Guardianship Lawyer in Austin, Texas

When someone you love cannot decide for themselves

Guardianship is how a court gives a trusted person legal authority to care for someone who cannot manage alone. A child whose parents are absent. A parent with dementia. An adult child with a disability turning eighteen.

Texas treats it as a last resort, and so do we. Sometimes a power of attorney, a supported decision-making agreement, or a custody order protects your family better. Cheaper, faster, and far less restrictive.

Note that guardianship is not family law. It runs under the Texas Estates Code, usually in a probate court, and the procedure is its own.

What Texas means by incapacity

The word has a definition, and it is narrower than people assume.

A minor is an incapacitated person by definition. So is a person who needs a guardian appointed simply to receive funds from a government source.

For any other adult, the test is being substantially unable, because of a physical or mental condition, to do one of three things. Provide their own food, clothing or shelter. Care for their own physical health. Manage their own financial affairs.

Being unwise, difficult or eccentric is not incapacity. Nor is a diagnosis on its own.

The court must rule out the alternatives first

This is the part of Texas guardianship law that most surprises families. It is the reason our first meeting is usually about avoiding one.

Before appointing a guardian the court must find five things by clear and convincing evidence. That the person is incapacitated. That a guardian is in their best interest. That their rights or property will be protected by the appointment. That alternatives to guardianship have been considered and are not feasible. And that available supports and services have been considered and are not feasible either.

All five carry that same heightened standard, and the last two are separate findings: meeting one does not satisfy the other. A shorter list of matters, including venue and whether the proposed guardian is eligible, is proved to the ordinary civil standard instead.

Those are two distinct findings and both are required. A court cannot simply take your word that nothing else would work.

So the alternatives are worth taking seriously. A medical or financial power of attorney signed while the person still has capacity. A supported decision-making agreement, which Texas recognises by statute. It lets an adult with a disability keep their own authority while a supporter helps them use it. A representative payee. A trust.

How the process runs

Where the alleged incapacity is a mental condition, a psychologist licensed or certified to carry out the examination can provide it instead. Who writes it matters too. The doctor or psychologist must either have experience examining people with the condition alleged, or already have a treating relationship with the person. A letter from a clinician with neither will not carry the application, however willing they are to sign it.

The court will appoint an attorney ad litem to represent the proposed ward. That is not optional and it is not a formality. Their job is to represent the interests of the person the case is about, which may not be the same as yours.

There is a hearing, and the standard for the central findings is clear and convincing evidence, which is higher than most civil cases use.

Guardianship can cover the person, the estate, or both, and it can be limited rather than full. A limited guardianship removes only the rights the person genuinely cannot exercise.

What happens after the order

The court does not go away. A guardian of the person files a report with the court once each year, for as long as the guardianship lasts. Some duties do not wait for that report. You must tell the court as soon as practicable if the ward dies, or is admitted to a medical facility for acute care for three days or more. You have 30 days to tell the court if the ward’s residence or address changes, and 30 days if your own address, phone number or other contact details change.

It is sworn and it is detailed. Receipts and disbursements for the ward’s support and maintenance, their education where necessary, and their dependants where the court has authorised it.

The affidavit alongside it covers where the ward lives and in what kind of home, their current details, and how they are doing.

Where you also manage money, a separate accounting is required. This is real responsibility, and we stay alongside you so the paperwork does not become the burden.

An adult child turning eighteen

This is the appointment families most often leave too late.

On their eighteenth birthday your legal authority ends, including over medical decisions, however much care you are providing. Nothing about the day-to-day changes. The law’s view of who decides changes completely.

Start a few months before the birthday. That gives time to work out honestly whether supported decision-making or powers of attorney will do the job. You take the guardianship route only if they will not.