I have been doing guardianship for an extended period of time and recently have noticed an existing trend in why guardianships are occurring more frequently elderly people that may or may not be incapacitated are the only people in the American society who have the common sense to save money, not to run up large credit card charges, and not to establish large amounts of debts. They also invested conversely so they can typically amount of savings. Their children when they become older are not in the same financial situation as their parents and based upon the face these children that are now adults do not have the sufficient funds to support themselves based on the economic state of the country many of them are creating a situation where there trying to gain control of the financial assets and investments of their parents this is done in a way where they file a guardianship and state their relative or parents are incapacitated and incapable of taking care of their own money.
Basically what happens is people become elderly and begin to be more forgetful, cannot see as well and cannot hear as well is being seen in society as people that are incapacitated this is not accurate even though these people are elderly they still have the ability to handle their money by direct deposit and less restricted opportunities then a guardianship but due the children’s need the money before they pass away rather than waiting till their parents live a full and complete life and to inherit by the normal process of inheritance they rush the progress by filing in advance to establish a incapacity or a guardianship. Now there are clearly risks in taking this course of action turns out that if the actions of the person filing incapacity were in bad faith they can be responsible to pay for all of the costs and fees associated with the litigation involving the elderly person. In addition, the actions of the part of the person could backfire that the elderly person that was deemed incapacitated can turn around and say that he is changing his will by removing the person out of his will and inheritance.
So as I stated earlier it should be an approach to determine if someone is truly incapacitated when they have assets should be done cautiously and the attorney handling the matter should fully counsel their client to be advised that to take this course of action can have negative effect if the person is not incapacitated and then they decide that the person is trying to take advantage of them and could sever the relationship between the future heir and who will now become an aviary to the elder who may or may not be incapacitated.