Niece loses inheritance to uncle’s new friend

Written out of will after Alzheimer’s diagnosis

As Albert Kanters’ closest living relative, Marietta Fewings felt a special bond with her uncle in Toronto, almost as if she were the child he and his late wife never had.

But seven months after the widower’s death at age 92, their relationship — and the inheritance Kanters had promised the Winnipeg woman — are little more than bitter memories.

Fewings has been written out of her uncle’s will, had no chance to see him laid to rest and will be paying back a gift she says he gave her for years to come. In court, she blamed the rift on a woman decades younger than her uncle, who she says entered his life shortly after he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, turned Kanters against her and now is a major beneficiary of that will.

“It was very, very heartbreaking to see him like this,” she recalls of her last, acrimonious encounter with Kanters — across a Toronto courtroom. “It destroyed every memory we ever had.”

Jolanda Baird, the woman who befriended the elderly man, tells a different story. Not only was the uncle judged mentally capable of changing his will, but the niece abandoned her claims during a court-administered mediation session, she noted.

Court documents filed by a lawyer representing her and Kanters suggested it was Fewings who was taking advantage of her own uncle, calling her actions “tantamount to fraud.”

The case underscores a burgeoning medical-legal trend: financial disputes involving the growing number of older Canadians with dementia and other forms of cognitive impairment, and their oftensubstantial wealth.

In case after case, lawyers say, adult children or other relatives have faced off against their aged loved one’s new friends or spouses, the person’s net worth at stake.

Lawyers have even coined a phrase — “predatory marriages” — for the many instances where they say much younger individuals — from home-care workers to casual friends — marry elderly, usually mentally diminished people.

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Once they are hitched, the alleged predator is almost guaranteed to come away richer, partly because of outdated laws in several provinces, says Albert Oosterhoff, a Western University law professor.

“It’s that very basic human greed,” he said. “I regard it as evil in the sense that they are taking something that doesn’t belong to them. It’s theft, it’s robbery. It’s wrong.”

Kim Whaley, a Toronto estates lawyer who represented Fewings until the Winnipeg woman ran out of money for legal fees, said she probably sees a couple of clients a month with concerns about a predatory marriage that has already happened — or is about to occur.

Of course, there are two sides to every such story, and disputes like the one around Kanters — which did not involve a marriage — often lead to litigation.

Fewings has siblings but says only she and her husband had a close connection with Kanters, a Dutch immigrant like her, visiting back and forth every year.

After his wife died in 2005, he made Fewings the main beneficiary of his will, and later a joint owner of his house, which he was leaving to her anyway.

And in 2013, Fewings said, he transferred to her $130,000, a gift his wife had promised the niece on her 55th birthday.

She says he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s later that year, and slowly began to change, becoming agitated easily, forgetting simple words, misplacing belongings, becoming oddly suspicious of people around him and posting numerous reminder notes.

It was about this time that Fewings said she learned her uncle had begun seeing Baird, another DutchCanadian. He also became closer with a younger couple next door to him and increasingly hostile toward her, she said.

And then, in 2015, Kanters indicated he wanted to change his will, remove Fewings as a joint owner of his house, take away the power of attorney he had assigned to her, and get back the $130,000, which he claimed she had taken without permission.

Baird, though, says neither she nor the neighbours had anything to do with Kanters’ decision to disinherit his niece.

“There were some underlying disputes and disagreements happening between Albert and Marietta, going back a while,” she said. “All we did is be good friends to him and help him enjoy his life.”

Regardless, another lawyer agreed to change the documents. In the new will, $125,000 is divided among five cousins, $60,000 goes to the neighbours’ two children, $35,000 to two other friends and $15,000 to two hospital charities. Of the remaining assets — which would be $350,000 according to an estimate filed in court recently — 60 per cent goes to Baird and her daughter and 40 per cent to the couple next door.

Meanwhile, Kanters was judged mentally capable in two “capacity assessments.” Vusumzi Msi, the lawyer who represented Kanters and Baird, says he never had any concerns about the soundness of Kanters’ mind, or his determination to get back everything he could from Fewings.

Out of money for legal fees, the niece says she ultimately had no choice but to agree to surrender joint ownership of the home and repay $80,000 of the “gift,” in instalments.

A neighbour across the street informed her when Kanters died this May. At his request, says Baird, no funeral or memorial service was held.