Hiking in Palos Verdes Nature Preserve

A business owner located in Rolling Hills Estates, California, Kristin Hetzer serves as principal of Royal Palms Capital. Outside of the professional environment, Kristin Hetzer enjoys hiking.

Less than 10 minutes away from Rolling Hills Estates, the Palos Verdes Nature Preserve has more than 30 miles of trails that wind throughout its 1,400 acres of rolling hills, rock formations, and precipitous canyons. Visitors can hike to vantage points that offer panoramic views of the Pacific Ocean with Santa Catalina Island in the distance. The far northern point of the Palos Verdes Nature Preserve, Vista del Norte is roughly 1,300 feet above sea level.

In addition to enjoying Palos Verdes Nature Preserve’s fragrant desert shrubs and flowering plants, hikers can see a variety of wildlife, including the ecologically threatened California gnatcatcher and coastal cactus wren. In 2020, nature conservancy officials released captive-raised Palos Verdes blue butterflies into their historic breeding grounds within the preserve.

Valle Egypt - Personal Story, Case Study

Kristin Hetzer has served as principal of Rolling Hills East, California’s Royal Palms Capital since 2005. In addition to her experience as a senior investment management executive, Kristin Hetzer is the author of the book Valle Egypt.

Released in 2020 by Covenant Books, Valle Egypt uses personal family details as a springboard for providing awareness and education on the subject of financial elder abuse. This highly emotional story includes the loss of a farm that had been in the family for 60 years.

Valle Egypt also serves as a legal case study with important components such as the waning mental capacity of an elderly parent, the questionable influence of that parent’s children, and the dereliction of fiduciary responsibilities on the behalf of legal trustees.

To help readers avoid many of the problems that it outlines in its narrative and case study, Valle Egypt provides them with an informative, preparatory tool kit. This tool kit helps readers navigate tricky issues of fiduciary duty and mental capacity through preventive measures such as estate planning and legal trusts.

Financial Elder Abuse & Breach

Kristin Hetzer is the senior portfolio manager for Royal Palms Capital LLC. During her career, she was designated a Chartered Market Technician by the CMT Association. Additionally, Kristin Hetzer has a strong interest in financial elder abuse, a topic about which she has written a book, "Valle Egypt".

Financial elder abuse consists of acts such as theft of property or assets that happen because the elder person cannot defend against it or has memory losses. Undue coercion or strong negative influence is also a form of financial elder abuse if it results in the loss of property or capital for the elder and benefits the influential party. Acts of financial elder abuse can be committed by anyone, from friends and neighbors, all the way to service providers or lawyers.

When an elderly person’s mental faculties start to decline, persons close to them are often given legal power to act on their behalf. Persons that get legal power on behalf of an elder person form a fiduciary relationship with them. Breaches of the fiduciary duty happen when the guardian or the person that has legal power on behalf of the elder does not act for the benefit of the elder. Breaches of fiduciary duty can be detected and proven if an elderly person changes their spending habits and starts withdrawing frequently from their accounts, makes excessive or irregular payments or gifts, or makes changes in their estate. These are just a few of many situations that might indicate a breach of fiduciary duty may have taken place.