A real charity keeps asking my parent for money

Find out who in the family can act for her

Who: you, from her papers, and her lawyer, who can tell you whether her power of attorney works once she can no longer make money decisions. When: before anyone writes to a charity.

A continuing power of attorney in Ontario, or an enduring one in British Columbia and Alberta, keeps working after she can no longer decide. If hers is one, her attorney can make any money decision she could, unless the document limits it.

Gifts are the exception, with limits of their own, set out under Common questions. Her attorney cannot make a will for her in Ontario or British Columbia, or change one in British Columbia. Ontario’s government guide and British Columbia’s Power of Attorney Act say so.

power of attorney a document that lets somebody else act on your money or your property

You sign it in advance, while you can still make the decision, and you choose how wide it is. What it covers and what it is called differ from one province to the next. It does not hand over ownership.

• In Quebec, a “protection mandate” has no effect until a court has approved it, which Quebec calls homologation.
• If nobody holds a power of attorney, you can still write to each charity and ask. We found no Canadian rule that makes a charity agree to a request from family, so it may say no.

Why her attorney can send the letters in step 02

She could stop the letters and calls, cancel a monthly gift or ask for her records herself, so we read each as within her attorney’s power.

Write to each charity and ask it to stop

Who: her attorney, or you if nobody holds one, to the address on the charity’s letters. When: now.

• A gift taken from her bank account. Payments Canada’s rule gives the charity up to 30 calendar days to stop it once it has written notice from her. We read a letter from her attorney as that notice. A letter from anyone else is a request, and the charity may say no.
• A gift charged to her credit card. The Financial Consumer Agency of Canada says to tell the charity itself, because cancelling the card does not stop the charity billing her.

Have in front of you

• Which charities she gives to. Her bank and card statements for the last year show the monthly gifts, as do the charity letters she has kept.
• A copy of the power of attorney, if there is one.
• Her name and address exactly as the charity prints them, and her donor number if it prints one.

What to put in the letter

• If a doctor has told the family she has dementia or memory loss, say so.
• Stop all letters, calls, emails and visits to her, and stop inviting her to dinners and events.
• Cancel her monthly gift to this charity, unless the family has agreed to keep this one going.
• Put her phone number on the charity’s own do-not-call list. Under the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission’s rules, when she or her attorney asks, the charity must add it within 14 days and keep it there for 3 years and 14 days. The national list does not cover a call “made by or on behalf of a registered charity”, so the charity’s own list is the one that applies.
• Send a list of every gift she has made, with the date and amount of each.
• Do not share or sell her name and address.
• From now on, write only to the person sending this letter, at their address.

Keep a copy of each letter, with the date you sent it.

Why the bank’s 90-day claim does not cover these gifts

The same Payments Canada rule lets a person claim back, within 90 days, a debit that broke the agreement she signed, or came after it was cancelled. As we read the rule, a monthly gift she set up herself is neither.

Wording you can quote

The fundraisers’ code says its members should not arrange gifts from someone who cannot decide for herself:

“Refuse to participate in the structuring of contributions by any prospect or donor who, to the reasonable person, is incapable of making an independent, informed decision.”The Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP), Code of Ethical Standards, guidelines under Standard 9

The AFP code does not bind a Canadian charity. It binds fundraisers who are its members, and calls its guidelines “suggestions”.

If she lives in a care home, tell the home as well

Who: her attorney or you, to the home. When: once the letter to the charity has gone.

Give the home a copy of the letter that told the charity to stop, and ask what the home can do.

Take the list of her gifts to an estates lawyer

Who: her attorney, with an estates lawyer. When: once you have the list of her gifts, from the charities or from her bank and card statements.

A gift made by someone who did not have the capacity to make it is void in law, which means it never counted as a gift. The person who says it was a gift has to prove she could make it. The test is whether she understood two things:

“the nature of the gift” and “the specific effect of the gift in the circumstances”Kimberly Whaley’s paper on challenging gifts, which sets out the Canadian law on both points

Whether she understood is a legal finding, not an opinion about her judgement. We have found no Canadian case where a court ordered a charity to return gifts like these.

A charity may tell you it cannot return gifts. The Canada Revenue Agency says in Returning a gift to a donor that “In most cases, a registered charity cannot return a donor’s gift”. The Agency also says a return “is ultimately a matter for a court to decide”.

Call the office in her province for when somebody cannot decide any more

Who: you or anyone in the family. When: after step 04.

In Ontario, the office looks into money matters where someone may be incapable and faces “loss of a significant part of one’s property”. As we read that test, small monthly gifts may not meet it. The Ontario office’s guide calls an investigation “a last resort”.

Ontario

The Office of the Public Guardian and Trustee.

Quebec

Le Curateur public. You can report without giving your name.

British Columbia

The Public Guardian and Trustee looks into an adult’s finances when there is a concern about how they are being handled.

Alberta

As we read it, no Alberta office looks into gifts made by someone living at home, so take gifts already made to the estates lawyer in step 04. For anything else, the Office of the Public Guardian and Trustee.

Other provinces and territories

Start at Who to call, and open her province.

See an estates lawyer about her will

Who: her attorney or you, with an estates lawyer. When: while she is alive.

In Ontario and British Columbia, her power of attorney does not reach her will, as step 01 explains. Take any letter from a charity about a gift in her will to the lawyer, with this line from the AFP code:

“Assume the role of personal friend, confidant, or caretaker in order to influence an individual to include the member or the member’s organization in the individual’s estate.”One of the practices the AFP code calls unethical for its members

If the charity is accredited, complain to Imagine Canada

Who: you or her attorney. Email Imagine Canada’s Standards Program at standards@imaginecanada.ca and ask for its complaints form. When: within a year of what the charity did after your letter, and only while it is still accredited.

Ask the charity whether Imagine Canada accredits it. Imagine Canada’s standards bind accredited charities only, and say an accredited charity honours a donor’s request to “discontinue contact”. If the charity is not accredited, take your letters to the lawyer you saw in step 04, about her gifts.

Imagine Canada asks that you complain to the charity first, which your letters have done, and looks only at what happened after the charity was accredited. Send your letters, the dates you sent them, and each visit, call or invitation since, with its date.