Watchdog Arena
A Tuesday hearing before the Texas House Committee on Judiciary & Civil Jurisprudence addressing HB 3914 rekindled the ongoing debate over abusive guardianship. Reform advocates call the system one-sided and exploitative even as probate court personnel and associated parties defended the status quo.
State Rep. Stephanie Klick, R-Fort Worth, introduced HB 3914, explaining how news coverage of high profile guardianship cases have made the public more aware of processes that occur in probate courts. The bill, she said, is to strengthen the due process of those proceedings while providing new protections and rights to persons alleged to be incapacitated by court-initiated guardianship proceedings.
“While we want to protect those truly incapacitated who might be at risk of being abused or exploited,” Klick noted, “the number of cases making news has been people who left you with the impression they didn’t really need a guardianship.”
Klick called guardianships “a pretty intrusive procedure.”
Guardianships can be of a person, of an estate or both. Depending on which, a person potentially cannot enter into a contract. They typically lose access to and control of their financial assets and physical property. Guardianships can cause a person to lose access of whom they can associate with. They can make no decisions regarding living arrangements or medical treatment. They can’t even vote.
HB 3914 seeks to establish additional requirements for court-initiated guardianship proceedings. It first calls for appointment of a guardian ad litem or court investigator to determine if the person is incapacitated and if a guardianship is necessary.
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