Bill > A965

Introduced Session

The bill requires, in accordance with the Rules Governing the Courts of the State of New Jersey: 1) a ward or proposed ward to be represented by counsel throughout the course of guardianship proceedings; 2) counsel to personally interview the ward or proposed ward; 3) If the ward or proposed ward is, at any time, not represented by counsel and is unable to afford counsel, the court to appoint counsel for the person; and 4) prior to the hearing date, counsel to file a report with the court in such a form and include all such provisions as required by the Administrative Director of the Courts. The bill further requires a court, in establishing a guardianship arrangement, to authorize only that level of intervention that the court finds to be least restrictive of the proposed ward's rights while being consistent with the protection of the ward's welfare and safety. The bill clarifies that the court may, at any time, expand or limit the powers of the guardian or revoke or revise any previously ordered expansion or limitation of powers. Under the bill, any proposed guardian is to comply with any applicable background screening policy for proposed guardians of incapacitated adults that is required by the Administrative Director of the Courts, including, but not limited to, fingerprinting. The bill also specifies that all actions undertaken by a guardian, whether by a guardian of the person or by a guardian of the estate, are to be undertaken with due regard to, and are to be consistent with, the ward's best interests and the ward's expressed wishes and preferences, to the extent that the ward is capable of expressing those wishes and preferences. Current law also requires a "guardian" to submit reports to the court, at time intervals ordered by the court, but it only imposes specific content requirements in association with reports that are submitted by guardians of the person; not guardians of the estate. The existing law also authorizes the court to waive the reporting requirement entirely, and it does not require the court to actually review any of the submitted reports. The bill would amend the law to: 1) eliminate the court's discretion to waive the reporting requirement but allow for judicial discretion in ordering a report; 2) require a report submitted by a guardian of the estate to be made in such a form as is required by the Administrative Director of the Courts and in accordance with the Court Rules, which is to state or contain information on the assets, income, disbursements, and liabilities of the guardianship estate; and 3) require the court to review the reports submitted pursuant to the bill, on at least an annual basis, in order to ensure that each guardian is properly fulfilling the guardian's duties with respect to the ward or the ward's estate, or both, as the case may be, and is operating in a manner consistent with the ward's best interests. The bill would also authorize the court, at any time, and would require the court whenever its annual review of the submitted reports reveals that the guardian may not be properly fulfilling the guardian's duties or acting in the ward's best interests, to appoint a third-party to interview the ward and the guardian, or undertake any other investigation the court may direct. The existing law requires a guardian of the estate to consider the recommendations of the ward's parent or the guardian of the ward's person when expending and distributing funds from the ward's estate; however, an incapacitated person often does not have a living parent, and the guardian of the person may be the same as the guardian of the estate, meaning that, under existing law, there will often be no available third-party to provide recommendations to the guardian of the estate. The bill would, therefore, amend the law to require the guardian of the estate to consider the recommendations of all of the following individuals: 1) the ward, to the extent that the ward is capable of making the recommendations; 2) if the ward is a minor, the ward's parent; 3) if the ward is an incapacitated person, the spouse and any adult children of the ward or, if there are no adult children, the person or persons who are closest in degree of kinship to the ward; 4) the guardian of the ward's person; and 5) the person or persons with whom the ward resides or, if the ward resides in an institution, the chief administrator of that institution. This change will make the law consistent with the law pertaining to conservatorship, which requires a conservator to consider the recommendations of all these persons. The bill also explicitly requires that the expenditure or distribution of funds from a ward's estate to household members outside of the guardian are only to occur pursuant to order of the court. The bill also amends the existing guardianship law to modernize and clarify the existing language and paragraph and sentence structure and ensure that language is used consistently and in an active and direct voice throughout the law.

AI Summary

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Carol Murphy (D)*, 

Introduced, Referred to Assembly Aging and Human Services Committee (on 01/13/2026)

Official Document