Nevada guardianship bill on dementia sufferers dies

A bill that would have increased court oversight of guardianships for certain people with dementia died in a Nevada legislative committee last week

Assembly Bill 9 would have prohibited the courts from granting summary administration for wards — a term for people under guardianship — who suffer from dementia and whose estates are valued at less than $10,000.

According to state law, summary administration grants the guardian the ability to sell all of the ward’s property without notice to the court and removes the requirement for annual accountings to be filed detailing how a ward’s money was spent.

The bill was heard by the Assembly Committee on Judiciary on March 16. At the hearing, an amendment to the bill that would have removed the section prohibiting summary administration was proposed after the financial ramifications estimates — over $1 million in Clark County over two years— were submitted to the Legislature.

“We certainly respect that kind of a fiscal impact,” former state Sen. Valerie Weiner, a Las Vegas Democrat, said during the March 16 hearing. Weiner is the chairwoman of the State Task Force on Alzheimer’s Disease.

Contact Colton Lochhead at clochhead@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4638. Find him on Twitter: @ColtonLochhead.