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Probate and Guardianship

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apiarisRM

Junior Member
What is the name of your state? New Hampshire

My friend's (48) case is complicated. She has a brain injury that is manifested by a severe short term memory loss. Prior to the brain injury which was caused by a sudden loss of oxygen to the brain, she was married and worked as a professional. She had a clear deed to the home. After the injury occurred, she remained independent with assistance from some professional caregivers. She began receiving SSDI benefits. According to her, she continued to manage herself and her home until a state agency became involved over certain financial irregularities with her accounts and petitioned local probate court about assigning a guardian.

With a guardian, her life suddenly changed. At some point the guardian decided her home needed to be sold and she had to be moved into an apartment. My friend was tricked by the guardian who used another friend to take her on a weekend trip. The guardians used this time to move some of the furniture from her home to a small one bedroom apartment. They may have cleaned out the house and moved the rest of her things into storage. Whether then or later, they moved the rest into storage. She was not allowed to pick and choose what she wanted to take. When the weekend was over, her other friend drove her to the new apartment and told her that was her new home.

Since then, my friend has shown her deep dislike for nearly everyone she has met who works for the guardian company and nearly everything the guardian suggests for the ward. In the past year my friend has been arrested at least three times for trespassing and other charges. She has hidden in hospitals and churches to seek shelter and when she was running from a situation. She has also forgotten most if not all the details of these incidents almost as soon as they were over.

She made herself homeless to in some way get into a court room to talk to a judge about the lack of treatment and involvement from the guardians, particularly her loss of her home. For a short time she lived at a homeless shelter. When she was evocted from there, she would sleep at a church shelter at night and would be on the streets during the day. After nearly two weeks of this, my friend threatened to harm herself and the police
had her checked at a hospital. She was committed to a state hospital. While there she went to a hearing she had requested to discontinue the guardianship; she had forgotten she had written the letter. The probate judge ruled that the agency would continue as her guardian and that the agency had more power to have her hospitalized and to keep her in a hospital longer. The judge also ruled the guardian could pursue a second mortgage on the property to obtain funds to pay the bills incurred by my friend, including several thousand dollars owed to the guardian company.

Since her discharge from the hospital, she has tried to force the guardian to solve her living situation and to schedule some ovedue dental work for her. She has lived in a motel for several days. For a brief time she tried to live with a older woman as a roommate, but she did not like some of the woman's rules. We talked about talking to the court appointed attorney who represented her at the probate hearing, however, my friend did not like her approach. Now she is again in a high at-risk position without a place to stay.

Questions:
1. To determine her financial position, does she have a right to have all the financial information that her guardian sends to the court?
2. Does she have a right to have a secure home setting and not to be homeless?
3. Could the sale of her home be stopped and could a creative plan be devloped so she could live in her home again?
4. Can the guardian be sued?
 



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