Guardianship for Incapacitated Adults

Plain English: This amendment creates a new list of rights for adults under guardianship, limits what decisions courts can give to guardians, and adds rules requiring guardians to notify the court before moving an adult into a restricted facility.

• It establishes specific rights for wards, including dignity, freedom from abuse, religious practice, privacy, sexual expression, gender identity respect, and the right to have their own lawyer in court hearings.
• It clarifies that courts can only authorize guardians to make decisions about social life, lawsuits, contracts, gifts of money, or property management if specifically ordered.
• It states that wards keep the rights to vote, control reproductive health, and change marital status unless a judge explicitly removes those rights in their order.
• It requires guardians to tell the court at least 30 days before permanently moving an adult into a nursing home or facility with restrictions on leaving or having visitors.

• The amendment text is incomplete because it cuts off mid-sentence in Section 2 regarding changes to existing duties of guardians.
• Some details about how courts will enforce these new rights are not explained in the provided text.

Plain English: This amendment updates the rules for adult guardianship to require courts to try less restrictive options first, clarify who must be notified about cases, and ensure adults have legal representation or a court-appointed helper.

• Courts must now check if supportive services or technology can help an adult before deciding they need full control by a guardian.
• The list of people who must receive notice when a guardianship case starts is expanded to include domestic partners, roommates living together for over six months, and members of the person's support community.
• Adults involved in these cases are guaranteed an attorney if they ask for one, or a guardian ad litem (a court-appointed helper) if they cannot work with a lawyer.
• The amendment limits how many professional evaluations can be ordered by the court unless there is a specific reason to do more.

• Some parts of the official text provided were cut off at the end, so details about additional evaluation rules are incomplete.
• Specific legal definitions for terms like 'guardian ad litem' or 'supported decision-making' are not explained in this amendment text.

Plain English: This amendment creates a new list of rights for adults under guardianship and defines key legal terms to clarify how these protections work.

• It adds a 'Bill of Rights' that guarantees adults in guardianships the right to dignity, safety, privacy, religious freedom, and respect for their gender identity.
• It ensures adults can participate as much as possible in decisions about where they live, how they are cared for, and who manages their money.
• It gives adults the right to have a lawyer advocate for what they want and to speak directly to judges during court hearings.
• It defines new legal terms like 'full guardianship,' 'limited guardianship,' and 'less restrictive alternative' so everyone understands how much power a guardian has.

• The provided text cuts off at the end of Section 2, so some details about communication support in court are incomplete.
• Because this is an amendment to existing laws, it does not explain every rule that already existed before these changes were made.

Plain English: This amendment removes a specific paragraph from the Appropriations Committee Report about funding for guardianship laws.

• It deletes lines 29 through 34 on page 3 of the May 5, 2026 report.

• The amendment text does not say what words were in the deleted section.
• Because the original text is missing from this document, it is unclear exactly which funding or budget details are being removed.

Plain English: This amendment removes references to 'conservators' from the bill so that it only applies to guardians.

• The text on page 3 is changed to remove the words 'OR CONSERVATOR', leaving only 'GUARDIAN'.
• The phrase 'OR CONSERVATOR' is deleted entirely from line 13 of page 4.

• This amendment text does not explain why conservators are being removed or how the law will handle cases involving them in the future.
• The official title mentions duties for both guardians and conservators, but this change limits the bill's scope to only guardians.

Plain English: This amendment clarifies that the new rules for guardianship do not create any new legal lawsuits or change existing ones available to wards.

• Adds a statement saying this section does not start a brand-new type of lawsuit.

• The amendment only explains what the law will NOT do, so it does not describe any new rights or duties that are being added.
• Because the text is very short and specific to legal procedures, it cannot explain how guardianship decisions work in general.

Plain English: This amendment requires the State Court Administrator's Office to report on how much money House Bill 26-1100 costs the court system in late 2027 and 2028.

• The State Court Administrator must send a financial impact report about this bill to specific legislative committees by November 1, 2027, and again on November 1, 2028.
• The office creating the report is required to use data sources that already exist instead of collecting new information.

• This amendment only sets up a reporting requirement for two years; it does not explain what specific financial numbers will be found in those reports.
• The rule requiring these reports automatically ends on January 1, 2029.

Plain English: This amendment removes the phrase 'the court' from a sentence on page 6 of the bill to clarify who is responsible for certain actions.

• Removes the words "THE COURT AND" from lines 3 and 4 on page 6 of the revised bill.

• The amendment text only shows which words are deleted but does not include the full sentence, so it is unclear exactly what duties or decisions were originally assigned to both the court and another party.
• Without seeing the rest of the paragraph, we cannot explain how removing "the court" changes who makes specific decisions for a ward.