Arizona Estate Planning & Probate Attorney, Kenneth Barney wants you to take notice: Pursuant to Rule 27.1(A) of the Arizona Rules of Probate Procedure, effective September 1, 2012, all non-licensed persons requesting to serve in any court appointed fiduciary capacity must receive training from the Arizona Supreme Court prior to appointment.
A non-licensed fiduciary includes a person serving as a guardian, conservator, or personal representative of a decedent’s estate. Although there are some listed exemptions to the rule, this training must be completed prior to the court issuing valid letters authorizing such person to serve as guardian, conservator and or personal representative.
Under Rule 27.1(A), there are 5 independent training sessions, each lasting approximately 30-45 minutes. Fortunately, this training may be accomplished online at home through the Supreme Court’s website. Furthermore, only those sessions that are relevant to the fiduciary capacity to which you will be serving are necessary to complete.
The training itself is pretty basic, outlining the general duties and responsibilities of the fiduciary role and is very user friendly. The actual content is presented in layman’s terms rather than hard to understand legalize and for most should be fairly easy to understand. At the end of each of the 5 training sessions, the nominated fiduciary will be given a Certificate of Completion, which will need to be signed and dated and then filed with the Court.
Although, fairly simple and not too intrusive on a loved one attempting to act on someone’s behalf as guardian, conservator or personal representative, this new rule may delay letters being issued, while the training is completed.
There are many fiduciary roles, which are not governed by Rule 27.1, where a person may appoint a loved one to serve in a fiduciary capacity, for example; serving as a Trustee under a revocable or irrevocable trust, serving as an agent under a financial or medical power of attorney, etc.
For many, the private nature of a revocable living trust based estate plan and its administration during a disability or death has become even more evident in light of Rule 27.1, as no court involvement is required.
If you have questions regarding trust based estate planning, wills, probate administration, trust administration or any other legal issues, please do not hesitate to call our estate planning attorneys at (480) 833-1113.
Attorney Profile: Kenneth C. Barney – Firm Partner, Estate Planning & Probate Lawyer in Mesa AZ
