The order does not declare the person incapable, which reverses what most people assume. Montana's provision is explicit: "an order made pursuant to this section, determining that a basis for appointment of a conservator or other protective order exists, has no effect on the capacity of the protected person." A guardianship order removes rights from the person it protects, and the guardianship entry says so. A conservatorship order, in an enacting state, does not adjudicate capacity at all; it appoints someone to manage property. A reader who generalizes from guardianship to conservatorship gets that backwards.
The standard of care is borrowed wholesale from trust law, which is the best short description of what the job involves: "in the exercise of a conservator's powers, a conservator is to act as a fiduciary and shall observe the standards of care applicable to trustees." So a conservator administers as a prudent person would, exercising reasonable care, skill and caution, keeps the protected person's property separate from their own, keeps adequate records, and answers for what they do. Anyone weighing whether to take the role on should read the trustee entry, because that is the standard they will be held to.
The cause test has two limbs and both are required. For an adult, a court may appoint a conservator or make another protective order only if it determines that the person "is unable to manage the person's property and affairs effectively" for a listed reason — mental illness, mental deficiency, physical illness or disability, advanced age, chronic use of drugs, chronic intoxication, confinement, detention by a foreign power, or disappearance — and that the person "has property that will be wasted or dissipated unless proper management is provided or that funds are needed for the support, care, and welfare of the person or those entitled to be supported by the person". A diagnosis alone is not enough; there has to be property at risk or a need for money. The presence of "disappearance" on the list is worth noticing, since it covers the missing person whose affairs still need running and has nothing to do with capacity.
The narrower route almost nobody is told about. The statute pairs "appointment of a conservator or other protective order" throughout, and a protective order is a genuine alternative to appointing anyone: the court may authorize a specific transaction, or a defined set of them, without installing a conservator over the person's whole financial life. Where the problem is one house that has to be sold or one account that has to be reached, that is the proportionate answer, and it is worth asking about before a full appointment is sought.
Who may petition, and who gets appointed. The petition may be brought by "the person to be protected", by anyone interested in that person's estate, affairs or welfare including a parent, guardian or custodian, or by anyone who would be adversely affected by a lack of effective management. That the person themselves may ask is a real route, used where someone recognizes they can no longer manage and wants the protection. Appointment then runs down a statutory priority list, and the second entry on it is striking: after a conservator or similar fiduciary already appointed in another jurisdiction comes "an individual or corporation nominated by the protected person if the person is 14 years of age or older and has, in the opinion of the court, sufficient mental capacity to make an intelligent choice". Then the spouse, an adult child, a parent or a person nominated by a deceased parent's will, a relative the person has lived with for more than six months, a person nominated by whoever is caring for them or paying benefits to them, a conservator corporation, and finally the public administrator. The court may pass over someone with priority for good cause.
Temporary appointments are capped and must be specific. Where the court finds that the person's welfare requires immediate action it may appoint a temporary conservator, with or without notice, "for a specified period not to exceed 6 months". The statute constrains what that appointment can carry: the court "may not invest a temporary conservator with more powers than are required by the circumstances necessitating the appointment", and the order "must state the specific powers and duties of the temporary conservator".
The court can do estate planning for the protected person, and there is one thing it can never do. On a full appointment for an adult, the court has all the powers over the estate and affairs "that the person could exercise if present and not under disability, except the power to make a will". The enumerated list includes making gifts, releasing contingent and expectant interests including survivorship rights, exercising or releasing powers held as trustee or under a power of appointment, entering contracts, creating revocable or irrevocable trusts that may extend beyond the person's disability or life, exercising options, changing beneficiaries under insurance and annuity contracts and surrendering them for cash value, and exercising the right to an elective share in a deceased spouse's estate. Several of those carry a procedural brake: the court may exercise or direct the exercise of powers of appointment, renounce interests, make gifts "in trust or otherwise exceeding 20% of any year's income of the estate", or change insurance and annuity beneficiaries only after notice and a hearing, on a finding that it is in the protected person's best interests and that they either consented or are incapable of consenting.
Reporting, and what this page does not print. Costs and timelines are set by local courts and by whether a petition is contested, so a national figure would be wrong nearly everywhere; the guardianship entry declines to print them for the same reason. Reporting duties are a question about the state's own statute, and Montana's answer shows why the general version is unreliable. A conservator there must file "a complete inventory of the estate of the protected person" with the appointing court within 90 days of appointment, with an oath that it is accurate and a copy to the protected person where they can be located, are 14 or older and can understand it, and must keep suitable records and produce them to any interested person on request. But a formal accounting is something an interested person petitions the court for, alongside bond or additional bond, rather than something the statute puts on a schedule. Whether another state requires an inventory, a bond and periodic accountings, and how often, is a question about that state.
