The Better Chancery Practice Blog

The time has come to close that guardianship you opened a few years back to receive a personal injury settlement on behalf of a minor ward.  So how are you going to go about closing it?

MCA § 93-13-77 provides that “When the guardianship shall cease in any manner, the guardian shall make a final settlement of his guardianship, by making out and presenting to the court, under oath, his final account, which shall contain a distinct statement of all balances of his annual accounts, either as debits or credits, and also, all other charges, expenditures, and amounts received, and not contained in any previous annual account.” 

The final account must include a re-cap of the previous annual accounts, and must also set out the final annual of disbursements and charges since the last account, supported by proper vouchers as required in MCA §§ 93-13-71, -73 and 91-7-277.  The only exception to the requirement of proper vouchers is when the guardian is a federally regulated bank, thrift or trust company, and there is a sworn statement of an officer that the vouchers are available for inspection.  What constitutes a proper voucher was the subject of a previous post that you can find here.

After the final account has been filed, it must be on file for inspection by the ward for not less than “one month,” and you must issue a summons to him or her to appear in court on a day after the one month period has expired to show cause why the final account should not be approved.  If the ward does contest the account, the court will hear evidence and adjudicate whether it should be approved. 

In the judgment closing the estate, the court may make an allowance to the guardian not to exceed 10% of the value of the estate, and shall order that the property of the estate be delivered to the ward and the guardian discharged.

If the ward has reached 21 years of age, the ward may petition the court under oath to waive the final account, ” … and the court shall grant the same unless there be reason to suspect that the petition was procured by the guardian through fraud or undue influence over the ward, in which case the court shall require proof of the good faith thereof.”

So when is it time to close a guardianship?  You can read about that here.