The appointment of guardian is supposed to be a mechanism to protect the vulnerable who can no longer manage their person and estate. However, a growing chorus of critics is now calling for reform of the various states systems due to abuse by court appointed guardians who have little oversight and much opportunity to fleece an estate. The problem, so critics allege, is the growing number of professional guardians who have incentive to drive up billing cost even if their actions are not in the best interest of the ward. An extreme example is a Washington women whose guardian almost tripled her yearly expenditures and ultimately ran through much of the trust corpus she relied on for living expenses. However, defenders of the system point out that the bad guardian is in the minority and the vast majority of wards have been well served by the court appointment system. In any event, the fragmented nature of state laws means little national reform is likely although individual states may take the initiative to reform.
See Ashby Jones, Abuses Plague Guardianship Systems Across the Country, Wall Street Journal, October 30, 2015.
Special thanks to Brian Cohan (Attorney at Law, Law Offices of Brian J. Cohan, P.C.) for bringing this article to my attention.
