Children seek to annul their elderly father’s 2018 wedding as they question his capacity to make decisions
A 91-year-old senior who made his fortune in real estate is locked in a legal battle with his children, who believe he is no longer mentally capable to manage his own affairs and is being targeted for exploitation by a woman he married in 2018.
“I want a woman that takes care of me, somebody who has a heart,” Joe Overtveld of Ottawa told CBC News.
According to the news outlet, Overtveld’s real-estate empire is worth an estimated $27 million. But three years ago, his children invoked a continuing power of attorney he’d prepared years earlier to take control of his property company, Gilas Management and Maintenance.
In an affidavit submitted to court, Overtveld’s daughter Joy described how her father “started flying into sudden, inexplicable fits of rage” after experiencing a stroke in 2014. Her brother, Todd, backed up her story, saying their father turned “significantly more short-tempered.” By 2017, Joy said the elder Overtveld could no longer understand his company’s business reports and financial statements.
Through the POA, the siblings arranged for a capacity assessment for their father, which revealed he was incapable of managing either his property or his personal care. At that point, Joy took over the business; the two children assumed control of the senior’s finances, transferring his money to a trust under their management.
They also took away his passport and photo ID based on fears that he’d be targeted for identity theft. Citing a concern for his father’s judgment, Todd Overtveld claimed that the elderly man had already fallen for a Russian email scam, had money stolen from his apartment, and allowed a woman to “stay at his residence, eat his food and collect payment from him in exchange for escort services” in 2018.
Resenting the loss of control, Overtveld turned to a longtime friend, Tito Jurado, for help to undergo a second capacity assessment. That one found that Overtveld was “articulate” and “lucid,” and had the capability to revoke the POA he’d signed. Jurado agreed to fund Overtveld’s legal challenges to wrest control of his fortune from his children, who claim that Jurado wants to financially exploit their father.
As all this was going on, Jurado introduced his friend to a 55-year-old woman from Morrocco named Rachida Youmouri. Overtveld married her a few months later in December 2018, intending to regain control over his affairs by reassigning legal authority to his new wife. Since then, Overtveld and his wife say that they’ve developed genuine feelings of love toward one another.
However, his children don’t see it that way. They arranged for a third assessment, which reinforced the initial finding that Overtveld was incapable of managing his property or personal care. Aside from concluding that he couldn’t revoke the POA, it found that he was “vulnerable to exploitation” and might not have been able to grasp the implications of his marriage contract.
In October, the two younger Overtvelds filed an annulment application, asserting that their father “lacked the mental capacity to enter into a marriage contract” and accused Youmouri of entering the relationship just to gain Canadian citizenship and access to his fortune.
She has denied the accusations, telling CBC News: “I've been a citizen for years, and I'm not there for his money. I'm not a gold digger. In my culture you don't mistreat or ignore [the] elderly, you take care of them.”
The courts have yet to decide on both the annulment petition and Joe Overtveld’s challenge to the POA.
