‘We try to remember the beautiful moments, but it’s been horrendous’

Some readers may find aspects of this article distressing.

Alice* lost her grandparents Joe* and Sarah* to the control of the Queensland government in two months. Despite having their wills and power of attorney in place, soon after becoming ill, both had their care, accommodation and finances managed by the Queensland public trustee (PTQ) and public guardian.

PTQ manages nearly $2.7 billion of its residents’ assets across 10,000 people, charging some of the highest fees in the country for asset management, legal services and investment fees often for poor return.

Alice says that as soon as the state took over, neither Joe’s nor Sarah’s wishes were respected. Sarah was placed in an aged care home, Joe’s will was drastically altered and his “do not resuscitate” order was ignored. Opaque fees were charged to both their accounts by the PTQ. 

The hospital limited visits to Joe from family and friends, and despite living an eight-minute drive from the hospital Alice and her mother, Georgia*, weren’t called when Joe died on a humid Friday evening. 

“It’s been hell on earth,” Alice told Crikey. “It’s just been a constant battle, and it’s tainted the last memories I had with my grandparents. We sit and try to remember the beautiful moments … but what we’ve gone through, it’s been horrendous.” 

The family has repeatedly questioned how so many changes could have been made in the last months of Joe’s and Sarah’s lives and has been fighting in court for years. It has submitted letters to the hospital, the PTQ, the Australian Association of Social Workers, the public trustee’s advocacy and ethics committee, politicians, and Disability Council International, which is calling for the Queensland attorney-general to launch a criminal investigation into the PTQ and the role of social workers. Both the wills have been contested in court.

Because of the legal battles, Joe and Sarah haven’t been buried as planned. They had arranged for their ashes to be placed with their parents in a shared plot. Instead, Sarah’s ashes are in a closet and Joe’s are with his son to whom he hadn’t spoken for a period of time before becoming ill. 

It paints a bleak picture of Australia’s guardianship laws. 

As this Crikey investigation covers, hospitals have a financial incentive for placing elderly people under guardianship to fast-track them to aged care, and state-run public trustees rake in tens of millions of dollars in fees managing nearly $15 billion in assets. 

Neither Joe nor Sarah are alive to talk about how they wanted things to play out, but extensive documents provided to Crikey show many of their wishes were not respected. 

Reporting on guardianship issues in Australia is near impossible. Those under guardianship orders cannot be identified. Families are rarely provided documents about their loved ones’ care and legal proceedings unless they are part of the court process — in which case the documents can’t be shared with the media. Several people Crikey spoke to have had complaints lodged with the police by the state for going public with their stories so pseudonyms have been used and identifying details have been omitted.

Proper preparations made

Alice, Georgia, Joe and Sarah were a tight-knit family. Family is especially important to 28-year-old Alice because her father has never been part of her life. 

“[Joe] wasn’t just my grandfather, he was my father figure,” she said. “It’s still hard to this day. I just want to share stories with him.” 

Georgia and Alice lived with Joe and Sarah throughout Alice’s childhood before they moved to a home a short drive away. They now live together on a property with their horses after having lived abroad for Georgia’s work. 

Joe could be stoic — he rarely told Georgia “I love you” when she was growing up — but with a second chance at parenthood, he was especially affectionate with Alice. 

“He attended every single thing at my school,” Alice said. “He would pick me up from chess club and go to every orchestra recital. I think Pop’s greatest fear was on Friday night — I’d be practising whatever instrument I’d picked up at his house.” 

Joe had owned an electrical business and Sarah had been an aged care nurse. They were married for 55 years and Alice says “were inseparable and the best of friends”. Joe was reserved. Sarah in her advanced years loved sitting on the veranda with Georgia’s dogs. They lived in a friendly suburban community and neighbours often dropped in for coffee. 

Alice says neither had wanted to be in the hands of the government: Joe’s father had been a war veteran and his assets had been managed by the trustee; Sarah had been in state care as a child before being adopted, eventually moving into a women’s shelter. So they took steps to ensure their last wishes would be respected.

In November 2015 they organised their wills and appointed Georgia as their enduring power of attorney (EPOA).

Justice of the peace Ben Smith* tells Crikey he remembers the day well. 

“I was satisfied they were sound of mind, understood what they were signing and could make decisions,” he said. “It was quite a happy occasion. They were grateful their daughter was being frank with them and was willing to take on the responsibility of their care.”

Joe and Sarah had made their preparations in time — during 2016 Joe’s health started to deteriorate and he was in and out of the hospital with heart failure, renal failure and chronic anemia. Meanwhile, Sarah’s dementia advanced. 

Joe had a fall alone at home in November 2016 while Sarah was living with Georgia after catching pneumonia. Despite having medical equipment set up at his daughter’s house, Joe was adamant he did not want to move.

At the public hospital, he met a social worker, a routine meeting in hospitals where social workers look out for signs of elder abuse. Joe’s mental health started to deteriorate and his demeanour and behaviour started to change. He was soon transferred to a private hospital — which is where Alice’s and Georgia’s troubles began. 

Deciding capacity

Social workers are increasingly being placed in hospitals as recommended by the aged care royal commission. They can watch for signs of elder abuse, either through injury, neglect or by looking for signs of financial abuse. 

One intervention model designed by legal services agency Caxton Legal Centre tells social workers to look at “specific diagnosis that could affect the client’s capacity”, and signs of abuse, working with lawyers to get referrals to the public guardian. The process has been streamlined to “assess the level of support required at an earlier stage”.

The social worker began visiting Joe frequently. The family sent a complaint sighted by Crikey to the hospital about her demeanour, saying the social worker excluded the family from important conversations about Joe’s care and was asking Joe to sign complex forms about his finances and guardianship. 

A mini mental health test was conducted when Joe was admitted and it showed he was on the border of having cognitive impairment, although no further tests were done. These tests, UNSW expert on ageing and mental health Dr Adrienne Withall tells Crikey, can be problematic. 

“The mini mental test can be quite a poor test across the different forms of dementia and their different symptoms,” she said. “Some people can have high scores and yet be quite impaired, while others could have a lower score because of language problems that don’t affect their thinking.” She added that asking for further tests was reasonable. 

Georgia asked for more mental health tests and scans to confirm Joe’s advanced dementia. She also asked for medical records to be sourced from his regular GP and family. This never happened. 

“Lots of people are locked out of testing because it’s time-consuming and expensive to have neuropsychologists conduct lengthy assessments,” Withall said. 

“Dementia often does not have a stable trajectory and there can be quite a lot of variability in a person’s symptoms over time.”

The hospital didn’t respond to Crikey’s request for comment, instead directing comments to the Australian Association of Social Workers (AASW).

AASW member and specialist in the elder abuse unit John Paul told Crikey social workers looked out for patterns of abuse and risk factors, such as when a family member has a mental illness or substance addiction and takes on a quasi-caring role for their parents.

“One of the best ways of getting clarification is to talk to all members of the family and those involved in the matter,” he said. “We look at the physical evidence, sometimes there’s evidence of financial abuse through police reports which tends to paint a clearer picture of the parties.”

He said elder abuse was prevalent across Australia and social workers conduct assessments to provide legal and psychosocial support to ensure at-risk people are safe and have qualify of life, contacting the police if there’s a criminal offence that has taken place.

Signing a new will

Things became messy. Joe became distrustful of Georgia. The social worker pushed to get the public trustee and guardian involved and asked for Georgia and Alice not be able to visit Joe without her present, advising Joe not to take Georgia’s calls as he was becoming distressed. She contacted Joe’s estranged son and the PTQ became Joe’s financial administrator.

The social worker contacted the police and elder advocacy organisations about allegations of financial and elder abuse due to missing medical records (later found in the hospital), Georgia housing Joe’s medical equipment, and Alice using Joe’s credit card to Uber home from work earlier that year. 

Alice says this was an arrangement with Joe who had bought her a manual car for her birthday which she couldn’t drive, so she paid for one leg of the trip and he paid for the other. The charge was dismissed in court due to lack of evidence. 

A new enduring power of attorney was signed, putting Joe in control of the state once he lost capacity. PTQ argued his previous EPOA wasn’t valid because one page was missing a signature. Justice of the peace Smith confirmed to Crikey this had been fixed within weeks of it being signed in 2015. 

In February, Joe asked to revoke this new EPOA and refused to sign a guardianship order. Crikey understands Caxton Legal representatives visited him around this time. 

Joe also signed two new wills in March giving all his assets to his son, Charles* rather than Sarah, then Georgia and Alice once Sarah passed. His neighbours have attested to the strained relationship with Charles. One lived next door to Joe and Sarah for 14 years and told Crikey that although Georgia and Alice visited frequently, worked on the house, and cared for Joe and Sarah, they saw Charles only once — just before Joe died. 

This raised a difficult debate, Withall says. While elderly people should have the right to change their will as they see fit, paranoid delusions and sudden changes of mind can be a symptom of dementia.

“[People with dementia] can have delusions that make them think people are stealing from them, which is difficult when trying to figure out wills,” she said. 

“We should have the right to make choices about our own care and we hope we make those choices in partnership with our loved ones, but sometimes things fall apart.

“It does bring into question who are the parties in the room and how can we make sure decisions are made that honour the person’s wishes. There needs to be a lot more education about cognitive impairment, dementia and those red flags for someone who might be lacking capacity.”

The night before he signed this second will, Joe was confused, unsettled and not eating. Despite his do-not-resuscitate order, he was intravenously resuscitated and given a low dose of morphine that night and again the next morning. 

This prompted a lengthy legal battle between Alice, Georgia and the PTQ, with Alice and Georgia arguing Joe signed this will when he didn’t have capacity to. The legal process has cost the family thousands of dollars. 

“I’ve lost my 20s to this,” Alice said. “It’s been a constant battle and no one should ever have to go through this.”

Who can define mental capacity? 

A doctor declared Joe no longer had mental capacity the day before he signed his second will. 

How this new will was signed is unclear. A licensed private investigator hired by Georgia, who asked to stay anonymous so as not to jeopardise other cases she is working on, tells Crikey she couldn’t find documentation that changes to the will were advertised, the public trustee and family members informed, or the changes filed in the Supreme Court. 

One judge asked the PTQ to provide documents showing the family was told about it applying to take over Joe’s financials, although Crikey understands this was later overturned by a different judge. The investigator also found that the social worker on Joe’s case had confidentiality agreements in place so that other cases she had worked on were anonymised. 

Alice doesn’t believe her grandfather had been sound of mind for months. She said he had accused her of stealing money and was often confused, calling the police regularly, singing throughout the night and withdrawing money erratically. 

As the will was contested in court, the doctor attested Joe had some cognitive capacity on March 22, 2017, but could not determine if he was able to sign his final will. The court case is ongoing. 

The hospital’s CEO said an investigation would be launched into Joe’s care and the social worker’s conduct, but Crikey understands it paused the investigation after the ombudsman looked into the issue, clearing the social worker of wrongdoing. 

Fee upon fee

Joe’s new enduring power of attorney (EPOA) was enforced on March 23, 2017. Almost immediately money started being transferred from Joe’s and Sarah’s accounts and the public trustee started looking into selling the couple’s home. 

“He was still alive and they were already taking his money,” Alice said. Most of her grandparents’ $130,000 savings were spent by the public trustee, she said. Fees were charged for managing their property and wills, including $6300 for reviewing tax matters and solicitors’ fees, nearly $1200 in undefined “special fees” and hundreds of dollars in property management fees. $349 was charged for a smoke alarm test, and monthly “realty management’’ fees were debited from the estate. 

It took two years for the public trustee to provide financial statements to Georgia which showed the organisation had initially overvalued her parents’ home by 10 times its worth (though corrected it without charging higher fees). Lawyers previously representing the family declined to speak to Crikey for this story. 

These fees, and the lack of transparency around them, have been criticised by the state’s previous public advocate Mary Burgess in a damning report. 

Unlike other states, PTQ is self-funded — meaning it relies on its clients’ assets to stay afloat and charges some of the highest fees in the country.

Family ties get messy

In early March, Sarah was also placed under the care of PTQ with Joe’s support as Alice and Georgia were under investigation after allegations by the social worker. Sarah was taken to the hospital for her ongoing pneumonia and then to an aged care home. She didn’t get to see Joe in the months before he died. 

More complications arose. Georgia took out a domestic violence order against her brother Charles* for threatening calls and then dropped the proceedings. Charles soon retaliated with his own domestic violence order. 

Georgia took to Twitter, complaining about the social worker. She said her account was then hacked with a series of offensive posts published, which she pleaded guilty to in court. The court was told the social worker was investigated by the Office of Health ombudsman but was cleared of any wrongdoing. The social worker said she feared for her safety. 

“With Nan, we’d juggle with the carer and the neighbour while working 24 hours a day, fighting legal battles and trying to visit Pop,” Alice said. 

“I’m exhausted. [PTQ] has worn me down. If that was the intention after everything, they got it.” 

After four months of the state being in control of Sarah, Alice and Georgia were granted guardianship. The legal ordeal cost the family several thousand dollars. Sarah was moved to an aged care home. Alice’s lawyers advised them not to take her home immediately after getting guardianship. 

Georgia says the aged care home was substandard and her mother was left in soiled underwear. Sarah was later rushed to hospital with a burst bowel — which Georgia said staff hadn’t noticed — and died of sepsis.

Joe died from heart problems in April 2017. Sarah died in May 2018.

Georgia’s and Alice’s battles have not ended. Court claims against Sarah’s will, which Charles contested, were settled, but they are still fighting the state to revoke Joe’s wills written in hospital. 

In response to Burgess’ report, the public trustee established an ethics and integrity unit which is investigating Joe’s treatment but has refused to look into the role of the social worker and says the family’s claims that Joe didn’t have the capacity to sign two new wills is out of its remit.

“We’ve been waiting all this time and we’ve fought so damn hard to have this committee not look into all these things … It’s so horrible,” Alice said.

Disability Council International, which is concerned social workers have a “modus operandi” to place people under the PTQ, has had its calls for a criminal investigation rejected by the Queensland attorney-general’s office who told it to contact the local police.  

A spokesperson from the Queensland Office of the Public Guardian told Crikey appointing a public guardian is only done as a last resort and can only be done if the state tribunal makes a formal declaration of a person’s capacity and if there is no other appropriate person for appointment.

A PTQ spokesperson told Crikey there are no requirements for people to hold legal qualifications to administer or manage a deceased estate, though those drawing up wills or enduring power of attorneys undertake specific training.

“The Public Trustee takes our responsibility and obligations to provide vital services to Queenslanders very seriously,” the spokesperson said, adding it was addressing the majority of recommendations outlined in Burgess’ report. So far, eleven of the report’s 32 recommendations have been implemented with another 14 in progress.

A spokesperson for the Department of Justice and Attorney-General told Crikey the office provided detailed information about the referral options available to the Disability Council International’s clients.

“We tried to do everything with the greatest love for my grandparents,” Alice said. “It’s hard to have to wash your grandparents and help them to the toilet, then to be chastised and questioned about our intentions… It’s just awful.” 

Alice’s mental health has suffered and she and her mother have struggled financially. 

“I couldn’t even pinpoint what the fight is worth at this point. Nan and Pop deserved better.” 

*Names changed for privacy

For legal reasons, please don’t identify yourself or others under guardianship or financial administration in the comments.