Effective tomorrow, December 1, the Fourth Judicial District Court (Hennepin County) has new requirements for all* proposed guardians and conservators to:

1. watch a new Guardianship/Conservatorship Educational video before they appear at their initial hearings; and
2. file a modified version of the Acceptance of Appointment form, which states that they watched the video and understand the duties and responsibilities for which they seek appointment.

The video was created to help educate, inform, and prepare proposed guardians and conservators about their duties and responsibilities. The goal is to reduce  the number of successor petitions filed with the court where the appointed guardian or conservator is not able to fulfill their duties and responsibilities. Letters of appointment will not  issue until the proposed guardian or conservator has watched the video and filed the Hennepin County-specific Acceptance of Appointment form with the court. For more information, see the Announcement.

As detailed in a previous post, we have just reviewed and revised the Guardianship and Conservatorship form sets on practicelaw. Today we also added new Acceptance of Appointment forms for use in Hennepin County. These forms include reference to the required videos. The forms specific to Hennepin County have “H” at the end of the form number.

*Editorial note: The new requirements do not apply to the proposed guardian of a minor.

© Nancy Hupp for Practice Blawg, 2011. | Permalink | No comments yet | Add to del.icio.us
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Lindquist and Vennum’s Bob McLeod has been instrumental in the current revision process, as he was in the initial development of the forms and subsequent revisions. Many of the substantive updates are a result of his expertise, and we are very grateful to be working with him during this process.

For more information on what has changed and why we decided to revise the forms, see our first post announcing the revised forms.

Revised Forms

The forms are on 3 pages: Guardianship, Conservatorship, and Joint Guardianship and Conservatorship (with forms for minors on each page). Revised forms posted in November are:

• GC-12G – Notice of Intent to Dispose of Clothing, Vehicles, Furniture, or Other Personal Effect
• GC-13s through 14s – forms regarding Discharge of Conservator
• GC-16s – Orders Allowing Final or Annual Accounts, Discharging Conservator
• GC-17s through GC-20s – forms regarding Emergency/Temporary Guardianship/Conservatorship (minor and adult)
• GC-21s through 24s – various forms regarding the sale of real estate in a Conservatorship. Note: The 21-series forms were renumbered. Previously they were GC-21JTxx, and they are now GC-21Cxx, which is more consistent with the fact that these forms pertain only to conservatorships. They will still appear on the joint guardianship and conservatorship page as they may be needed for a joint proceeding.
• GC-25s through GC-27s – forms regarding Restoration to Capacity
• GC-28C – Notice of Claim
• GC-28G – Petition for Termination of Guardianship and Discharge of Guardian
• GC-29G – Order Confirming Termination of Guardianship and Discharge of Guardian
• Misc-4 and Misc-5 – In Forma Pauperis forms

Click here for a list of forms revised in June, and here for a list of form revised in September.

How can you check whether the form you’re using is updated? Check the date in the footer of the form. June 2011 and later are revised.

Other Important Revisions

The Order Appointing Conservator (GC-08C and GC-08JT) was republished with new paragraphs in the Conclusions of Law. Prior versions stated that the Respondent was incapacitated. This is the requirement for a guardianship but not a conservatorship, so the orders were updated to reflect the appropriate standards under the conservatorship statute.

The Petitions and Affidavits of Service, which were published in June and September, respectively, were updated to change new language from “interested parties” to “interested persons.”

Retired Forms

Please note that we’ve taken down several forms, mostly due to duplication. These forms were also retired:

• GC-21JTV – County Assessor’s Market Evaluation
• Misc-1 and Misc-2 forms – Petitions and Orders for New Letters. These were a holdover from the transition to the new statutes under the UPC in 2003. All guardianships and conservatorships should have been transitioned by now.
• All PDFs (All duplicates of the Word forms, and had low usage. More information in our earlier post.)
• Several joint guardianship/conservatorship forms which were identical to conservatorship-only forms.

If you are looking for one of the retired JT (joint guardianship and conservatorship) forms, look for the form with the same number but with a C instead of the JT designator. These forms have always been identical except for the caption, and on this round of editing we decided that even the caption did not need to be different — it is appropriate to say just “conservatorship” on these matters even if there is also a guardianship.

As always, let us know if you have any comments, questions, or feedback on the new forms!

© Andrea for Practice Blawg, 2011. | Permalink | No comments yet | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: conservatorship, guardianship

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Lindquist and Vennum’s Bob McLeod is instrumental in the current revision process, as he was in the initial development of the forms and subsequent revisions. Many of the substantive updates are a result of his expertise, and we are very grateful to be working with him during this process.

For more information on what has changed and why we decided to revise the forms, see our last post announcing the revised forms.

Revised Forms

The forms are on 3 pages: Guardianship, Conservatorship, and Joint Guardianship and Conservatorship (with forms for minors on each page). Revised forms posted in September are:

• 2-series – Affidavit of Personal Service (6 forms)
• 3-series – Affidavit of Service by Mail (6 forms) (Note modifications to make this fit service either before or after the guardianship or conservatorship is ordered)
• 6-series – Notice of Hearing and Notice of Rights (6 forms)
• 7-series – Physician’s Statement (3 forms)
• 9-series – Notice of Entry of Order and Right to Appeal (6 forms)
• 11.1-C – Conservatorship Confidential Information Form 11
• 11.2-C – Conservatorship Financial Source Documents Form 11.2
• 13-C – Inventory
• 14-C – Annual Account or Final Account
• 15-C – Notice of Time and Place of Hearing on Annual Account
• 15-CF – Notice of Time and Place of Hearing on Final Account
• 15-CFD – Notice of Time and Place of Hearing on Final Account and Discharge of Conservator
• 15-CVF – Verification of Funds on Deposit
• 15-CVS – Verification of Stocks and Other Securities

Click here for a list of forms revised in June.

How can you check whether your form is updated? Look for: 1) The date in the footer of the form. June 2011 and later are revised. 2) Whether the form has a PDF counterpart listed on practicelaw. As part of the revision process we are dropping most of the PDFs because of low usage.

Retired Forms

Please note that we’ve taken down several forms, mostly due to duplication.

• 14-JT Annual Account or Final Account (Joint G/C)
• 15-JTA – Notice of Time and Place of Hearing on Annual Account (Joint G/C)
• 15-JTF – Notice of Time and Place of Hearing on Final Account (Joint G/C)
• 15-JTFD – Notice of Time and Place of Hearing on Final Account and Discharge of Conservator (Joint G/C)
• 15-JTVF – Verification of Funds on Deposit (Joint G/C)
• 15-JTVS – Verification of Stocks and Other Securities (Joint G/C)
• Misc-C-7 – Visitor’s Report (Conservatorship)
• Misc-G-7 – Visitor’s Report (Guardianship)
• All PDFs (All duplicates of the Word forms. Why? See above and our last post.)

If you are looking for one of the retired JT (joint guardianship and conservatorship) forms, look for the form with the same number but with a C instead of the JT designator. These forms have always been identical except for the caption, and on this round of editing we decided that even the caption did not need to be different — it is appropriate to say just “conservatorship” on these matters even if there is also a guardianship.

The visitor’s report was removed because it is not a form attorneys need to use or  edit. A PDF visitor’s report can be found on the judicial branch website (Form GAC105).

As always, let us know if you have any comments, questions, or feedback on the new forms!

© Andrea for Practice Blawg, 2011. | Permalink | No comments yet | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: conservatorship, guardianship

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Lindquist and Vennum’s Bob McLeod is instrumental in the current revision process, as he was in the initial development of the forms and subsequent revisions. Many of the substantive updates are a result of his expertise, and we are very grateful to be working with him during this process.

The forms are on 3 pages: Guardianship, Conservatorship, and Joint Guardianship and Conservatorship (with forms for minors on each page). Revised forms posted in June are:

• Petition for Appointment of Guardian and/or Conservator (6 forms)
• Order Appointing Guardian and/or Conservator (6 forms)
• Acceptance of Appointment by Individual/Corporation (6 forms)
• Letters of Guardianship and/or Conservatorship (6 forms)
• Annual Notice of Right to Petition for Restoration to Capacity and Other Relief (1 form)
• Personal Well-Being Report / Annual Notice of Right to Petition (2 forms)

How can you check whether your form is updated? Look for: 1) The date in the footer of the form. June 2011 and later are revised. 2) Whether the form has a PDF counterpart listed on practicelaw. As part of the revision process we are dropping most of the PDFs because of low usage.

In addition, 8 procedural checklists have been updated. These are now found with the checklists in practicelaw’s new Jump Start resources:

• Procedure for Judicial Appointment of Conservator and/or Guardian (4 checklists)
• Procedure to Allow Accounts
• Procedure to Sell Real Property
• Procedure for Confirmation of Appointment of Pre-Approved Guardian
• Procedure for Pre-Approved Confirmation of Appointment of Guardian

It’s important to note that the revisions are not due to any new legislation, so “old” forms are not necessarily outdated or nonconforming. Since Guardianship/Conservatorship is one of the older form libraries on practicelaw, we decided it was time to look at the forms with fresh eyes and see what we could do better.

The most obvious changes are to the style and format of the forms. The prior versions were created with pro se parties in mind with the expectation they would fill in the blanks on the PDF or a printed copy. This lead to some funky formatting within the editable Word forms. Because all of practicelaw’s users are attorneys, the new set has a much more consistent style, hopefully making them significantly more user-friendly and easier to edit. For example, underlines are replaced with bracketed text for you to fill in.

There are also several substantive and textual changes that better reflect the statutes and practice in these areas, as well cleaning up the wording of some sections. For example, we added the Health Care Agent to the list if interested parties in the Petition and subsequent forms (which is required by statute but not clear in the prior forms), added spaces for telephone numbers (also required by statute), and removed the word “spouse” from several of the minor forms.

As always, let us know if you have any comments, questions, or feedback on the new forms!

© Andrea for Practice Blawg, 2011. | Permalink | No comments yet | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: conservatorship, guardianship

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What’s new? In short, the updated forms include the Annual Notice of Right to Petition, Personal Well-Being Report, Annual/Final Account, and Petition for Appointment. Some of the modifications were made to include key elements from the Informational Statement form. The following chart sets out the forms and corresponding form numbers that have been updated.

In addition to updating practicelaw and mndocs forms to reflect the August 1 legislative updates, practicelaw staff also made minor editorial changes to forms in the Affidavit of Service and the Acceptance of Appointment series.

Finally, check out our most recent post for information on other Minnesota legislation that became effective on August 1.

© Andrea for Practice Blawg, 2010. | Permalink | No comments yet | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: conservatorship, Court Forms, guardianship, mndocs, practicelaw

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