Florida Elder Abuse Attorney: Stop It, Recover It

The Three Wrongs Florida Law Names

Florida law names three distinct wrongs against elderly and vulnerable adults, and each is a felony:

Abuse: intentionally inflicting physical or psychological injury, or acts likely to cause it. The statute expressly includes intentionally isolating a parent from family to conceal what is happening to them or their money.
Neglect: a caregiver’s failure to provide the food, medicine, shelter, supervision, or medical care a prudent person would consider essential, whether as a pattern or a single serious incident.
Exploitation: using a position of trust, deception, or intimidation (or the victim’s lack of capacity) to take or misuse money, assets, or property. It expressly covers misuse of a power of attorney, raiding a joint or convenience account, a fiduciary’s self-dealing, and even fraudulently engineering changes to a will or trust.

Who is protected turns on impairment, not just age: the protective system covers any adult whose ability to care for or protect themselves is impaired, and the criminal exploitation statute protects people 60 and older who suffer from the infirmities of aging, plus disabled adults of any age. One more built-in tripwire: a transfer over $10,000 by someone 65 or older to a non-relative they have known for under two years, with nothing of real value back, is legally presumed suspicious.

The Criminal Track and the Civil Track

The criminal track belongs to the state. Exploitation is graded by the amount taken, up to a first-degree felony at roughly $50,000 or more, and prosecutors can aggregate a course of small takings into one big charge. Several Florida counties field dedicated elder-exploitation units, and courts can even return seized property to the victim before trial. Report, cooperate, and let the state carry that weight.

The civil track belongs to your family, and it is the only track that returns money. It includes the emergency freeze, a civil-theft claim for up to three times the amount taken plus attorney fees, a separate statutory claim for actual and punitive damages, suits to void deeds and beneficiary changes, accountings, and constructive trusts. The tracks feed each other: the criminal file helps prove the civil case, and a conviction triggers the inheritance forfeiture below. The full recovery guide →

The Family Playbook: Report, Freeze, Recover, Protect

Report. Call 1-800-962-2873 (press 2), any hour. The call is required by law, immune in good faith, and it is a prerequisite to the court freeze. Every hotline and what each does →
Freeze. The vulnerable adult injunction can lock accounts and credit lines within days, no filing fee, even joint accounts, even against anonymous online scammers. Alert the bank’s fraud team the same day.
Recover. Written demand, then suit: treble damages, fees, voided transfers, accountings. Evidence assembled while the trail is warm decides these cases. How the money comes back →
Protect. Revoke the compromised power of attorney, re-paper the accounts, install trustworthy fiduciaries, and where capacity is failing, weigh a guardianship or its alternatives. Then rebuild the estate plan so this cannot happen twice.

What happens on the state’s side after your report, and where its power ends, is its own story: how Adult Protective Services actually works →

Every week of delay is money you may not get back.

Book a free 30-minute consult. We map the freeze, the recovery, and the protection, and quote the fee up front.

Book your free consult

The Abuser Loses the Inheritance

Here is the rule that changes everything after a death: a person convicted of abusing, neglecting, or exploiting the decedent forfeits every benefit from the estate, treated as if they had died first. And the statute reaches further than most lawyers expect: it severs survivorship rights, so the joint bank account and the jointly titled home pass as the victim’s sole property, and pay-on-death and life-insurance designations pay out as though the abuser had died first. Property acquired through the abuse must be returned. Even without a conviction, a court can apply the forfeiture on the greater weight of the evidence where the abuse caused or contributed to the death. For a family staring at a caregiver who spent years positioning herself on every account, this is the lever that resets the board.

When the Will, Trust, or Deed Was Changed

Exploitation often shows up as paperwork: a new will favoring the caregiver, a deed to the "new friend," a beneficiary form quietly redone. Florida law has a specific answer. When a substantial beneficiary who held a position of trust was active in procuring the document, undue influence is presumed, and the burden of proof shifts to them to justify the gift. Courts look for familiar badges: they were present at the signing, recommended the lawyer, gave the instructions, knew the contents, secured the witnesses, kept the document. Stack a few of those and the contest has real teeth. These fights are our home field: will, trust, and deed contests →, including contested lady bird deeds →.

Abuse in a Nursing Home or ALF

Facility cases run through their own doors. The Long-Term Care Ombudsman (1-888-831-0404) advocates for the resident; AHCA (1-888-419-3456) polices the facility’s license; the abuse hotline brings in APS and law enforcement; and in Medicaid-funded facilities the Attorney General’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit investigates patient abuse. One honest boundary: lawsuits over the quality of care at a licensed facility follow a separate legal lane (Florida’s treble-damages exploitation remedy expressly excludes them), and those negligence cases belong with a nursing-home litigation firm. Where we come in is the money: a facility-adjacent caregiver or "helper" draining accounts, and the estate-side fallout. The facility complaint map →

Local Help by County

The hotline is statewide, but the local bench differs county to county: some State Attorneys run named elder-exploitation units, some sheriffs keep dedicated elder-abuse pages, and the injunction filing counter is not always where you would guess (in two counties it is the probate desk; in one, the mental-health department). We verified every county resource in August 2026:

Elsewhere in Florida, start with the statewide hotline guide; every clerk of court in the state must help you file the vulnerable adult petition.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Elder Abuse a Crime in Florida?

Yes, three crimes. Abuse of an elderly or disabled adult (including intentionally isolating them from family) is a felony. Neglect by a caregiver is a felony. And financial exploitation is a felony graded by the amount taken: roughly $50,000 or more is a first-degree felony, $10,000 to $50,000 second degree, and under $10,000 third degree. The state prosecutes those crimes. What the criminal case does not do is return the money or fix the estate; that runs on the civil side, and the two tracks can move at the same time.

Who Counts as a Protected "Vulnerable Adult"?

For the protective system, a vulnerable adult is anyone 18 or older whose ability to care for or protect themselves is impaired by disability, brain damage, or the infirmities of aging. For the criminal exploitation statute, an "elderly person" is someone 60 or older whose infirmities impair their ability to provide for their own care; Florida courts require proof of the impairment, not just the birthday. In practice, a parent with dementia, a stroke, or serious frailty qualifies; a fully sharp 75-year-old may not, and different tools apply.

Someone Is Taking Advantage of My Parent Right Now. What Do I Do First?

Three moves, in order. Call the Florida Abuse Hotline at 1-800-962-2873, press 2 (911 first if there is immediate danger). Tell the bank’s fraud department, because Florida law lets financial institutions flag and delay suspicious transactions for customers 65 and older. Then get the court freeze moving: a vulnerable adult injunction can lock accounts and credit lines within days, with no filing fee, before they are empty. Document everything as you go: statements, texts, sudden document changes, isolation.

Can We Get the Money Back?

Often, yes, if you move while assets remain. Florida’s civil-theft remedy lets the victim (or the estate) recover up to three times the amount taken plus attorney fees, after a required written demand. A separate statute lets a vulnerable adult recover actual and punitive damages from any perpetrator. Courts can also void deeds, beneficiary changes, and transfers signed under undue influence, impose constructive trusts, and compel accountings from agents and trustees. Speed matters more than anything: money that has been spent or moved offshore is far harder to reach.

Can the Abuser Still Inherit From My Parent?

Florida has one of the strongest forfeiture rules in the country. A person convicted of abusing, neglecting, or exploiting the decedent forfeits everything: their share under the will, intestate rights, and even survivorship assets, because the statute severs joint tenancies and pay-on-death arrangements so the victim’s share passes as if the abuser died first. Even without a conviction, a court can apply the rule on the greater weight of the evidence where the conduct caused or contributed to the death. It is real leverage, and it changes settlement math in these cases.

What Does It Cost to Fight Elder Abuse?

The emergency injunction has no court filing fee, and the clerk must help with the forms. On the recovery side, the treble-damages statute shifts reasonable attorney fees to the wrongdoer when you win, which is part of why a well-documented demand often produces a settlement. Our free 30-minute consult maps your specific case: what can be frozen, what can be recovered, what it will take, and a quoted fee before you commit to anything.

Common Situations

The isolating caregiver. A hired caregiver screens a widower’s calls, cancels his card, and drives him to a lawyer to change his will. His children report to the hotline, get the injunction with its no-contact and freeze terms, and contest the new will under the undue-influence presumption. The isolation itself supports the abuse count.

The joint-account son. One son, added to accounts "for convenience," treats them as his own while his mother slides into dementia. The family compels an accounting, sues under the civil-theft statute for treble damages, and when the mother passes, his conviction forfeits his inheritance, including the survivorship rights on the very accounts he raided.

The out-of-state daughter. From Chicago, a daughter watches her Florida mother’s savings drip toward an online "advisor." Everything happens remotely: the hotline report, the bank alerts, the injunction filed under the anonymous-scammer rules, the recovery demand. Distance changed nothing; speed did.

Sources of Law

Fla. Stat. §825.102 (abuse and neglect, including isolation; felony grading); §825.103 (exploitation: modes, the 65+/non-relative transfer presumption, felony grading by value, pretrial return of seized property); §825.101 and §415.102 (definitions); §825.1035 and §825.1036 (the vulnerable adult injunction and violations); §415.1034, §415.1036, §415.111 (mandatory reporting, good-faith immunity, penalties); §772.11 and §772.17 (civil theft: treble damages, fees, written demand, five-year limit; licensed-facility carve-out); §415.1111 (civil action: actual and punitive damages); §732.8031 (forfeiture of the inheritance on conviction, severance of survivorship rights, return of property, and the greater-weight alternative); §733.107(2) (the undue-influence presumption shifts the burden of proof); In re Estate of Carpenter, 253 So. 2d 697 (Fla. 1971) (active-procurement factors). All statutes verified against the 2025 Florida Statutes at flsenate.gov, retrieved August 3, 2026.

Updated on August 3, 2026. Reviewed by Kevin D. Klagge, Esq., Fla. Bar No. 99502. Attorney Kevin Klagge represents families, businesses, and international clients in estate planning and international law, with a focus on Florida legal tools. He litigates estate and business issues in court. General information about Florida law, not legal advice, and no attorney-client relationship is created. Outcomes depend on the facts and evidence; past results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Do not send confidential information until we have agreed to represent you.

Elder Abuse in Florida: Stop It, Report It, Recover the Money