Tragically, disease comes suddenly creating hard-to-predict financial hazard and ruin for family whose aging mother or father suddenly is unable to manage their own financial affairs.
Law concerning guardianship and conservatorship creation helps make this burden less weighty, giving family members a right to protect their beloved parent without allowing for arbitrary attempts to control the parent’s life.
Experienced guardianship and conservatorship lawyers can help you decide what is best for a parent diagnosed with dementia or terminal illness, and how to best transition the state of affairs to a more practicable solution.
Take a moment to see how the various kinds of Arizona conservatorship and guardianships mechanisms exist under Arizona State law to help loved ones take control of a parent who no longer is able to provide for themselves or others.
I. Conservatorship and Guardianship Cases Phoenix, Maricopa County, Tucson and Flagstaff, Arizona Conservatorship and Guardianship Lawyers Take On Involving Protected Persons
According to Life Plan Legal, guardians and conservators are often confused concepts designed to prevent a minor child or adult inheriting money, or one becoming incapacitated causing financial and medical decisions to be ill-informed.
According to the blog of Jackson White, guardianships are created to give legal authority to a person who stands in a relationship to protect the protected person, usually an aging family member suffering from terminal illness or dementia. Powers include:
- Deciding where the parent will live and receive care
- Monitoring the parent’s living situation
- Giving consent for medical treatment
- Investing and otherwise managing financial assets
- Applying for and administering benefits
- Paying their bills
- Buying and selling real estate and/or personal possessions
- Giving consent for non-medical services, such as counseling, and monitoring their interactions with non-medical professionals
- Accessing and releasing private information
- Recording expenditures
- Filing tax returns
Emergency guardianships prevent elderly terminal-ill or incapacitated adults suffer some trauma that puts them at risk of injury or death or abuse. To avoid these worst-case scenarios, legal authority is granted in certain situations. Such situations include:
- Impending death
- Impending bodily injury
- A necessary healthcare treatment that is not necessarily urgent, but should not be delayed during the standard 2 – 4 month guardianship process
- Removing the ward from an abusive living situation
- Relocating a ward who is abusive to others
- Forcefully removing a ward from a home that is unsafe
The next step is to petition the superior court to determine that a minor (or adult child) should become a ward over which the parent, or relative has complete control over the bank account, business records, information, and equipment, including computers and email—in short, able to act vicariously through the protected person as if they were that person themselves.
The other form of control another can exercise over the protected person is through the creation of a conservatorship with a designated conservator. Arizona Revised Statutes Chapter 14-1201, A.R.S. Ch. 14-1201.
According to Scottsdale-based Artemis Law Firm, there are the duties of a conservator in contrast to a guardian in the state of Arizona:
- Investment of the protected person’s property.
- Accounting of all conveyances of property of the protected person.
- Submitting annual reports to the superior court.
- Among other duties owed to the loved one.
- Other non-discretionary tasks such as paying filing fees.
It is very important for an experienced Arizona guardianship and conservatorship attorney to ensure that the protected person—whether he or she is a minor, is an incapacitated adult or is deceased—have his or her rights not be violated in the often secretive and unilateral decision by interested parties to take the loved one’s assets, such as by family members not interested in the best interests of the incapacitated person, which include financial institution information, work and employment files and other such sensitive information.
II. Access To An Arizona Guardianship and Conservatorship Lawyer To Petition for or Oppose an Unfair Appointment Of A Guardian Or Conservator, Or Defend Its Creation
According to the Sun City-based conservator law firm Gorman & Jones, P.L.L.C., such arrangements over a loved one lead to abuse of trust, and discord in a family the result of failure to abide by the state laws of Arizona.
For instance, a conservator may not follow the requirements stated in the conservatorship agreement, or may take assets for personal use.
To avoid this from happening, count on an experienced Arizona guardianship lawyer who will find glaring patterns of inconsistency and failures to follow the procedures established under Arizona Revised Statutes Chapter 14-1201.
Let a skilled, trustworthy and dependable Phoenix, Tucson and Flagstaff, Arizona conservator law and power of attorney knowledgeable about guardian and conservator law aggressively represent your interests in helping protect against waste, fraud and abuse in the conservatorship process and uphold ethical standards for all involved.
III. Help To Prevent Abuse Against Aging Parents And Protection of Their Financial Interests
According to the Jenkins Law Firm, a firm grasp on the subject of the rights of conservators, as a public fiduciary, includes topics such as:
- A limited guardianship
- A temporary guardianship
- A joint guardianship
- The process of forming a guardianship
While just about any lawyer could offer general advice and pursue a path of instinct and brinksmanship, a well-trained and tactful conservator lawyer can determine first the best option to pursue by considering all possible consequences before rushing to file a petition.
Scottsdale-headquartered The Law Offices of William D. Black., handles situations of abuse of aging parents, asset mismanagement and caregiver misappropriation.
IV. Legal Advice: Benefit Of A Guardianship and Conservatorship Attorney
Many Arizona guardianship and conservatorship attorneys often are trained at the best law schools in Arizona, or other states and around the country, well worth having as your personal advocate hired to protect your interest and terminally ill parent protect against abuse.
Understanding the diverse context of your legal plight as it relates to other parts of life such as, estate planning, distribution of estate assets in probate court, and probate law, family law, investment and tax law is the strongest selling-point for hiring a skilled and successful Arizona conservatorship lawyer.
Such a conservator lawyer will allow you to handle court hearings and effectively deal with the clerk of the court during conservatorship proceedings.
V. Why Should I Hire a Skilled Flagstaff Lawyer To Create or Challenge A Letter of Appointment Of A Guardian Or Court Order For Estate Planning And Living Arrangements
Many premier Arizona guardianship and conservatorship lawyers include those listed on the Scottsdale Berk Law Group, among others in the Phoenix, Tucson and Flagstaff areas and state of Arizona.
Some offer a disclaimer to avoid an attorney-client relationship being formed and others offering also an initial free consultation.
A Flagstaff Arizona guardianship or conservatorship lawyer offers you protection from a scheming relative seeking to go against the will of a terminally ill parent for their own private gain.
VI. Forming a Mediation or Arbitration-Client Relationship: Call a Tucson Guardianship and Conservatorship Lawyer Today for a Case Evaluation To Secure A Better Financial Footing
With directories spanning the state of Arizona from Phoenix, Tucson and Flagstaff, Lawsuit.org—beyond your local bar association, or public law school library, or state bar office—offers you with a way of pinpointing a conservator law lawyer who professionally and cost-effectively provides you an advantage in a superior court or the Arizona Supreme Court.
More likely than not, an Arizona conservator law lawyer will have decades of experience in a wide range of practice areas, whose targeted expert advice can preserve some amount of comfort and relief from old age and disease.