On Friday, the Court decided to appoint Jeanie and me as Emergency Temporary Guardians for my mother...
I would have much preferred that the situation with my mother had not forced us to this point. Other than the good karma of taking care of someone who can't care for herself, there is no upside to being a guardian - it takes lots of time, money and emotional capital. Unfortunately, other than Jeanie and me, there is no one else to do it, and we were all but begged to take on this responsibility by the staff at the Assisted Living Facility where my mother resides. It doesn't appear that this is going to be a short term need on my mother's part, so we told the attorney to proceed with pursuing permanent guardianship. The attorney said that given my mother's condition, she was all but sure that the court would appoint permanent guardianship. The temporary order is for sixty days, which should be sufficient time for the court to process the evaluation for permanent guardianship. From what we understand, the process for permanent guardianship is much more involved. It will require Jeanie and I to appear in court, along with my mother. That will be no fun at all.
It turns out that there are a lot of responsibilities and regulations associated with being a guardian. It is not as simple as "okay, look after your mother's needs." There are all sorts of things that you "must do," and many things that can only be done with the court's approval. Seems like along with the copies of the "Letters Of Emergency Temporary Guardianship" and the "Order Appointing Emergency Temporary Guardianship," either the Court or our attorney would have provided us with some sort of a booklet outlining the responsibilities and regulations associated with this.
Jeanie and I are both becoming increasingly disheartened with the lack of service in our service based economy. It used to be that the people who undertook "helping" careers - people like doctors and lawyers - would make the effort to ensure that you had all of the information that you needed - proactively. Now, they only give you the answers to the questions you ask, and then only begrudgingly and often incompletely. If I knew all of the questions to ask, chances are I wouldn't have to be paying them hundreds of dollars an hour to help!
Fortunately, with a bit of Googling, I was able to find some pertinent information, in order of increasing detail / complexity:
Guardianship Basics - A Handbook for Guardians: http://www.rgllaw.us/GuardianshipBasics.pdf
Guardianship Basics - A Handbook for Guardians corrections: http://www.rgllaw.us/handbookcorrections.pdf
FLORIDA GUARDIANSHIP LAW AND INFORMATION: http://www.flcourts18.org/PDF/gurardianship_rev1-07.pdf
Florida Statutes - Chapter 744 - Guardianship: http://www.leg.state.fl.us/Statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&URL=Ch0744/ch0744.htm
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Posted by David at October 30, 2007 04:55 AM