My mother is stressed out because she wants to leave the ALF, I want to take care of her but she has a court guardian that wants her to stay where she is. My sister petitioned the court to find my mother incompetent, the guardian sold my mother's house got rid of everything and put her in ALF. All my mother wants is to live with me, I am competent and have many people to vouch for me. This guardian is only after her own agenda she makes 45.00 to 75.00 an hour whatever she does in relation to my mother. They have appointed a court monitor to investigate because my brother and I have complained about the guardian. She has falsely accused me of things.... because I asked questions, she has limited me to 1 visit a week and 2 calls... She says when I leave the next morning my mother doesn't want to eat.... the reason my mother doesn't want to eat is because she wants to leave the alf and live with me they are keeping her against her will. I would like to trust the court system but I don't because of the strange questions. There is so much more to this story. Basically the guardian is about ISOLATE,MEDICATE, LIQUIDATE! the judges and everyone knows this goes on and no one does anything... These professional guardians need more accountability and LESS POWER! This is a disgrace to the USA
ingrid - if an outside guardian has been appointed, you have to go to court to file a petition for a hearing to have it changed and you really need to have an attorney represent you. If the guardianship is such that your dad is now a "ward of the state", the judge is going to want to see pretty overwhelming reason to change his decision. I have not been a guardian but was executrix twice and spent more hours in probate court (where guardianships are also heard) than I can remember and what seems to happen with outside guardians is that the family is not 100&1% behind the family member who wants to be guardian & there is family infighting in the courtroom then the Judge will have none of that in his courtroom and appoints an outsider, usually this is temporary to give family time to get their act together. Sometimes there is an issue of suitability for legal guardianship with family, like there are bankruptcies, foreclosures, really bad credit report, IRS lien (all this shows to the judge you cannot handle finances) or felonies or other police records that show up when the court is vetting you and your spouse if you are married or with your kids if they live in the home (like your 16 yr old has a juvee records). The judge can overlook these sort of problems if you let the court know this in the petition but if you did NOT include the info on the guardianship petition the Judge has no sense of humor if that happens and will name an outside guardian and those issues will keep you from ever getting guardianship.
Whatever the case, you have to have an attorney to represent you and do the speaking for you, you cannot be standing up and saying "She lie to court about my father family. She hates for us"....etc as that is essentially saying to the judge that he doesn't know what he is doing as he made the appointment of guardian. Whatever the case, you kinda need to make nice and do whatever to get along with the guardian and don't be ugly with her. Remember she is getting paid to record all related to your dad and reporting this to the court in a legal document, you don't want it so that the report shows that you were interfering with dad's care.
I'd like to suggest to you that you and another family member ask the guardian if she could request an extended family meeting (like a care plan) so the NH can explain what is going on with your dad and you sit there and take it all in without fighting and keep your questions to a minimum. This shows you want to work with her and want to understand your dad's situation and could be the start of her reporting positives on you so the guardianship can be transferred to you with documentation. Good luck.
The guardian acted like she was going to let my mother leave the ALF until my brother asked why our mother didn't have her teeth attended to and why she had no glasses. That is when she started accusing.This guardian originally wanted me to move to Georgia and said my mother could go there because she didn't want my sister to have contact. Now she brought my sister back into the picture. This guardian does not know what she is doing. I did go see an attorney he said he would be take the case but if my sister and the guardian fight it could cost 20,000 or more just don't have that's why if the judge will just remove the guardian and appt. me this would be the best way to go. My mother just wants to be with her family and that is what we want.
Regarding what the guardian is doing, I was executrix for 2 aunts and spent more hours than I can even remember in probate court where also guardianship issues are heard. Often when there is family infighting or no one shows up for the scheduled hearing (especially sad when it's for a child - can you imagine!), the judge will appoint an outside either temporary or permanent guardian. They have a list of either attorneys or professionals (bonded, etc) at the ready to appoint for this who are paid from the individuals resources or the state. Unless there is a true estate (like significant assets - I'm remembering about 100K in liquid assets as the threshold), the state seems to prefer that the guardian liquidate all assets so the person is 100% no assets. It does make sense in the overall picture for the state - as once done required less management time and payment - but not for the family involved. Whatever the case, you really need legal to represent you in court on this. You want to find one that does probate court work regularly. One thing you can do is go on-line to your county records and search for other probate court legal filings. All this public record and just keystrokes away. What you will find is that there usually is just a few law firms that do the majority of these filings. You want to have one of those firms represent you as they know how to make things fly through the system. This in not the time to get an attorney who was your son's college roommate who does corporate law. Good luck.
Sometimes guardians abuse their power, but other times they are doing what they think best for people placed in their charge. Perhaps you can show the guardian that you have all things arranged for your mother's present and future needs, and they will be comfortable letting her live in your home.
One question I had was why none of the family had applied for guardianship when it came up. It is hard to comment without a lot more information. If you mention to your mother when you visit that you want to bring her home, it will upset her and cause her to act out at the ALF. It may be the guardian feels limiting the visits are for the best if this happens. He/she would probably be acting under advisement from the staff of the ALF who experience the problems.
I hope that you will be able to work with the guardian and address any concerns. If you think the guardian is abusing their authority by spending the money wrong or making seriously bad decision, you can challenge the guardianship. You will need to make sure that you can provide the care your mother needs, though. It will not be easy. Sometimes love isn't enough.