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Serving Dallas, Tarrant, Collin, Denton, Rockwall & Kaufman Counties
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Dallas
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Dallas

Dallas Guardianship

Dallas Guardianship Attorney

When a parent, spouse, or adult child can no longer make safe decisions, we petition the Dallas County probate courts for the legal authority your family needs — and we tell you first whether something short of guardianship would do the job.
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Call (469) 972-8473
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Overview

Guardianship Attorney Serving Dallas, Texas

A guardianship is a Dallas County probate court order that transfers specific decision-making authority over an incapacitated adult, or a minor, to a person the court appoints and then supervises. Texas treats it as a last resort: before a guardian is appointed, the court has to find by clear and convincing evidence that the person is incapacitated and that less-restrictive alternatives and available supports and services were considered and are not workable. Guardianship cases in Dallas County are filed in one of the three statutory probate courts at the George Allen Courts Building.

Guardianship of the person

Authority over medical care, treatment consent, residence, and daily welfare for someone who can no longer manage those decisions safely.

Guardianship of the estate

Authority over money, property, benefits, and contracts — with court-supervised accounting and, in most cases, a bond.

Guardianship of a minor

For children under 18 whose parents have died, are incapacitated, or cannot care for them. Different from a custody suit between two parents.

Temporary and emergency guardianship

Limited, short-duration authority when there is substantial evidence of incapacity and probable cause to believe the person faces imminent harm.

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Texas guardianship runs on Title 3 of the Texas Estates Code. Before appointing a guardian, the court must find by clear and convincing evidence that the proposed ward is an incapacitated person, that a guardianship is in their best interest, that their rights or property will be protected, and that alternatives to guardianship and available supports and services were considered and determined not to be feasible.

Most families arrive at this page after something specific happened — a diagnosis, a fall, a hospital discharge planner asking who has authority, a bank refusing to talk to an adult child, or a sibling spending a parent’s money. The legal question underneath all of those is narrower than it feels: who currently holds authority, and is that authority enough? Sometimes a properly executed power of attorney already answers it, and no court filing is needed.

When guardianship is the right answer, the fastest route is the one that anticipates what the court will ask for. Dallas County’s probate courts appoint an attorney ad litem to represent the proposed ward in every case, and the Probate Court Investigators’ Office investigates whether a guardianship is necessary at all. Applications that arrive without current medical evidence, without notice to the right relatives, or without a serious answer on alternatives get reset, and a reset costs the family a hearing setting.

Our Dallas guardianship team represents clients across Dallas, Tarrant, Collin, Denton, Rockwall, and Kaufman Counties, bringing plain-language guidance to a process that can otherwise feel overwhelming.

Key Facts

What Texas Law Requires Before a Guardian Is Appointed

  • Texas law requires courts to consider less-restrictive alternatives to guardianship, such as a supported decision-making agreement or power of attorney, before appointing a full guardian.
  • The supporting physician's letter or certificate must be dated no earlier than the 120th day before the application is filed, and based on an examination performed inside that same window.
  • Guardianship cases in Dallas County are heard in the statutory probate courts and require a court-appointed attorney ad litem for the proposed ward.
  • Every attorney appearing in a Texas guardianship — including the attorney for the family filing it — must hold State Bar guardianship certification, which includes an hour specifically on alternatives to guardianship.
  • Guardians must generally file annual accountings and reports with the court, since guardianship is subject to ongoing judicial supervision — the guardian of the person files an annual report, the guardian of the estate an annual account.
  • Letters of guardianship expire one year and four months after they are issued unless renewed, and the clerk cannot renew them until the court has approved that year's report or account.
  • A temporary guardianship cannot stay in effect longer than 60 days, except where the underlying application is contested.
  • A ward keeps every right the court order does not specifically remove, including the right to hire certified counsel and ask the court to restore capacity or move to a supported decision-making agreement.

How It Works

How Our Guardianship Process Works

Assess Capacity & Alternatives

We evaluate whether guardianship is necessary or whether a less restrictive option can meet your family's needs — an existing power of attorney, a supported decision-making agreement, a representative payee, or a management trust. If one of those works, we tell you, because the court will ask us the same question.

Build the medical record

We coordinate with the treating physician on the letter or certificate the court requires, confirm it describes the specific functional deficits the statute asks about, and calendar the 120-day window so it is still current on the filing date.

File the application and serve notice

We prepare and file the guardianship application and coordinate the required medical evidence, identify every relative entitled to notice, and get citation and service issued correctly the first time so the hearing setting holds.

Work with the ad litem and court investigator

The court appoints an attorney ad litem for your loved one, and Dallas County's Probate Court Investigators' Office looks at whether the guardianship is necessary. We prepare you for those conversations and answer their questions directly.

Hearing and order

We represent you at the hearing and put on the evidence the judge needs on incapacity, best interest, and alternatives — including asking for limited authority rather than full authority where that is what the facts support.

Qualification and ongoing duties

We advise on the guardian's reporting duties after appointment: the oath and bond, letters of guardianship and their renewal, the inventory if there is an estate, and the annual report or account that keeps the guardianship in good standing.

What We Handle

Guardianship Matters We Handle in Dallas

Care, medical and placement decisions

Medical consent, treatment decisions, placement in a facility or a family home, and protection from a caregiver or relative who should not have access.

Money, property and benefits

Taking control of bank and brokerage accounts, real property, retirement income and benefits — including the inventory, bond, and annual accounting that follow.

Raising a grandchild or minor relative

For grandparents, aunts, uncles and other relatives raising a child whose parents have died, are incapacitated, or cannot provide care. A custody dispute between two living parents is a conservatorship case — see Family Law. Permanently changing a child's legal parentage is Adoption.

Emergency and temporary orders

When someone is being exploited, is refusing necessary care, or is about to be discharged nowhere safe, and the family cannot wait for a full hearing cycle.

Contested guardianships

Competing applications between siblings, challenges to a proposed guardian's fitness, and applications to remove a guardian who is not doing the job.

Modification, restoration and termination

Narrowing a guardianship as someone improves, restoring rights, transitioning to a supported decision-making agreement, or closing the guardianship out.

Alternatives to guardianship

Supported decision-making agreements, medical and durable powers of attorney, representative payee arrangements, and court-created management trusts. Drafting powers of attorney and directives before a crisis lives on Estate Planning. This page covers the point where those documents don't exist or are no longer enough.

Settlements for incapacitated people

When an injury settlement is payable to someone who cannot manage it, the court may require a guardianship of the estate or a management trust before funds can be released. The underlying injury claim itself belongs to Personal Injury.

Your Legal Team

Attorneys Who Handle Guardianship in Dallas

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Megone Trewick

Director of Estate Planning, Probate & Guardianship
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Megone Trewick serves as Director of Estate Planning, Probate & Guardianship at the Law Office of Bryan Fagan, PLLC, founded by Bryan Fagan. Her background in finance, property and title matters, estate planning, probate, and guardianship supports the firm's structured approach to helping families plan ahead and address legal issues when circumstances change.
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Megone Trewick

The Dallas office has 7 attorneys, backed by 170+ legal professionals firmwide across Texas — including the criminal defense and personal injury attorneys who handle the charge and claim sides of animal cases. Meet the Dallas team or meet the full legal team.

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Answers, Directly

Guardianship FAQ

Not automatically. At 18 a parent’s legal authority ends, but the right replacement might be a supported decision-making agreement, powers of attorney, or a representative payee rather than a guardianship.
What changes at 18 is access: schools, doctors, and benefit agencies stop talking to parents by default. Families often discover this in the middle of an IEP transition meeting or a first adult medical appointment, which is why this decision is worth making in the year before the birthday rather than the week after it. Where a young adult can understand and direct decisions with help, a Chapter 1357 supported decision-making agreement preserves their legal rights and still gives the family a documented role. Where it is not enough, a limited guardianship over specific areas is usually a better fit than full authority.
Yes. A ward, or someone acting for them, can apply to restore capacity completely or to narrow the guardianship, and the court reviews the guardianship’s continued necessity as a matter of course.
A ward keeps every right the court order does not specifically remove — including the right to hire their own certified attorney and ask for restoration, modification, a different guardian, or a transition to a supported decision-making agreement (Tex. Est. Code § 1151.351). Restoration is common after a recovery that nobody expected at the outset: a brain injury that heals further than predicted, a medication problem that resolves, a young adult who develops skills after a guardianship was put in place at 18.
A guardian takes an oath, posts any required bond, receives letters of guardianship, and then files annually with the court for as long as the guardianship lasts. A guardianship is supervised, not granted and forgotten.
The guardian of the person files an annual report covering the ward’s health, residence, and whether capacity has changed. The guardian of the estate files an annual account of every receipt and disbursement and, in most cases, an inventory shortly after qualifying (Tex. Est. Code §§ 1163.001, 1163.101). The deadline that catches people out: letters of guardianship expire one year and four months after issuance, and the clerk cannot renew them until the court approves that year’s report or account. Expired letters mean banks and providers stop accepting the guardian’s authority (Tex. Est. Code §§ 1106.002, 1106.003).
Disagreement turns the case into a contested guardianship: competing applications, an evidentiary hearing, and sometimes a jury. The proposed ward’s own attorney ad litem takes on a much larger role.
The disputes fall into a few patterns — whether the parent is incapacitated at all, which sibling should serve, and whether one sibling has already been mishandling money. Each is proved differently, and the strategy for one is wrong for the others. Contested guardianships get expensive fast, and the cost usually falls on the estate the family is trying to protect. Where mediation is realistic, we say so early rather than after two hearings.
Yes. A court can appoint a temporary guardian with limited powers when it has substantial evidence that a person may be incapacitated and probable cause to believe they, or their estate, face imminent harm.
A temporary guardianship is deliberately narrow. The order grants only the powers the emergency actually requires, and it cannot remain in effect more than 60 days unless the underlying application is contested. It is a bridge to a full hearing, not a shortcut around one (Tex. Est. Code §§ 1251.001, 1251.151). If the emergency is financial exploitation rather than physical danger, injunctive relief filed alongside the guardianship application is sometimes faster and less intrusive. Call us before assets move; freezing an account is easier than recovering from it.
Texas courts follow an order of priority: a person the proposed ward designated in advance, then the spouse, then next of kin, then whoever else is best qualified and eligible.
Eligibility is a separate question from priority. Applicants undergo a criminal history check, and a court can find someone unsuitable — for conflict of interest, a history of financial dealings with the proposed ward, or simple inability to do the job — even if they sit at the top of the priority list. Non-professional guardians also register with the court and complete a required training course. A designation made in advance carries real weight. Naming a preferred guardian while you still have capacity is part of estate planning, and it is one of the cheapest ways to keep this decision out of a courtroom fight later.
Cost depends mainly on whether anyone contests it. Every case carries the county filing fee, service and citation costs, the physician’s examination, the court-appointed attorney ad litem’s fee, and — where there is an estate — a bond.
An uncontested guardianship with a modest estate is a predictable, quotable matter. A contested case is not, because the driver becomes hearing time. The court decides how ad litem fees and court costs are allocated, and in many cases they are paid from the ward’s estate rather than by the applicant personally. Filing fees are set by the Dallas County Clerk and change; we confirm the current schedule before quoting. What we can tell you at the consultation is which category your situation falls into and what would move it into the contested column.
An uncontested guardianship can sometimes be completed in 6–10 weeks, accounting for required notice periods, the physician’s certificate, and appointment of an attorney ad litem.
Contested cases — where family members disagree about capacity or who should serve — take longer and may require a full evidentiary hearing before the probate court.
No. Texas law favors less restrictive alternatives — such as a medical power of attorney, durable power of attorney, or supported decision-making agreement — whenever they can adequately protect the person.
Courts are required to consider these alternatives first, and guardianship is intended as a last resort when no less-restrictive option will sufficiently protect the proposed ward.
A guardian of the person makes decisions about someone’s medical care, living arrangements, and daily welfare, while a guardian of the estate manages that person’s money and property.
A Dallas County court can appoint one person as both, or appoint different guardians for each role depending on the family’s circumstances and the ward’s needs.

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Talk to a Dallas Guardianship Attorney

Talk to a Dallas guardianship attorney this week

Bring what you have — a diagnosis, a hospital discharge notice, a power of attorney a bank refused, or nothing at all. We will tell you whether a guardianship is necessary, what the Dallas County probate court will require, and what it will take to get there.

Schedule a Consultation
Call (469) 972-8473
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