Generally, when a family member or court appointed guardian takes over, it is described as full guardianship, with guardianship of the person (so the guardian is responsible for making sure the elder is taken care of , living arrangements, medical etc) and guardianship of the estate, i.e. running all the financial matters.I recently learned that one can request and get only guardianship of the person. So the family member is guardian over the person if they cannot take care of themselves, but not of the estate, so the estate is still handled by the POAs and no court monitoring of the estate needs to occur.
My question - can it be requested that the court appoint a guardian of the person , with a state appointed guardian (if no family member wants to do it), but yet the estate is still handled by the POAs? Has anyone heard of that happening?
With my MIL, her state is strictly guardian over the physical person, conservator over assets and POA is hard stop financial.
In four other states, our POAs were and currently are created so that any guardian or conservator action the attorney-in-fact listed in the POA has been "preordained". All it requires is a judge's signature to designate the attorney-in-fact with what the court determines is the least disruptive for the potential ward.
There are unlimited configurations the court and the family can request. Be aware of complicated configurations. As one example, what happens if the ward needs LTC and the POA refuses to release the money to do so. Or another one, the SNF becomes the guardian and places a lien against them for unpaid expenses, while the POA has everything locked into investments. Then what? Or a third example, when the LO is in a facility but the POA is the one having to guarantee the funds and decides to stop all financial communication between the SNF and the guardian?
The only way you can resign as guardian of any kind is through the court and with the persmission of a judge. And if the judge won't let you out of it you cannot resign and they very often will not let you out of it even when you are too ill to do it.
So I would not become guardian, myself.
As to this being both a guardian and not? I think that is my idea of a schizophrenic nightmare. To have the right of person I would assume you can place? But if you place then the guardian of finances can say "yes" or not? Because they hold the purse strings? Oh, no. Not me. Not doing it. The state can take it ALL.