Guardianships (also called conservatorships) are legal instruments once largely associated with caring for minor children or perhaps the elderly, but as adult Americans of all ages are increasingly targeted for this status - sometimes under quite questionable circumstances - a closer look is needed at both this freedom-diverting tool and the probate courts in which these actions occur.
Probate courts are often seen as quiet, low-profile venues that perform administrative oversight when people die. The power of these courts is underestimated as they routinely control assets worth millions, even billions, of dollars. The Declaration of Independence proclaims individual's endowment by our Creator "with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" yet with the stroke of a pen, probate judges routinely strip adult Americans of these very rights.
Guardianships can be executed over a person, over their estate or both. Legal declarations of incapacitation or disability are a powerful tool of probate courts and appointed personnel. Anyone seeking to dispute such actions faces expensive, time-consuming court battles in an often biased system that values legal gamesmanship and cronyism, not right and wrong.
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Adult Guardianships - How the Probate System Trumps 'Unalienable Rights'
I don't know that it's really the probate system itself, it's more like the participants in the system.
ReplyDeleteGood article!
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