Westchester County Guardianship Lawyer
If you take care of a parent, disabled adult, or minor child, it’s important to make your role official by becoming a legal guardian.
When an elderly parent begins to lose mental capacity, when your disabled child reaches adulthood, when you’re raising a minor child whose legal parents are unable to do so—these are all situations where obtaining guardianship is appropriate and necessary. The Westchester County guardianship lawyers at Meyer & Spencer, PC have helped many potential guardians secure the legal authority they need to protect their loved ones.
As guardianship lawyers, we help the close friends or family members of incapacitated individuals understand guardianship law in New York, and provide guidance through guardianship proceedings.
At Meyer & Spencer, PC, we have extensive experience filing petitions in New York guardianship courts to enable close friends or family members to be appointed as the legal guardian for parents, minor children, adult children with disabilities, and other incapacitated individuals. New York law specifically provides a procedure for the appointment of a guardian whose powers are tailored to the individual needs of an incapacitated person for personal care, property management, and/or financial management. It is important to seek legal guardianship in the following situations:
- You are caring for an elderly parent, grandparent, or friend who has lost mental capacity.
- Your son or daughter was born with a mental handicap.
- Your mentally handicapped child has turned 18 (legal adulthood), and you plan to continue managing his or her affairs.
- A family member or friend has been involved in a debilitating accident.
In these situations, you can work guardianship proceedings into your overall care plan for your loved one. However, in the typical case, the close friend or relative comes to our office when there is no alternative but to seek guardianship. In other words, the incapacitated person never signed a power of attorney, and there is no other avenue to take care of the incapacitated person and/or his or her property than to obtain a legal guardianship. Urgency can make guardianship proceedings more stressful than necessary, so we urge you to use powers of attorney when appropriate, and count on us to make becoming a guardian as simple as possible when the need arises.
When you file a guardianship petition, you must be able to allege the incapacitated person is unable to handle his or her own affairs.
An experienced guardianship attorney will ensure your guardianship petition is thorough and backed by appropriate documentation. The petition must show that due to the incapacitated person’s condition, infirmities, and impairments, a guardian is needed to make decisions for the incapacitated person. This decision-making authority could pertain to financial decisions and/or decisions as to where and with whom the incapacitated person will reside. In short, once the court determines that the person is incapacitated, the appointed individual will have full authority to make decisions, both personal and financial on behalf of the incapacitated person.
Please contact Meyer & Spencer, PC for more information about becoming a legal guardian in New York.
If you need help obtaining legal guardianship in New York, please contact Meyer & Spencer, PC to schedule a consultation. We represent clients throughout Westchester and Putnam counties, offering advice you can trust based on decades of experience in guardianship proceedings.
