Who Can Generally Be Appointed As A Guardian?
In the state of Florida, any resident of the state of Florida who is over the age of 18 can serve as a guardian of a ward, but if the person is not a resident of the state of Florida, then that person must be related by blood or a legally adopted child of the incapacitated person or a spouse of the incapacitated person. People who are automatically disqualified from serving as guardians are people that are convicted of a felony or who may be unable to serve because of incapacity or illness. Furthermore, people are disqualified if judicially determined to have committed abuse or abandonment or neglect of a child. In Florida, trust companies and banks can serve as guardians. In order to be a corporate guardian, nonprofit entities such as legal aid services and Lutheran services can serve as guardians. Individuals can create for profit companies to act as professional guardians and these professional guardians have to take continuing education and there are licensing requirements to serve as a professional guardian.
Who Does The Guardian Report To In A Guardianship?
A guardianship is a court supervised proceeding. Once a guardian is appointed, they must file two key reposts in the court records, provide it to the judge, and provide to all next of kin. First, the court appointed guardian must file a written guardianship plan. Second, the guardian must file an initial inventory. The initial guardianship plan will cover the guardian’s proposed plan of care for the ward and it must include things such as organizing correct medical professionals to provide care, organizing and determining place of care and place of residence, organizing medications, and organizing social involvement with all family members, especially if the family members are in dispute with each other. The initial inventory is a snapshot as of the date of court appointment for the guardian, and consists of all assets known or controlled by the guardian.
The guardian’s initial inventory will include all the balance as of the date of appointment for all bank accounts, investment accounts, cash values of life insurance and any kind of pending lawsuits that the guardian might have against somebody, as well as all sources of income. The guardian also must provide banks statements to substantiate all the values reported and income statements to substantiate the income listed on the inventory. The guardian will file these court documents and also have to give copies to next of kin in order to evaluate so that everybody knows what the incapacitated person owns and is expected to receive and is expected to spend their money on in the future. After the initial court filings, the guardian will have to file annual filings. The guardian is required to do an annual plan and annual accounting each and every year the guardianship is in existence. The annual plan is essentially the plan of care proposed for the prospective year for the ward. The guardian in the plan will essentially be reporting to the judge the current status of the incapacitated person with anything in regards to their care, and is filed by the guardian of the person. (https://cobblerexpress.com)
The guardian of the property files the annual accounting. The guardian of the property must track all income coming in and all expenses going out since the date of court appointment. Furthermore, they must also track any kind of proceeds from any sale of the guardian’s property. Any kind of a possible financial transaction should be identified in the annual accounting for the judge to review and the court clerks to ensure that the accounts are balanced. The guardianship accounting gives full financial disclosure to the judge and next of kin who ask for the information of how the incapacitated person’s money is being spent.
Finally, the last court reporting requirement is the requirement that certain major acts of the guardian must be requested for court approval before taking that action. Under Florida Statute 744.441, the statute lists 22 separate actions that require court approval before taking action. Examples of things requiring court approval would be court approval for the sale of the property or any real estate, entering into any long term lease for real estate, abandoning valueless assets or valueless property of the ward, borrowing any money for the ward’s benefit, entering into any lawsuit or defending any lawsuit against the ward, continuing any business that the ward owned, buying real estate for the ward, making funeral arrangements for the ward, gifting money to family, creating a revocable or irrevocable trust for the ward and entering into any contracts for the ward. Those are the most common reasons to require court approval.
All the court reporting that is identified above is in the public record file and it can be identified by all next of kin and finally confirmed by the court. The idea of the court guardianship and all the reporting requirements is that nothing sneaky or underhanded is being done and the ward’s affairs are all out in the clear so as to be protected from any kinds of nefarious actions or other reasons why the guardianship had to occur in the first place.
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