NASGA Press Release: Boomers Beware of Guardianship and Conservatorship Abuse

PRESS RELEASE
For immediate release
January 30, 2012

For more information contact:
Annie McKenna, NASGA Media Liaison
info@StopGuardianAbuse.org

Boomers Beware of Guardianship and Conservatorship Abuse

2012 won't be a happy year for aging Boomers taking care of their aged parents or becoming vulnerable themselves. Even if they had planned ahead by executing advance directives and making careful estate plans, they risk being sucked into an almost secret system which feeds itself by preying upon their vulnerability.

"Guardianships" or "Conservatorships" are "protective" proceedings managed by our American justice system in state courts across the country. Without adequate monitoring and oversight, there is a growing trampling of constitutional protections and civil and human rights by the very persons supposedly protecting our loved ones.

Fiduciaries - "persons of trust" - appointed by the courts to protect those adjudicated as incompetent are thus free to engage in a feeding frenzy: aggressively overbilling the estates of their wards with unnecessary and outrageous fees until there is nothing left.

The system is out of control and running amok, contrary to original intent, which was to:

• GUARD the vulnerable person from harming him/herself or others;
• CONSERVE his/her assets through prudent investment; and
• PROTECT the taxpaying public from the person becoming a public charge.

The result of these unlawful and abusive proceedings, among other things, is that when wards’ estates are bled dry by the excessive fee billing of fiduciaries, these wards are added by the fiduciary to the Medicaid rolls on the backs of taxpayers, victimizing the taxpaying public as well – an appalling travesty of law.

NASGA was created by family members and friends of victims of so-called "protective" proceedings where court-appointed fiduciaries took control of the lives, liberty and property of their loved ones and then breached their fiduciary duty, causing extensive and expensive litigation.

See
Boomers Beware of Guardianship Abuse
Boomers Beware of Conservatorship Abuse

GAO Report: Guardianships - Cases of Financial Exploitation, Neglect and Abuse of Seniors