NSW Trustee and Guardian Client Abuse – A Current Affair & Update
A Current Affair
The report on A Current Affair (ACA) on 11 December 2019 on the guardianship system in Australia, and in particular NSW and Qld, was another major breakthrough in exposing this government sanctioned abuse and exploitation of our most vulnerable and elderly citizens following on from Anthony Marx’s article in Brisbane’s Courier Mail on 3 August 2019. The report identified the links that exist between the tribunals, which place the victims into the hands of the Public Trustee and Public Guardian, who then have them put away in nursing homes, with their properties sold off to pay for the nursing home bonds. Once this is done, they are stripped of their remaining assets to pay for the Public Trustee’s exorbitant fees.
Escaping from the clutches of the Public Trustee and the Public Guardian can be a very difficult task. This is particularly so in Qld where QCAT has a reputation for being the tribunal which is the most ready to put those that come before it under guardianship and financial management orders and the least likely to then have those orders lifted again later. The ACA report was ground breaking in that it revealed the links that exist between the tribunals, public trustees and public guardians in stripping our elderly and most vulnerable citizens of their wealth as part of a systematic process to benefit greedy State governments. The report placed its main focus on Qld and NSW which have the most dishonest and unscrupulous public trustee regimes of the Australian States.
It is most important that there should be some follow up through the media following the ACA report if this issue is to gain traction. Anthony Marx has shown his willingness to report on the conduct of the Public Trustee of Qld (PTQ) along with describing the type of culture that exists there. At the same time, the Shadow Attorney General in Qld, Mr David Janetzki has come out publicly strongly criticising PTQ over the way it treats its clients and has promised major changes if the Opposition should come to power in that State.
What is needed now is for someone in Qld, who has been affected by PTQ’s penchant for destroying family wealth, to take PTQ to court for damages. This would ensure that the public spotlight is kept on PTQ in moving forward as the Attorney General, Ms Yvette D’Ath, has made it abundantly clear that she does not intend to do anything about the problem other than to attack anyone who complains about it. I would personally be willing to help fund such an action if provided with the evidence of wrong or dishonest conduct and account charging. Not only would media coverage for such an action keep the spotlight on PTQ in the quest for its overhaul but, it also increases the likelihood of the issues spilling over into other States requiring responses from their relevant authorities.
Most of the credit for exposing PTQ must go to the hard work put in over the years by Rosslyn Price Mirciov and Doug Young, office holders of the Committee to Expose the Public Trustee of Qld, also known as Qld Public Trustee Exposed. They were assisted in no small part by the contacts Melinda Walsh, a marketing manager from the Gold Coast, was able to obtain for them with Courier Mail journalist Anthony Marx and Shadow Attorney General David Janetzki. These contacts enabled them to get the message out about PTQ to the Qld public at large and to have their voices heard in the Qld Parliament. Without those contacts they would not have been able to put PTQ under the pressure it has been placed under today.
NSW Trustee and Guardian Client Abuse - Update on Marilyn’s Story
Background Summary
The outstanding matters which I had placed before the courts on behalf of Marilyn (full name withheld for legal reasons) finally went to a hearing in March 2021. These related to the disposal of all her worldly possessions which she had kept within her home, and which had disappeared when NSW Trustee and Guardian ( NSWTG) put her property up for sale, and NSWTG’s payment of fraudulent invoice charges from her account at the time of the sale.
NSWTG had previously paid Marilyn $115,000.00 in damages as well as $20,000.00 in legal costs after I took them to court over their forced and unnecessary sale of her home. Marilyn’s losses had been considerable as NSWTG had undersold her home during a period of rapidly escalating property prices. NSWTG had tried to justify the sale by claiming they had already entered into an agreement with the purchaser by the time my offer was made to cover Marilyn’s nursing home bond. However, subpoenaing the purchaser’s records revealed NSWTG’s claim to be false and the offer to purchase had not been made until about a week after the funds to cover Marilyn’s nursing home bond had been made available making the sale unnecessary.
I had also taken NSWTG to court at the same time over the disappearance of all Marilyn’s possessions which she had kept in her home. NSWTG had originally accused Marilyn’s son and I of having stolen them. However, an investigation revealed that Marilyn’s belongings of low cash value, including all her personal possessions, family records and photographs collected over a lifetime, had been taken away in a massive council kerbside clearance paid for out of Marilyn’s council rates.
NSWTG had then gone and paid fraudulent invoice charges out of Marilyn’s funds falsely claiming that her belongings had been taken to the tip by a private contracting firm. I was able to establish that the contracting firm did not exist and that Marilyn’s funds had been paid into the bank account of a caravan park resort owned by the real estate agent who had sold Marilyn’s property. Marilyn’s household appliances and other items of higher cash value were not taken in the clearance. It is not known what became of them apart from the clothes dryer which was given to the new owner of Marilyn’s home by the real estate agent.
NSWTG denied having any knowledge of what had taken place and refused to take responsibility for the actions of the real estate agent who they claimed they had hired in good faith to both clear and sell the property. They were supported by the local council which provided records showing that the clearance had been ordered by the real estate agent with the agent’s personal mobile phone number given for the contact details. Council claimed there were no records indicating NSWTG had any involvement in organising the clearance. NSWTG for their part claimed that, as I had replaced them as Marilyn’s financial manager, it was now my responsibility to recover Marilyn’s losses from the real estate agent.
However, when I commenced legal proceedings against the real estate agent, NSWTG rushed to her defence and provided her with an affidavit supporting her application to have the case I had taken against her thrown out of court. They did this on the grounds that, as Marilyn remained a protected person of the State of NSW, I required NSWTG’s consent to commence legal proceedings on her behalf. NSWTG had refused to give me that consent. They had done so despite the fact that I was financing the case out of my own pocket and Marilyn’s funds were in no way being put at risk by the proceedings. It was on this basis the Court determined at a hearing on July 6th 2020 that the case I had taken against the real estate agent should proceed.
Local Court Hearing of March 8th 2021
The case against the real estate agent, Debbie Ellen Albert of Dunbogan, came before the Local Court in Gosford on March 8th 2021. She had held the franchise for the Elders Real Estate business located in Killarney Vale, through which Marilyn’s property had been sold. This branch was subsequently closed down in December 2016 after a number of property owners made various complaints against Ms Albert. In particular, there had been concerns that they had not been receiving their tenants’ rent money payments which she was supposed to have collected on their behalf.
Prior to being taken to court, Ms Albert had claimed in correspondence that all dealings with cleaners and removalists had been handled by Michael Gill of NSWTG and she chose for Elders to not get involved. This contradicted Wyong Council’s records which showed she had organised for the council clearance. However, when the matter went to court she admitted to arranging the council clearance but said she had only done so on the instructions of NSWTG. Her explanation as to how the money for the fraudulent invoice charges went through her bank account was to say she had lent an outside contractor $1,000.00 to hire two skip bins for the clearance. The payment had then been directed to go through her account to ensure she got repaid.
A Mr Glenn Law swore an affidavit in support of Ms Albert claiming that he had been hired by Michael Gill of NSWTG and had received his instructions to take away the contents of the property from him alone. He agreed that payment for the job was to be made into Ms Albert’s bank account as she had lent him money. Mr Law claimed he had been operating a house cleaning business but the address given for his business turned out to be the home of Debbie Albert’s daughter and son in law while a private investigator established Mr Law had never owned a business of any description and had a long history of unemployment.
Mr Law failed to turn up for the court hearing. It also transpired that he was unknown at the address he had given as his place of residence in his affidavit. Despite this, and despite the fact that Debbie Albert had made contradictory statements as to the extent of her involvement in the events that took place, the onus remained squarely on me to prove who had organised the disposal of all Marilyn’s possessions and given Glenn Law the keys to the property in order to perform the task. Debbie Albert claimed it was Michael Gill of NSWTG. NSWTG, for their part, had claimed it was Debbie Albert and that they were not liable for the actions of an agent which they had hired in good faith.
The end result was that I was unable to prove which party was responsible and Marilyn was forced to accept that everything she had acquired and possessed in her lifetime will never be recovered and she will never be compensated for her losses and suffering that all this has caused her. As to the fraudulent charges for taking her belongings to the tip, there was never any shadow of doubt by the size of the council clearance that there would have been very little left for a private company to take away. There was also no question that Marilyn’s funds had been paid into a bank account owned by Debbie Albert, namely her Christmas Cove Caravan Park account, under the pretext of paying a contracting business which in reality did not exist. This was firmly established once Ms Albert’s bank records had been subpoenaed.
A settlement was reached in regard to the fraudulent charges. The terms of the settlement are confidential and cannot be disclosed. There was never any admission of guilt or acknowledgement of wrongdoing on the part of Ms Albert. In view of the fact that NSWTG had not accepted responsibility or liability over the disappearance of Marilyn’s possessions or the fraudulent charges either when I had taken them to court, this was a most unsatisfactory outcome. However, I have no regrets over taking the action that I did. It was an expensive exercise but I did everything that I could to obtain justice and damages for Marilyn. At least it is on the court records how NSWTG and the State of NSW treats its elderly and vulnerable citizens.
A.C.T. Public Trustee and Guardian response to fraud
What a contrast there is as to how NSWTG deals with fraudulent conduct compared with the approach which was taken by the A.C.T. Public Trustee and Guardian (PTG) when rackets of a very similar nature were brought to the attention of its head, Mr Andrew Taylor, about the same time. Mr Taylor saw that all of PTG’s clients affected by the A.C.T. racket were immediately reimbursed over their losses, together with interest, without waiting for the matter to go to court first. He reported what had been discovered to the police, brought in outside auditors to uncover the full extent of the fraud and saw that all those involved in the scam were dealt with with the full force of the law.
The scam in the A.C.T. involved two of PTG’s officers and two outside contractors. The contractors would invoice the clients for services which were never provided which the PTG officers would then authorise for payment from the clients’ accounts. The key difference with the NSW scam was that the contracting businesses in the A.C.T. actually existed whereas NSWTG was authorising payments to a business that did not exist, making it harder to trace where the payments went. The A.C.T. scam involved about $1.7 million in total. Those involved in the scam faced criminal prosecutions, with both of the contractors and one of the two PTG officers involved receiving gaol sentences. The second PTG officer, who had played a lesser role, received a suspended gaol sentence.
By comparison, NSWTG made it very clear that it was not prepared to accept liability for the actions of an agent which it claimed to have hired in good faith and acknowledged only that its senior property manager, Michael Gill, had been negligent and incompetent in authorising payment of fraudulent invoice charges to a business that did not exist. NSWTG advised that his employment had been terminated but that it would not be reimbursing Marilyn, or any of the other clients affected, for the losses they had suffered at his hands.
NSWTG’s response was supported by the Ombudsman, who stated that there was insufficient evidence that NSWTG staff were knowingly involved in the illicit dealings of the real estate agent, while the Attorney General claimed he could not get involved in the affairs of an independent government agency. There was no explanation from either of them as to why criminal proceedings had not been brought against Ms Albert, as her bank records clearly showed that Marilyn was not the only one of NSWTG’s clients to be a victim of her scams. Ms Albert only had to face the civil proceedings for damages which I could bring against her as Marilyn’s private manager. Even then, NSWTG had tried to have the matter thrown out of court.
Media Exposure
Quite clearly NSWTG’s response is more than unsatisfactory. I have taken the issue to the press and television programmes such as A Current Affair, The 7.30 Report and Four Corners over the years but there has been no follow up from any of them. Anne Connolly of Four Corners, in particular, was sent Debbie Albert’s bank records for her caravan park resort but has never got back to me to date. These records showed NSWTG had been making regular periodic payments to the caravan park resort, including payments from other clients’ accounts for having their properties cleared by a non existent contracting business using a false name.
This is a very serious matter as NSWTG’s dealings with Debbie Albert is only a very small part of a much larger problem involving numerous real estate agents and contractors. State governments from both sides of politics strongly encourage NSWTG to sell their clients’ properties wherever they can as it generates considerable revenue for the government from the stamp duty paid by the purchasers. NSWTG also benefits directly from the sales as their staff are often paid referral fees out of the commissions the real estate agents receive for selling the properties.
Contractors are also a part of the problem as the contents of the properties being sold are frequently disposed of without the clients receiving any payments for their possessions.. Marilyn’s case was only different from the rest in that I took the matter to court on her behalf. In the end, I was unable to recover damages for her over the loss of her possessions simply because I could not prove whether it was NSWTG or the real estate agent that provided the keys to Marilyn’s home to the person or persons responsible for disposing of the contents, with each of them blaming the other. Quite clearly, NSWTG and the State of NSW should have taken responsibility over what happened and prosecuted the matter themselves, just as had been done in the A.C.T.
It is clear from the many people that have been contacting my website, that everything described here is common, everyday practice at NSWTG and has been going on for many years. One person described how NSWTG disposed of his grandfather’s possessions and made phoney invoice charges against his account way back in 1953. How little things have changed since then and it will remain the same until somebody in the media decides enough is enough and relentlessly pursues and exposes NSWTG to the broader public over the way it rips off and exploits its elderly, hapless victims and of successive greedy State governments which have been only too happy to share in the resulting benefits.