Cognitively Disabled Adult Pressured Into Signing A Car Loan. Can They Get Out Of It?

Location: Georgia, USA

I’m sorry this is so long and disorganized. My brain is broken and I feel like there are a lot of necessary details to give a full picture.

My sister (36F) is medically fragile and has some physical and cognitive disabilities. Describing her disabilities can be difficult. She has non-traumatic brain injuries due to frequent and severe hypoglycemia throughout her entire life. This is from an extremely rare disease that causes her pancreas to overproduce insulin. She still has frequent lows that cause her to be disoriented, unstable, and confused. She is a high school graduate, but her mentality and reasoning is more like that of a middle schooler. She’s socially awkward, but doesn’t always come cross as obviously disabled. She cannot live on her own, she does not understand complex topics, and she has trouble planning for or understanding future outcomes of present decision-making. She has very poor judgment, poor memory, and sometimes a tenuous grasp on reality.

We have always struggled with where to draw the line between respecting her independence as an adult, and exerting influence/control to protect her. This is most harrowing when it comes to her love life. She likes having boyfriends but has been taken advantage of far more than she’s found nice guys to date. If we tell her we don’t like or are suspicious of someone she’s dating, she withdraws and continues seeing them in secret. When she started dating this current guy, who has no job and no car, we tried to be accepting. Everyone from family to friends to coworkers told her “if you’re having fun that’s great, but do not ever give him any money under any circumstances.” She kept saying she wouldn’t.

We found out this week that she bought him a car. She has a part-time minimum wage job and receives disability payments. She had some money saved up and put down $3k on a car loan for $21k at 22% interest. She makes about $1100 a month and her new car payment is $500. Apparently she and this loser told the dealership her monthly income is $2600 and the dealership said “it was verified by her bank.” Still not sure how that happened.

She can’t drive and has never had a license. This car is solely for loser boyfriend. I believe he is taking advantage of her and pressured her into this purchase. I don’t think she would even know how to start the process of buying a car on her own, and I guarantee she didn’t understand what she was signing. She told our mother that they both co-signed and are splitting it 50/50, but her name and signature is the only one on the documents. He hasn’t given her a cent as far as I’m aware. We also believe he has given her prescription drugs that belonged to his recently deceased grandmother on at least one occasion, and I don’t think she understood what she was taking or the risks involved. We’ve also learned she paid for vet bills for his dog and pays for pretty much everything they do together. This guy is on the brink of losing his grandmother’s house and we are extremely worried she will be convinced to give him money for that too.

Over the past few months my mother and I had been discussing a legal arrangement such as guardianship or power of attorney to protect her and make sure I can take care of her when Mom dies. But we hadn’t put anything into place yet before this happened.

I don’t know to what extent her disabilities are documented. The brain injuries were assessed and documented maybe 10-15 years ago. Mom is looking for that paperwork but hasn’t been able to find it yet. I don’t know the exact basis of her disability payments or what is documented there. I fear on paper she looks like a legal, competent adult and there’s nothing we can do to get her out of this. There’s also the fact that she’s supposed to notify disability if she signs any type of loan, which she didn’t know or didn’t remember. The car is the most immediate problem, but I don’t want her disability payments to be at risk either.

Main question: what kind of attorney should we seek out, if any? I had a hard time even deciding what flair to put on this, between contracts, disability, and consumer law. There also might be a case to be made for exploitation of a vulnerable adult?

Second question: Are we SOL without documentation of her cognitive disability? I feel like a lot hinges on the assertion that she was not capable of signing this on her own. This is obvious to anyone who knows her, but I don’t know how provable it is. We have family members willing to provide testimony but I don’t know whether that’s worth anything.

Thanks for reading. Let me know if I can provide anymore helpful info.