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Over the past few years, there has been an uptick in the number of individuals attempting to befriend elderly persons in order to extort money from them. This has led California lawmakers to draft a number of bills aimed at protecting this vulnerable population, and more specifically, those who have a conservator who manages their finances. At least four of those have since been signed into law.

The most recent of those of those was Senate Bill 1191, which was originally proposed by two California Democrats and signed into law in 2018. It called for law enforcement manuals statewide to be updated to reflect that isolation is a type of abuse and any ill-treatment toward elderly individuals is a prosecutable crime.

In 2015, the Democrat-backed Assembly Bill 1085 established that all adults have the right to communicate and visit with anyone of their choosing.

Assembly Bill 217, which was passed in 2014, protects a residential care facility resident’s right to keep their personal care and medical treatment confidential. It also afforded them the right to have private living accommodations.

In 2013, California legislators passed Assembly Bill 937, which established that a conservator has no control over their conservatee’s right to receive personal mail, visitors or phone calls unless specified in a court order.

Each day, someone in Lafayette or some other part of the state devises a scheme to take advantage of an elderly or mentally compromised individual for some type of financial gain. If you believe that a conservator or someone else intentionally cut off your loved one’s ability to take calls, receive mail or see visitors for illicit purposes, then an attorney may advise you of your legal options.