WIlliam's Test Podcast

Please send us a note leaving contact details if you have been affected by elder financial abuse.Psychiatrist Dr. Becker writes a single sentence on hospital letterhead that should change everything: Albert Cooper is incapable of financial decision-making. For a moment, Brooke and Nancy believe they've finally won. But Mark is already at work, convincing Bert that his daughter orchestrated the diagnosis to seize control of his money. Within weeks, Bert refuses to travel anywhere with Brooke, and their relationship is in tatters. Featured expert: Dr. Josh Budlovski explains the four C's of a clinical capacity assessment, why everyone is assumed to have capacity unless evidence shows otherwise, and why there is nothing special about being eighty that makes a bad decision an incapable one.Beware Mysterious Mark is a Radio Sidney production. This project is funded in part by the Government of Canada's New Horizons for Seniors Program.Show notes, episode transcripts and resources: mark.radiosidney.caContact: [email protected]

Please send us a note leaving contact details if you have been affected by elder financial abuse.Bert tells Brooke he wants her to have Poplar Hill, the family home her mother left her, and offers a deal: remove his name from the deed if Brooke does the same with their joint banking account. Brooke can hear Mark's voice in every twist of the conversation. Then Mark and Donna attempt to access Bert's bank accounts directly, prompting urgent calls from the bank manager. The family hires a new lawyer. The professionals all see what's happening; legally, they're powerless to stop it. Featured experts: geriatrician Dr. Josh Budlovski on how a multidisciplinary team gathers around a vulnerable patient in a hospital, and Nathan Spaling on what happens to that protective network the moment the patient is discharged and walks into a bank or a law office.Beware Mysterious Mark is a Radio Sidney production. This project is funded in part by the Government of Canada's New Horizons for Seniors Program.Show notes, episode transcripts and resources: mark.radiosidney.caContact: [email protected]

Please send us a note leaving contact details if you have been affected by elder financial abuse.In this special bonus episode of Beware the Mysterious Mark, featuring Nathan Spaling, a lawyer and registered social service worker, founder of the Capacity Clinic and a co-founding member of the Canadian Centre for Decision-Making Capacity. Nathan talks about a wide range of topics, including mental capacity, the documents meant to protect older adults, and the disconnected system that too often lets those protections fail.Nathan's work sits where law, medicine, and finance meet, the place where questions of capacity rarely belong to any single profession. Across the conversation, he draws out the planning, the documents, and the quiet gaps beneath Bert's story. He focuses on several key areas:Planning for incapacity. People plan extensively for death, Nathan observes, yet rarely plan for the period of incapacity that may come first. He confronts a dangerous and widely held misconception: that a person will recognize for themselves when they can no longer make sound decisions. In almost every case, the opposite is true, which is why a trusted network and clear procedures need to be in place long before anything goes wrong.Powers of Attorney and the risk of fraud. Nathan calls the power of attorney the most important document a person signs while still alive, and warns that it carries almost none of the safeguards that importance would suggest. He compares it to a driver's licence with no photo, no registration, and two signatures that are often unconfirmed. This document, nonetheless, allows someone to sell a person's car, sell the house where it is parked, and access the proceeds. He also explains how a single new document, signed at a lawyer's office, through an online service, or from a printed template, can quietly revoke a person's entire plan, and describes the national POA Registry being built to prevent this, with a revocation notice system that alerts the previously appointed attorney so they can step in.Confidentiality and the silos. Confidentiality is the fabric of the legal system, Nathan says, the reason clients can seek advice with confidence. It is also a double-edged sword that limits the due diligence families want and allows a vulnerable person to be taken to another professional to sign new documents without the original appointee ever knowing. He argues that the professions have worked in disconnected silos for too long, each with its own sense of what risk looks like, and that real protection begins when those professionals talk to one another and to a trusted contact.Capacity assessment and a national framework. Nathan is direct about how much subjectivity surrounds the judging of capacity, work often done part-time, in isolation, with little guidance or support. He describes five years of effort at the Capacity Clinic to develop practical, evidence-based methods for approaching an assessment, and the Pan-Canadian Assessment Framework that the Centre is developing to help professionals recognize predictive risk factors and respond to them.Practical advice for families. Concern, Nathan says, should not wait until someone forgets where they put their keys. It begins at the planning stage, with transparency about who is expected to monitor the situation and who is expected to respond. When worry has already set in, he points to the police, the public guardian, specialized legal help that can investigate on a family's behalf, and the community advocacy organizations that support people in exactly these circumstances.Nathan is candid about how unprepared the current system is to catch this kind of harm. A power of attorney, he points out, can be created with fewer safeguards than a driver's licence. Confidentiality protects clients, but it also protects those who would exploit them. And almost no one can recognize their own incapacity from the inside. All of this, he notes, is unfolding against the largest wealth transfer in history, at the very moment that the trusted professionals and care providers people count on are beginning to retire.For anyone who has followed Bert and Brooke's story and wondered how the system could have allowed it to happen, this conversation is essential listening.The information shared in this episode is for general awareness only and does not constitute legal, financial, or medical advice. Listeners with specific concerns should consult a qualified professional about their own circumstances.Beware Mysterious Mark is a Radio Sidney production. This project is funded in part by the Government of Canada's New Horizons for Seniors Program.Show notes, episode transcripts and resources: mark.radiosidney.caContact: [email protected]

Please send us a note leaving contact details if you have been affected by elder financial abuse.A friendly new face. A little too helpful. A little too close to Dad.Beware Mysterious Mark is the audio drama about the kind of danger that doesn't break in. It gets invited. As Mark delves deeper into one family's life, the people closest to him begin to notice troubling things.We've passed 2,800 downloads in just over a month, and Episode 5 is now streaming. Five episodes in, and Mark's grip is only getting tighter.Follow the show, start from the beginning, and bring someone with you.Beware Mysterious Mark is a Radio Sidney production. This project is funded in part by the Government of Canada's New Horizons for Seniors Program.Show notes, episode transcripts and resources: mark.radiosidney.caContact: [email protected]

Please send us a note leaving contact details if you have been affected by elder financial abuse.Constable Fredericks of the RCMP arrives at Poplar Hill after quietly investigating Mark Marshall's background. He spends an hour with Bert, gently outlining the warning signs of elder financial abuse, then alerts Brooke of his concerns and galvanizes the involvement of local support authorities. Meanwhile, longtime family friend Vicky overhears Donna at Poplar Hill, confirming the family's worst fears about who these people really are. Featured expert: Nathan Spaling describes the power of attorney as one of the most consequential documents a person can sign, with virtually no safeguards, and offers concrete advice for families who suspect a loved one is being preyed upon.Beware Mysterious Mark is a Radio Sidney production. This project is funded in part by the Government of Canada's New Horizons for Seniors Program.Show notes, episode transcripts and resources: mark.radiosidney.caContact: [email protected]

Please send us a note leaving contact details if you have been affected by elder financial abuse.In this special bonus episode of Beware the Mysterious Mark, producer Bill Collins sits down with Victoria lawyer Charlotte Salomon of Infinity Law, a board member of the Estate Planning Council of Victoria, for an in-depth conversation about the legal machinery that surrounds, and sometimes fails to protect, older adults facing financial exploitation.Drawing on three decades of practice in wills, estates, and incapacity planning, Charlotte walks listeners through the documents, institutions, and legal grey areas that sit at the heart of Bert's story. Across the conversation, she explores six key areas:Powers of Attorney. What an enduring power of attorney actually does, why lawyers often hold these documents in safekeeping until specific conditions are met, and how a second lawyer, unaware of the full picture, can be persuaded to draft a new POA that quietly revokes the first.Capacity. The crucial distinction between medical and legal capacity, why the two tests are not interchangeable, and what it means when an older adult is deemed vulnerable but still capable of making their own decisions.The Public Guardian and Trustee. When committeeship becomes an option, how families can apply to the court for protection when no power of attorney exists, and the real costs involved in bringing the PGT into the picture.Police involvement. When contacting the RCMP is appropriate, the value of a wellness check, and what to do when an older adult is being isolated from family, friends, or their own doctor.Title transfers and undue influence. The safeguards built into BC's Wills, Estates and Succession Act (WESA), how challenges to a will can be brought even before probate, and why estate litigation has become one of the fastest-growing areas of law.Practical advice. The team approach to prevention: keeping the lawyer, the doctor, and a trusted contact person all on the same page, and the community resources, including BC's seniors' supports and the Canadian Centre for Decision-Making Capacity, that families can turn to.Charlotte is candid about the limits of the law in this space. Confidentiality protects clients, but it also shields those who would do them harm. Capacity is messy. And the bright line we wish existed between "capable" and "incapable" simply isn't there.For anyone who has listened to Bert and Brooke's story and wondered what could have been done differently, this conversation is essential listening.The information shared in this episode is for general awareness only and does not constitute legal advice. Listeners with specific concerns should consult a qualified lawyer about their own circumstances.Beware Mysterious Mark is a Radio Sidney production. This project is funded in part by the Government of Canada's New Horizons for Seniors Program.Show notes, episode transcripts and resources: mark.radiosidney.caContact: [email protected]

Please send us a note leaving contact details if you have been affected by elder financial abuse.Mark and Donna begin maneuvering Bert toward buying them a house, first one property, then another, then another. Brooke is expected to participate financially but when she pushes back, the next scheme appears. Bert privately admits he doesn't want to live with them, but can't bring himself to say no. By December, Mark and Donna fly to the Caribbean while a concerned family friend, panicked by what she's witnessed at Poplar Hill, calls the police. Featured expert: Charlotte Salomon on the difference between medical and legal capacity, the bright moments older adults still have, and what she calls the biggest gray area in this whole field, when a senior with capacity is being pressured into giving away their assets.Beware Mysterious Mark is a Radio Sidney production. This project is funded in part by the Government of Canada's New Horizons for Seniors Program.Show notes, episode transcripts and resources: mark.radiosidney.caContact: [email protected]

Please send us a note leaving contact details if you have been affected by elder financial abuse.Bert's geriatric psychiatrist tells Brooke that Mark is a sociopath, and she's in for a long fight. Days later, a notary calls out of the blue. Mark brought Bert into her office to change his will and revoke Brooke's Power of Attorney. The professional refused, then broke confidentiality to warn Brooke. The family's lawyer agrees: this is textbook undue influence, and the alarm bells are deafening. Featured experts: Charlotte Salomon on why a wellness check by police is a legitimate option when a senior is being cut off from their family, and Nathan Spaling of the Capacity Clinic on why confidentiality is a double-edged sword that can shield the very people it was meant to protect against.Beware Mysterious Mark is a Radio Sidney production. This project is funded in part by the Government of Canada's New Horizons for Seniors Program.Show notes, episode transcripts and resources: mark.radiosidney.caContact: [email protected]

Please send us a note leaving contact details if you have been affected by elder financial abuse.With Diane gone Bert is grieving and lonely. Mark and his partner Donna step into the void lavishing attention on the elderly widower while making increasingly bold offers to move in take over his care and be the family he needs. Brooke is heartbroken by her father's refusal to talk about her mother and begins to worry that something more calculated than simply friendship with Mark and Donna is unfolding. Featured expert: Estate lawyer Charlotte Salomon explains why an enduring power of attorney is the single most consequential document a senior signs and how it can be quietly revoked at a second lawyer's office without anyone being notified.Beware Mysterious Mark is a Radio Sidney production. This project is funded in part by the Government of Canada's New Horizons for Seniors Program.Show notes, episode transcripts and resources: mark.radiosidney.caContact: [email protected]

Please send us a note leaving contact details if you have been affected by elder financial abuse.When 90-year-old Bert Cooper meets the charismatic Mark Marshall, he believes he's found a kindred spirit, a worldly, accomplished friend full of stories. His wife Diane, senses that something is off. His only child, daughter Brooke, finds the man tiresome. Within months, Bert is repeating Mark's stories obsessively and worrying about the near-stranger's rental situation. The slow erosion of the Cooper family unit has begun. This episode features Dr. Eric Partridge, whose research focused on chronic loneliness in older adults, who explains how predators step into the aching gap left by isolation and why directly confronting a predator usually backfires.Beware Mysterious Mark is a Radio Sidney production. This project is funded in part by the Government of Canada's New Horizons for Seniors Program.Show notes, episode transcripts and resources: mark.radiosidney.caContact: [email protected]

Please send us a note leaving contact details if you have been affected by elder financial abuse.Beware Mysterious Mark is a ten-part audio documentary about elder financial abuse, built around one harrowing true account of how a predator isolated an elderly man from his family and systematically took control of his life and his assets. Names have been changed. Events and conversations are drawn directly from the family's own detailed records.Told by storyteller Nancy Miles, whose partner Brooke watched her father being taken piece by piece over seven years, the series weaves dramatized conversations re-enacted by actors with commentary from professionals who see these cases every day: an estate planning lawyer, a geriatrician, a capacity assessment specialist, and a researcher whose doctoral work focused on loneliness in older adults.Together they expose how undue influence works, why it so often goes unseen, and what families, friends, and communities can do to recognize it and stop it.Episode 1 premieres April 30th at 7 p.m. Follow now wherever you listen to podcasts.Beware Mysterious Mark is a Radio Sidney production. This project is funded in part by the Government of Canada's New Horizons for Seniors Program.Show notes, episode transcripts and resources: mark.radiosidney.caContact: [email protected]