Free Guide · Florida Asset Protection
The Family Oversight Audit
Fifteen checks on whether anyone would notice.
Every structure a Florida lawyer builds — homestead, tenancy by the entirety, the charging order — defends against someone taking property from an unwilling owner. None of it operates when the owner authorizes the transfer herself.
Which is exactly what a successful scam produces. And Florida's protective statutes turn on impairment rather than age, so a competent retiree who wires her own money often falls outside them entirely.
The question is not whether your plan is sound. It is whether anyone besides you would notice in time.
Florida residents over 60 reported 17,147 internet crime complaints and $709,823,172 in losses in 2025 — second in the nation in both. Source: FBI 2025 Internet Crime Report
Free Download · 8 pages
Get The Family Oversight Audit
Fifteen questions that tell you, in about ten minutes, whether a second set of eyes exists anywhere around your accounts. Enter your details and the audit is sent straight to your inbox.
What is inside the audit
Eight pages, written for the person who still signs for everything.
- What the structure around your money depends on. Five questions on the arrangements that feel like oversight and are not.
- What a monitored household actually has in place. Ten questions on the controls that cost little, grant nobody authority over your money, and would catch a problem early.
- Your Exposure Rating. Three bands, each with a plain read on where you stand and what to fix first.
- The five-step sequence. The first two steps are free, can be done with two phone calls this afternoon, and give no one any power over your accounts.
- A plain-English glossary. Elderly person, vulnerable adult, specified adult, the exploitation offense, the civil action, the injunction remedy, mandatory reporters, the brokerage delay, and the power-of-attorney enumerations.
A high score does not mean anything is wrong with your judgment. It means the structure around your accounts depends entirely on your judgment — and that is the single variable a scam is built to attack. Every control in the guide is simpler to install while capacity is intact than to arrange afterward.
Three of the fifteen questions
If any of these gives you pause, the audit is worth ten minutes.
- Are you the only person who ever sees your account statements?
- Could a six-figure wire leave your largest account today on one person's instruction, with no second review?
- Do you assume Florida's elder-exploitation laws protect you because you are over 60?
The other twelve cover which powers in your durable power of attorney were separately initialed and what that grant actually permits, whether a trusted contact is on file at every brokerage and retirement account, what your brokerage will really do if it suspects exploitation, co-agents and two-signature thresholds, what a revocable trust does and does not require of its trustee, who besides your most-involved child knows where the documents live, your banker's reporting obligations, and the one rule you can write yourself this afternoon. Download the audit to work through all fifteen.
Who this is for
Florida retirees and pre-retirees who still manage their own money; business owners and investors whose accounts move large sums on one signature; anyone whose closest adult child also holds the power of attorney; adult children worried about a parent who is sharp but increasingly isolated; and successor trustees and agents who would rather find a problem early than litigate one later.
If a single wire could leave your largest account today with nobody else seeing it, question four is the one to read first.
Frequently asked questions
Doesn't Florida's elder exploitation law protect me because I am over 60?
Check the definitions. Under Fla. Stat. § 825.101(4) an “elderly person” is 60 or older and suffering from the infirmities of aging such that the ability to provide for his or her own care or protection is impaired. Section 415.102(28) defines a “vulnerable adult” by impairment too. Competence is good news everywhere except here, where it puts you outside the statute.
Doesn't my revocable living trust provide oversight?
It does not. Fla. Stat. § 736.0813 puts the duty to provide an annual accounting on the trustee of an irrevocable trust, and subsection (4) provides that while a trust is revocable the trustee's duties run only to the settlor. A revocable trust is a continuity tool, not a second set of eyes.
What is the cheapest control most Florida families have not installed?
One additional recipient of monthly statements. Exploitation is rarely discovered by the account holder, because the account holder is the person being persuaded. Adding a second named person who receives duplicate statements costs nothing, grants that person no authority over the account, and can be done with a phone call.
Who should run this audit?
Florida retirees and pre-retirees who still manage their own money; business owners and investors whose accounts move large sums on one signature; anyone whose closest adult child also holds the power of attorney; adult children worried about a parent who is sharp but increasingly isolated; and successor trustees and agents who would rather find a problem early than litigate one later.
Free Download
The Family Oversight Audit
Fifteen checks, an Exposure Rating, and a five-step sequence whose first two steps are free and take one afternoon.
Download the AuditComplimentary Discovery Call
Not Sure Where to Get Started?
Book a free 15-minute Discovery Call with our Legal Solutions Coordinators. Bring your durable power of attorney with the initialed pages, the signature pages of your revocable trust, and a list of accounts showing who can authorize a transfer on each one. If you are an adult child worried about a parent, come with the same three things. Prefer the phone? Call 844-842-2774.
Book a Free Discovery CallThis page and the guide it offers are for educational purposes only and are not legal or tax advice. Reading either one does not create an attorney-client relationship, and an attorney-client relationship is not formed until a written engagement agreement is signed. Joseph E. Seagle is licensed in Florida only. The controlling authority discussed here is Florida law, including Fla. Stat. § 825.101, § 825.103, § 825.1035, § 415.102, § 415.1034, § 415.1111, § 517.34, § 709.2202 and § 736.0813. The statutory definitions of an elderly person and a vulnerable adult, the grading of the exploitation offense, the civil action and its discretionary fee provision, the injunction remedy, the mandatory-reporter list, the brokerage delay, and the power-of-attorney and trust-accounting formalities are all state law and differ materially across state lines; nothing here describes what governs an account, a document, or a person outside Florida — confirm with counsel licensed where it sits. Whether any particular person meets a statutory definition, and whether any particular transaction constitutes exploitation, are fact questions this guide cannot evaluate. Nothing here is a prediction about any particular matter, and no client facts appear anywhere in it. A diagnostic checklist is not a substitute for having counsel review your actual power of attorney, your actual trust, and your actual account agreements. Consult a licensed Florida attorney about your specific situation.