When someone lacks the legal capacity to act on their own, another person or entity can establish guardianship to manage the incapacitated person’s financial or personal matters. Guardianship is most often used for disabled adults and elderly people who have ‘lost it‘ … or never had it to begin with (so to speak); or, children whose parents have deceased and inherit substantial property.
Establishing guardianship in Texas requires a court proceeding. Unless the incapacitated person is a child, it also requires a medical evaluation and a letter from a doctor who is currently treating the person in question.
Guardianships suck and I don’t like them (offensive to all rugged individualists). But I do have almost 30 year’s experience in dealing with them, beginning with my own grand parents in the early 1980’s. Would you want to be a ‘ward of the court’? Would you want your snotty little brother to be named Momma’s (or Grand Daddy’s) ‘guardian‘? Many of us reach that point. But it’s a status which consumes public resources, turns everyone into self-righteous holy rollers and devastates your own estate in the interest of protecting us . . . from ourselves.
Avoid guardianship at all cost within the bounds of law and personal ethics. Use powers of attorney, trusts and other means to keep Granny’s dirty laundry a private affair.
But if you get stuck in Houston Guardianship Litigation or in a Houston Guardianship Contest, call Scott Boates for an honest and experienced approach to the mess.