Judge's Proposed Probate Reforms a Good Starting Point

Maricopa County Superior Court's top judge has proposed a series of probate reforms aimed at ensuring that old ladies worth a million bucks or more don't wind up on the taxpayer dole while attorneys and fiduciaries walk away with most of their money.

OK, that last part about the old ladies comes from me, but I'm quite sure it's what he means when he talks about getting costs under control and assigning actual judges to take over contested cases before they "blow up."

"Could the court do a better job of oversight? Yes, in a word," Superior Court Presiding Judge Norman Davis told me. "Are we proposing better oversight? Yes."

Do Davis' proposals go far enough? No.

But he seems to be warming to a pair of ideas that would give vulnerable people a greater voice and go a long way toward fixing what ails probate - assuming the Legislature buys in.

Meanwhile, an early test of the court's resolve to reassert judicial control over probate comes now. Sun Valley Group, the fiduciary that helped protect Marie Long right into the poorhouse, announced last week that it's going out of business on Feb. 28. Sun Valley is asking the court to turn over its cases to Entrust Fiduciary Services, a Yuma fiduciary that is moving to Phoenix.

The question is: Will the probate court hand over 80 cases to Sun Valley's handpicked successor? Or will Judge Rosa Mroz do what her boss, Davis, suggests in his proposal for reform and, in essence, allow fiduciaries to bid for the chance to serve the wards?

Davis won't discuss Marie's case or that of R.B. Sleeth, who was ordered to pay $265,000 to an attorney who helped put him in an Alzheimer's lockdown ward despite the fact that he didn't have Alzheimer's.

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Judge's Proposed Probate Reforms a Good Starting Point