Guardians and Fiduciary Duties
I've spoken before about how those who administer a decedent's estate owe certain fiduciary duties to the beneficiaries of the estate. This is also true of those administering a guardianship estate. A guardianship estate is created for a person who is living but who can't care for himself or herself (either because he or she is a minor or because he or she is disabled). In those cases, a guardian (in Illinois) or conservator (in some other states, including Michigan) is appointed to deal with the affairs of the person for whom the guardianship was created (aka the ward).
Because the ward is alive, there are a lot of procedures in place to protect this person's interests -- that's why guardianship estates tend to be more time-consuming and expensive to administer than probate estates. Unfortunately, you still occasionally hear about cases like this one, where a conservator stole money from the estates of various wards. To make matters worse, the conservator was an employee of the county, and was appointed as the guardian of estates as part of her job. (In Cook County, the Office of the Public Guardian can be named as guardian when no friend or family member of the ward is willing or able to take this job.)
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