{"id":3257,"date":"2011-02-10T11:17:31","date_gmt":"2011-02-10T17:17:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=3257"},"modified":"2013-03-11T15:49:06","modified_gmt":"2013-03-11T21:49:06","slug":"guardianship-changes-for-vulnerable-adults-advance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=3257","title":{"rendered":"Guardianship changes for vulnerable adults advance"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Lawmakers gave second-round approval Feb. 10 to a bill that seeks to strengthen the state\u2019s guardian and conservatorship system for vulnerable adults.<\/p>\n<p>LB157, sponsored by Lincoln Sen. Colby Coash, would require that a potential guardian or conservator complete a criminal background check and file the results with the court 10 days prior to an appointment hearing.<\/p>\n<p>A Coash amendment, adopted 37-0, removed provisions requiring that potential guardians and conservators also complete sex offender and central register checks. Coash said additional checks would be redundant because a crime associated with listing an individual on one of the registers also would appear in a criminal background check.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re leaving in the most critical piece, which is the criminal history check,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>The amendment also would require that an interested person found to have filed an affidavit in bad faith with the court concerning a vulnerable adult pay the opposing party reasonable attorney\u2019s fees and costs.<\/p>\n<p>Exceptions to the background check requirements would include financial institutions serving as conservators and expedited, temporary and emergency guardian\/conservator appointments.<\/p>\n<p>Among other provisions, the bill would require a guardian\/conservator to:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>file his or her papers with the register of deeds in each county in which the ward owns property or property interest;<\/li>\n<li>file an inventory of the ward\u2019s assets within 30 days of an appointment and mail it to all interested persons;<\/li>\n<li>obtain court permission to move the ward\u2019s place of abode outside the state; and<\/li>\n<li>furnish a bond on the ward\u2019s assets if they exceed $10,000.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The bond could be waived for good cause, and would not be required for banks or other financial institutions serving as a conservator.<\/p>\n<p>LB157 also would allow the court to refer contested guardian\/conservator cases to mediation or other dispute resolution. Finally, the bill would allow a judge to intervene when an interested person submits concerns, through an affidavit, that a ward\u2019s safety, health or financial welfare is at risk.<\/p>\n<p>After adopting the Coash amendment, senators advanced the bill from select file by voice vote.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Lawmakers gave second-round approval Feb. 10 to a bill that seeks to strengthen the state\u2019s guardian and conservatorship system for<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[13],"tags":[92],"class_list":["post-3257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-judiciary","tag-sen-colby-coash"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3257","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3257"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3257\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10531,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3257\/revisions\/10531"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}