Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Legal Guardianship

We're trying to figure out how to get legal temporary guardianship of Jeremy so we can take care of his bills and get his motorcycle out of impound (which is another unexpected cost). It's proving to be a rather extensive and expensive process and since none of us are lawyers, we're trying to learn a lot fast. If anyone has any information or knows anything about navigating the Washington State legal system please give us a call (Debi: 208-871-6047) or leave us a note!

3 comments:

  1. I just chatted with my friend Jen who is an attorney and she said that you need to get an attorney who deals with guardianship. Here are some bullet points from our chat. You need to get a GAL or temporary guardian to be able to act quickly on Jeremy's behalf.
    Procedurally what happens is that someone, a parent, spouse, etc.
    petitions for the guardianship and then also asked that they be allowed to act as a temporary guardian while the case is pending the case is pending because there has to be a legal determination made that the person is, in fact, incapacitated both personally (of the person) and financially (of the estate) - meaning they aren't able to handle their affairs for themselves.
    The other thing she said to check on is whether or not Jeremy had a power of attorney that would otherwise grant someone the authority to act on his behalf - just in the event of some kind of thing like this.
    because if there is that kind of document, then a guardianship isn't even necessary.
    But what the court will also do is appoint a guardian ad litem to investigate and determine that he is not capacitated at this time. - that individual can also act on his behalf if necessary - but usually after they check the proposed guardian out, they'll agree that the individual can act as a guardian until the GAL has finished their investigation.
    Hope that helps!

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  2. To add to that, at least in Ohio, when you apply for temporary guardianship of Jeremy, you will need a Statement Of Expert Evaluation (that's what it is called in Ohio) which is completed by Jeremy's physician to state that, in his/her medical opinion, Jeremy is unable to make decisions for himself. The social workers at the hospital should be able to help you out. Good luck! ~Sabrina

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  3. HI Debbie; It's Kris Loewen from the Yakima Church. If you haven't gotten any further on this one, You might call Russ Gilbert; he's a lawyer local here in yakima and a member of our church.
    Email me and I'll shoot you his number; krisloewen@gmail.com

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