targeting seniors range widely in their surface sophistication, but the underlying mechanics are surprisingly consistent across every case we have handled. Someone gains the elder’s trust, creates urgency or confusion, and extracts money or personal information before the elder or the family fully understands what has happened. Naming this pattern matters because it reveals that elder financial exploitation is not opportunistic chaos. It is a method. And methods can be traced, documented, and countered in court.

The grandparent scam is one of the most emotionally effective variations. A caller asks, “Grandma?” and then pauses, letting the senior fill in a grandchild’s name. The caller then impersonates that grandchild, claims to be jailed or stranded, and asks for money wired immediately. The emotional lever is panic. A grandparent who believes her grandchild is sitting in a jail cell is not thinking about wire transfer verification protocols. She is thinking about her grandchild. By the time the family learns what happened, the money is gone, and the caller has moved on to the next victim.

Phishing schemes work in different ways, but achieve the same result. An email arrives that appears to be from a bank, a government agency, or a familiar institution. The elder clicks a link, enters credentials or a Social Security number, and the information is harvested silently. Investment fraud follows its own pattern: promises of high returns with low risk, often structured as Ponzi schemes in which early investors are paid with funds from later participants until the entire structure collapses. Romance scams, sweepstakes fraud, Medicare billing schemes, and contractor scams round out the most common categories we see in California cases.

What families often do not anticipate is that the most financially devastating exploitation frequently comes from inside the household or the family itself. Caregivers who hold a position of daily trust, neighbors who become confidants, family members who see an opportunity in a parent’s declining cognition, and attorneys-in-fact who hold financial power of attorney and use it for their own benefit rather than the elder’s, these are the cases that cause the deepest financial harm, because the access is unlimited and the exploitation can continue for years before anyone raises an alarm. Our page on caregiver financial exploitation walks through how these relationships become weapons, and what the warning signs look like before the damage is complete.

What California Law Actually Provides: The Legal Arsenal

California’s elder abuse statutes are one of the strongest in the country, and they were built specifically to address the reality that financial exploitation of seniors is both common and difficult to prosecute through ordinary civil channels alone. Understanding what the law actually offers is the first step toward using it effectively.

The Elder Abuse and Dependent Adult Civil Protection Act, as set forth in California Welfare and Institutions Code section 15600 and following, mentions a civil cause of action that extends well beyond ordinary fraud or breach-of-contract claims. According to this statute, a prevailing plaintiff can recover not only actual financial losses but also attorney’s fees and costs, a significant departure from the standard American rule that each party bears its own legal expenses. In cases involving recklessness, oppression, fraud, or malice, the statute also allows for enhanced remedies. Our detailed breakdown of civil remedies for elder financial abuse explains how these enhanced damages work in practice and what a family must prove to access them.

Beyond the elder abuse statute, California law provides several additional legal mechanisms that experienced litigators use in combination to pursue asset recovery. Civil theft claims under Penal Code section 496 allow for treble damages, meaning a court can award three times the actual losses when stolen property can be traced.

Constructive trust claims allow a court to impose a trust over assets that were wrongfully taken, effectively freezing them in place until the litigation resolves. Fraudulent transfer law, codified in the California Uniform Voidable Transactions Act, allows a court to unwind transfers of property made to defraud creditors or beneficiaries, even if the transfer has already been completed. For families dealing with a trust altered under suspicious circumstances, trust litigation offers a separate pathway to challenge amendments, restatements, or distributions resulting from undue influence or lack of capacity.

When a senior is still living, and the exploitation is ongoing, conservatorship is one of the most powerful emergency tools available. A court-appointed conservator can take over the elder’s financial affairs, freeze accounts, and begin recovering assets that were improperly transferred. The conservatorship process moves faster than most people expect when circumstances warrant emergency intervention, and it can stop an ongoing scheme before losses compound further.

The Urgency Problem: Why Waiting Is the Costliest Mistake

Every week that passes after financial exploitation is discovered represents a narrowing window for recovery. This is not a rhetorical point. It is a practical reality that shapes how we approach every new case that comes through our door.

The scammers who steal money from elderly people are not keeping it in a savings account waiting for a lawsuit to arrive. They spend it, move it into other accounts, transfer it to family members or associates, convert it to cash, or use it to purchase assets that are harder to track. The relation between the gap and exploitation is direct; the more you delay the legal action, the more complex and expensive the asset recovery process becomes. And in some cases, the money is genuinely unrecoverable because it has been dissipated entirely.

There are also statutory deadlines that govern when claims can be filed. California’s elder abuse statute has its own limitations period, and other claims carry their own deadlines under the Code of Civil Procedure. Missing these deadlines can extinguish an otherwise valid claim entirely, regardless of the strength of the underlying facts. The families who recover the most are consistently the ones who called an attorney while the trail was still warm, while bank records were still accessible, and while witnesses still remembered what they had seen.

If you have noticed signs that something has gone wrong, unexplained account changes, a new estate plan that does not reflect your parent’s lifelong intentions, a caregiver or family member who has assumed financial control, the time to act is now, not after you have gathered more information on your own. Our overview of elder financial exploitation explains the full scope of what California law addresses and how the recovery process typically unfolds.

What the Recovery Process Looks Like in Practice

Families who contact us after discovering exploitation often ask the same question: Where do we even start? The answer depends on the specific facts, but the general framework is consistent across cases.

The first step is documentation. Bank records, account statements, wire transfer confirmations, estate planning documents, and any communications between the elder and the perpetrator form the foundation of every case. We work with clients to gather this material quickly and systematically, often before filing any formal action, because the strength of the documentary record determines how the case proceeds.

Likewise, the second step is identifying the appropriate legal theories. Every time the case is not the same. A caregiver who drained a bank account through ATM withdrawals presents different legal questions than a family member who used a power of attorney to transfer real property, or a scammer who convinced an elder to wire funds overseas. Matching the right legal tools to the specific facts is where experience in estate litigation becomes decisive.

The third step, where appropriate, is seeking emergency relief. Courts can issue temporary restraining orders to freeze assets, and in conservatorship proceedings, a judge can appoint a temporary conservator on an expedited basis when the circumstances warrant it. These emergency measures can stop ongoing harm and preserve assets that would otherwise be dissipated during litigation.

The litigation itself, which could be settled through a settlement, mediation, or trial, is the fourth step. Due to the difficulty of defending the perpetrator’s position once the documentation proof is gathered, many elder financial abuse cases settle before trial. When cases do go to trial, the enhanced remedies available under California’s elder abuse statute, including attorneys’ fees and potential enhanced damages, shift the economic calculus significantly in favor of the victim’s family.

When the Perpetrator Is a Family Member

We handle some of the most challenging cases involving an offender who is a family member. A sister who came in to “help” ended up taking over all financial accounts. A child who held power of attorney and used it to transfer the parent’s home into their own name. A stepparent who systematically redirected assets away from the children of a prior marriage during the final years of the elder’s life.

These cases carry an additional layer of complexity because family relationships create emotional complications. Witnesses are often other family members with their own interests. The elder may be deceased or may be reluctant to participate in litigation against someone they love. The perpetrator may claim that the transfers were gifts, that the elder consented, or that the power of attorney authorized everything done.

California courts have developed a substantial body of law addressing exactly these dynamics, including the presumption of undue influence that arises when a person in a confidential relationship with an elder receives a donative transfer. Understanding how courts examine credibility and documentary evidence in these high-conflict situations is part of what allows experienced litigators to build cases that hold up. Our analysis of how probate judges assess credibility in high-conflict estate cases offers a detailed look at what judges actually weigh when these disputes reach the courtroom.