The following article was written by my business partner, Felicia Coalson. If you need an attorney for wills, trusts and estate work, she is on the ball! At Eldercare Life Solutions, we offer conservatorship services and I can tell you that she is spot on with her advice. Good reading! You can contact Felicia at www.seniorsolutionsofet.com
What is a Conservatorship? I have been asked this question again and again in my practice, and every time there is an expression of mistrust on the face of my client. That suspicion is well founded.
A Conservatorship defined by legal resources is “the legal processes in which a court appoints one or more persons to handle the affairs of a person the court determines to be incompetent or otherwise unable to handle his/her own life decisions.” That is a good basic starting point in understanding a Conservatorship, and gaining insight into how serious this legal process is.
There are many little pieces that go into determining if a person needs a conservator. The court has the responsibility of weighing the need for the individual’s freedom versus the state’s need to protect that individual from harm and its need to protect that individual from harming others. Doctors need to be consulted to determine mental stability and cognition of the individual. Additionally, daily living observations need to be made cataloging the individual’s appropriateness in living and caring for themselves. Many people see this process as a last resort in attempting to give an individual quality of life.
Courts have a tough job. They must take into consideration whether the individual suffers from physical or psychological disability that is so intense as for the court to “intervene” in that individual daily decision making process, by appointing someone that will “step into the shoes” of the individual. This is a subjective process and effectively can take all decision making power away from the individual concerned. For this reason Conservatorship should be entered into with care.
