Conservatorship

You need a Pennsylvania conservatorship lawyer who has helped numerous different clients in the establishment of conservatorship or assist those who have already been established in a key role.

There are a few ways in which you can appoint someone else to be allowed to make decisions on your behalf. Sometimes conservatorship is established as a person’s mental health is declining, but in other cases this will need to be created after the fact when the person has sustained severe enough impacts that they cannot make decisions on their own anymore, thus necessitating others to help in this important role.

Conservatorship and guardianship can be confusing pieces of terminology in the state of Pennsylvania, which is why you need to retain a conservatorship lawyer in Pennsylvania who knows what this means and can further counsel you about how specific documents may outline your individual requirements. Beginning at the age of 18, a person maintains the legal right to make decisions on their own behalf. However, a conservatorship or guardianship could be recommended to protect a person's medical and financial wellbeing if that individual is not able to make decisions on their own due to incapacity. A conservatorship is different from a guardian.

Disputes can also emerge, leading to estate litigation.

As a conservatorship lawyer in Pennsylvania can tell you; a guardian is appointed to help make personal decisions on behalf of another whereas a conservator is appointed to make financial decisions on behalf of another person. A conservator and guardian in Pennsylvania both must have the duty to act in the best interests of the person they were appointed to protect. In the state of Pennsylvania, a conservator has power over the estate of another person and if the conservator has been appointed by the court, they are granted the power to enter into contracts, invest and manage assets, oversee debts, and perform other financial duties on behalf of the incapacitated person. Not everyone in Pennsylvania will need a conservator.

A conservatorship lawyer in Pennsylvania will help explain to you when a court could appoint a conservatory guardian for an individual who is deemed to be incapacitated as outlined under 20PA CONS.STAT.ANN.5501.

A person could have a conservator assigned to him or her if the adult whose ability to evaluate and receive information effectively and to communicate decisions in any way has been impaired, such as he or she is totally unable to manage their financial resources or to meet necessary requirements for physical health and safety. Either a potential conservator or guardian who wants to nominate another person to serve in this role has to file the petition with the court.

The person seeking the appointment then becomes the petitioner and is asked to serve the copy of this petition to the person for whom a conservatorship is being named. In Pennsylvania, this petition requires the resident's name, age and post office address of the respondent, the names and addresses of other entities who provide services to the respondent, the name and address of the institution or person providing residential services to the respondent, the names and addresses of the respondent’s parents, spouse and presumptive adult heirs, the qualifications of the proposed conservator, and more. The court will then hear the petitioner's case and the petitioner has to prove by clear and convincing evidence that the respondent is indeed incapacitated. When a person is acting on someone else’s behalf, like an attorney in fact, there are specific rules that must be followed.

A court appointed conservator serves in many different important roles. If you find yourself in this position and have questions about what to do next, you need the support of an experienced attorney who has practiced in the field of Pennsylvania conservatorship for numerous years.