Adoption and conservatorship are two areas of family law that may get tricky in certain instances. You may get caught up in a series of lawsuits requiring you to spend considerable money if you do not understand this area of family law.
Do you know that you can sign adoption papers but are under conservatorship instead? That shows the need to understand conservatorship and how it differs from adoption.
What Should You Know About Conservatorship
If you are legally incapable of taking care of yourself, conservatorship helps place you under the care of a legal guardian. The incapability of taking care of oneself can include having a mental health condition or long-term medical condition.
The ultimate aim of conservatorship is to help people incapable of caring for their wealth and assets due to their condition.
The law recognizes a conservator as the caretaker of a person incapable of taking care of themselves. However, unlike adoption, the law does not recognize a conservator as a parent.
What to Know About Adoption
Adoption is a common term for most people. Adoption is simply a process where a person of legal age becomes the legal parent of another person.
Unlike conservatorship, the law vests parental care power on the adopter. They take financial responsibility for their legally adopted child and make choices for them in areas including religion, medicine, and education.
How Is Conservatorship Different from Adoption?
Under adoption, once a person reaches the age of 18, they have attained a legal age and the law regards them as adults.
At that point, the parental powers vested in the adopted parents no longer apply. This is because when the adopted child reaches the age of 18, they have the freedom to vote, make medical choices, make educational choices, do extracurricular activities, participate in religion, and make any other choices that may affect their life. It means they can take charge of their life without interference. They will also be held accountable for their actions.
A conservator, on the other hand, still retains the power to make choices for their ward. This is because the reason for conservatorship was that the individual could not make certain life choices alone.
Adoption laws require the extermination of the legal rights of the biological parents of the adopted individual. Conservatorship does not have such a stipulation.
How Can You Enter into a Conservatorship?
The laws governing conservatorship differ from state to state. However, in all states, a conservatorship can only be entered into through a court ruling.
“It is also possible you are unaware that you are entering a conservatorship. That is because some state laws do not necessarily require full permission to enter into conservatorship. Thus, you may agree to conservatorship, thinking you have agreed to adoption,” says family divorce attorney Matt Towson of Towson Law Firm, PLLC.
As long as a court deems a person incapable of managing their assets or needs help, the court may rule for conservatorship, and everyone will abide by the judgment.
What Powers Do Conservators Hold?
Conservators have the legal authority to manage the finances of the person under their care. They also have the power to make medical or health decisions for them if they are unable to do so.
In some cases, conservators also manage the living situation of the person under their care and serve as their guardians if they are undertaking any financial endeavors.
However, to ensure that conservators do not impede their ward's freedom and rights, some state laws minimize the powers of conservators.
One way they do this is that conservators do not have financial control over their ward's assets. Also, in some states, conservators give annual reports to the courts.
The ward may also sue the conservators if he finds them fraudulent.
Why Do People Opt for Conservatorship?
Some people may opt for conservatorship because it allows them to use their ward's name in certain financial situations.
Another reason people may opt for conservatorship is because the process is faster than adoption. Thus, if you are in a rush to have a legal guardian/parent, you may want to opt for conservatorship instead of adoption.
Are There Any Other Options to Take?
Instead of having conservators, you may opt to have an agent manage your assets for you. Such an agent is usually someone you trust. In this arrangement, you still retain the authority to make decisions concerning your life and finances.
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